From WWII to the World Wide Web: A Research Note on Social Changes, Online “Places,” and a New Online Activity Ratio for Routine Activity Theory

Routine Activity Theory, originally developed by Cohen and Felson in 1979, posits that crime occurs when a motivated offender, a suitable target, and the absence of a capable guardian converge in time and space. While this theory was designed to explain physical crimes like burglary, the rapid expansion of the Internet and mobile technology has fundamentally altered how individuals live, work, and interact. This paper seeks to extend the theory to the digital age by arguing that the Internet has created a new, persistent environment for criminal opportunity.

The authors argue that the traditional requirement for a physical convergence of offender and victim is no longer necessary. With the advent of broadband and mobile technology, users are effectively 'always on,' creating a state of constant exposure. This perpetual connectivity means that targets are accessible to offenders across vast distances, often without the need for the offender and victim to be online at the exact same time. The authors propose that the Internet itself acts as a 'place' where these convergences occur, necessitating an update to how criminologists conceptualize guardianship and target suitability.

To test this framework at a macro-level, the authors introduce a new 'online activity ratio'—a proxy for criminal opportunity. By calculating the annual retail e-commerce sales divided by the total number of U.S. Internet users, the researchers created a measure of financial exposure. When plotted against data on reported financial cybercrime losses from 2001 to 2013, the results show a very strong, statistically significant positive correlation (r = .943). This suggests that as society increases its reliance on the Internet for financial transactions, the structural opportunities for cyber-fraud increase proportionally.