Critical Criminology and Cybercrime Adrienne L. McCarthy and Kevin F. Steinmetz Contents Critical Criminology and Cybercrime ............................................................ 2 Critical Criminology and Critical Social Theory: Origins ....................................... 3 Radical Criminology .......................................................................... 4 Radical Criminology and Cybercrime ........................................................ 7 Postmodern Criminology ..................................................................... 12 Conclusion ........................................................................................ 17 References ........................................................................................ 17 Abstract Critical criminology consists of a diverse assortment of theoretical perspectives that share an attunement to the role of power and conflict in crime, criminaliza- tion, and crime control yet its applications toward cybercrime issues are lacking. The application to these cybercrime issues can help recognize that online criminal actors should be understood as agents navigating social structure, intergroup conflict, and power in addition to considering other kinds of social harm than those derived from legal definitions. Adrienne L. McCarthy is a doctoral student of sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Kansas State University. Kevin F. Steinmetz is an Associate Professor of Sociology in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work at Kansas State University. A. L. McCarthy (*) · K. F. Steinmetz Department of Sociology, Anthropology and Social Work, Kansas State University, Manhattan, KS, USA e-mail: mccarthya@ksu.edu; kfsteinmetz@ksu.edu © The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer Nature Switzerland AG 2019 T. Holt, A. M. Bossler (eds.), The Palgrave Handbook of International Cybercrime and Cyberdeviance, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-90307-1_27-1 1