| The advent of the Internet has unquestionably revolutionized the way individuals across the world communicate, conduct business, and socialize. Nevertheless, with all of its bountiful benefits, the Internet also has a darker, more sinister side for which new criminal opportunities have emerged, or in some cases, traditional crimes have evolved and multiplied by moving well beyond the physical world of "street crimes" to the cyber world in which crime appears to thrive. One area of particular concern that has emerged within society since the advent of the Internet is that of cyberbullying, a distinct type of criminally deviant behavior that has attained worldwide attention from criminal justice practitioners and scholars. This study sought to examine cyberbullying as associated with the age, gender, race, and urbanicity of the victims versus the extent to which traditional face-to-face bullying took place within these same groups using secondary data from the Indicators of School Crime and Safety: 2012 report. Cyberbullying remains an elusive, yet serious social problem for school officials, but also for criminal justice practitioners as well because cyberbullying has been associated with school shootings, suicides, and other acts of aggression and violence among adolescents in particular. Therefore, a discussion of the implications for criminal justice practitioners and scholars was included because cyberbullying extends well beyond the school grounds and well within the realm of public safety. Despite the increasing level of concern associated with the occurrence of cyberbullying incidents, there is a noticeable paucity of scientific research on the topic of cyberbullying and its association to criminal victimization. This study sought to address that gap in the research literature. |
