Technological advancement has transformed the way we interact. Much of our routine has gradually moved to cyberspace, a digital environment where we interact with other people and information. We now shop online, telework, play games with strangers online, and post personal information on our social media. This paradigm shift has created criminal opportunities in an environment where space and time are different, leading to the emergence of new cybercrimes (e.g., hacking) and transforming existing crimes (e.g., fraud).

At Crímina, we investigate the impact of technologies on people’s daily lives to identify the factors that determine the emergence of criminal opportunities in cyberspace. Our ultimate goal is to guide the best evidence-based strategies to prevent cybercrime. Given the challenge of collecting quality data on cybercrime, we have designed survey-based research and utilized data provided by social media platforms through their Application Programming Interfaces (APIs). These primary data sources provide the necessary foundation to answer novel research questions that place us at the forefront of cybercrime research from the human factor perspective.

Some of the research initiatives in this line include the Cibercriminalidad, CiberHache, CiberApp, and Saf_e projects.

• Reactive Focus:

Examines issues such as corporate criminal liability, including the various responsibilities that business agents may incur.

Studies aspects like the criminal liability of businesses and within businesses.

• Preventive Focus:

Analyzes crime prevention within businesses and the implementation of compliance programs.

Includes the study and analysis of various economic-business crimes, particularly corruption and fraud.

• Organized Crime:

Focuses on the study of organized crime, especially that arising from the globalization of crime.

Emphasizes the criminological prevention and response to organized crime to enhance public safety.

Studies the alignment of Spanish regulations with international commitments in this area.

• Regulatory Compliance and Transparency:

Focuses on public administration compliance and transparency. Some of the research initiatives related to this line include the +ETICOS projects, “Towards Effective and Transparent Management of Public Safety: Capacity-Building Action in Crime Prevention and Democratic Strengthening (Peru),” and projects addressing the penal response to money laundering and corruption.

One of the promising research lines at the CRÍMINA Center is related to Empirical Criminal Law, which aims to provide empirical evidence to inform normative decision-making with the goal of improving criminal laws and their objectives. This line investigates and analyzes empirical evidence from various fields such as Criminology, Criminal Policy, and Psychology, among others. The aim is to determine, within the framework of a social and democratic rule of law, which behaviors should be criminalized, how the normative message and punishment should be conveyed, and how state intervention in certain phenomena should be conducted in terms of effectiveness, based on an evidence-based decision-making approach. This approach is much more suited to rational political-criminal decision-making.

Among the projects associated with this research line is the national NEXO project, which addresses the possibilities and limits of incorporating criminological scientific evidence into legislative policy in criminal matters, particularly in decisions about the criminalization of behaviors and the increase of penalties. This project examines issues such as the function of punishment from empirical evidence, punitive populism, the influence of the media, appropriate empirical methodologies for gathering information from the public, intuitions of justice, psychosocial factors associated with compliance with criminal laws, and philosophical and epistemic frameworks for evidence-based decision-making, among other topics.

Additionally, the CRÍMINA Center participates in the EMPIRIC Excellence Network, with similar objectives, and in the Generalitat Valenciana-funded project “InfractXrs,” which seeks to analyze why intellectual property laws are violated, among other issues.

Disinformation has recently become a topic of interest for research across various disciplines, especially with the proliferation of so-called Fake News—articles or news that are intentionally spread despite being false, usually for economic or political purposes. The research trajectory of the center in cybercrime is one of the main reasons for opening this new line of research, as disinformation in general, and Fake News in particular, find digital platforms to be an ideal environment for their dissemination and viral spread.

Currently, defining and conceptualizing the term “Fake News” is still complex, and it is even more challenging to operationalize and measure. Therefore, one of the first steps for the center in this line of research will be to collaborate in defining and conceptualizing the problem and finding appropriate ways to operationalize it. Future research will focus on understanding the prevalence of the phenomenon and its impact on society, as well as participating in the creation of tools for its automatic identification.

Moreover, misinformation and disinformation related to crime is another key focus of this new research line. In this regard, the center is currently working on the European project ARISA 2, which evaluates how the media handles information about accused individuals in criminal cases and the impact this has on them

While it is true that social research is surrounded by numerous ethical dilemmas, criminological research, due to the special sensitivity of its subject matter and the profound implications of its findings, must highlight the responsibility of researchers and offer criteria and principles to properly guide their work. In this regard, the research line on applied ethics in criminological research aims to address important challenges related to:

• Participation of individuals in research without their consent
• Coercive participation within the criminal justice system
• Concealment of information from participants or direct use of deception by researchers
• Research on behavior control and character change
• Exposure of participants to physical and mental stress
• Violation of privacy and confidentiality
• Stigmatization of groups
• Unequal distribution of benefits and burdens in intervention models based on experimental or quasi-experimental designs

In response to these challenges, CRÍMINA works primarily through its spin-off Plus Ethics from a normative perspective, applied to the detection, evaluation, and mitigation of the main ethical risks associated with security and cybersecurity research. Within this research line, Plus Ethics has participated as independent ethical advisors in the H2020 projects MINDb4ACT, PRACTICIES, and is currently part of the H2020 project IcARUS.

In recent years, artificial intelligence (AI) technologies have experienced significant development, extending their capabilities to various professional fields and our daily lives. One area of great interest is the use of AI tools for crime analysis and risk assessment. It is essential to develop tools that meet the needs of police and justice administrations in combating crime, while ensuring an ethical and rational technological development that guarantees citizens’ rights.

The current access to AI-based technologies poses certain risks to society that need to be studied. Firstly, the malicious use of AI and its potential use to commit crimes can change how these crimes are committed, enhancing the capabilities and success of criminals. Additionally, the autonomy of AI tools will generate an interesting debate regarding the authorship of certain crimes. Moreover, the widespread use of AI tools makes them potential targets for attacks by criminals for various purposes.

Crímina’s approach to this research line includes the design, development, and ethical and legal analysis of AI-based tools for crime analysis and risk assessment, as well as foresight analysis of new risks and threats posed by these technologies. Crímina has participated in the European Project Pericles, within the H2020 framework, developing the tool ModeRad for detecting radical content on Twitter.

This research line focuses on the study of the legitimacy of criminal justice, the impact of access to justice on victims and vulnerable groups, mediation, assistance to crime and terrorism victims, and instruments that deepen democratic development and the promotion of fundamental rights. It also examines the functioning of victim support through the Generalitat’s network of Victim Support Offices (OAVDs) and the victimization of particularly vulnerable and quantitatively significant groups in our society, such as the elderly and immigrants in the Valencian Community.

In this regard, the research line conducts comprehensive diagnostic and evaluation actions of victim support services to detect potential dysfunctions in the implementation of victim assistance protocols by professional teams. It aims to identify weaknesses in victim support services and processes that can be improved, to establish appropriate and tailored improvement plans for OAVD professional teams, and to generate best practices in victim assistance that can be generalized to other professionals in the network of offices.

Additionally, concerning the elderly and immigrant populations, this research line has conducted victimization studies to identify the barriers these groups face when reporting crimes or seeking assistance. Some of the research initiatives related to this line include the NI1FORA projects on justice legitimacy and vulnerable groups, and PROTEGI2.0+, which explores the extent of economic fraud against the elderly in the province of Alicante.

The analysis and prevention of radicalization and violent extremism are highly prioritized among public security managers at all levels, as well as among researchers. Within this research line, CRIMINA’s interests have been focused on two distinct yet highly complementary levels:

1. Online Radicalization and Violent Extremism:
   • Studying the specifics of online radicalization and violent extremism and to what extent we are dealing with a phenomenon different from the traditionally characterized one.
   • Examples include research on incitement to violence and hate speech on the Internet, or the development of methodologies and algorithms for detecting radical discourse on social media.
2. Normative Analysis:
   • Focusing on the analysis and harmonization of the main international, community, and national legal frameworks responding to radicalization and terrorism, or various forms of incitement to violence and hate communication on the Internet.

This research line has been particularly developed in H2020 projects like PERICLES, as well as other national projects such as CiberHache.

One of the major questions in criminological research since its inception is what factors cause crime to increase or decrease over time; that is, the trends in crime. From a predominantly macro perspective, the scientific literature has sought to provide robust evidence on the impact of one or more factors on crime trends, recognizing it as a multi-causal phenomenon.

Researchers have paid special attention to the widespread decline in crime in Western countries over recent decades, known as the “International Crime Drop.” Some of the most studied factors to explain this decline include the economy, firearms, security, policing strategies, immigration, the process of civilization, and technology, among others.

At Crímina, we investigate the variation in crime rates over time from an empirical perspective, with particular attention to the impact of technologies on population mobility. To do this, we primarily use secondary data sources on crime, including police data and victimization surveys, and on the use of technologies. These data support the formulation of new hypotheses about crime trends that must subsequently be tested.

This research helps to uncover the multifaceted nature of crime trends and contributes to developing more effective crime prevention and intervention strategies.