Digital Divides in Sexual Crime (DOKS)

As society continues to digitize, online sexual abuse has risen significantly. The project investigates differences between more and less digital sexual abuse by examining previous police cases, as well as shedding light on the grey areas that exist between online and offline offenses.

Photo: Unsplash/Wesley Tingey

Sexual abuse evolves online but is challenging to investigate scientifically. This project explores existing data from the Danish police.

By analysing previous cases of sexual crimes, the project develops the criminological understanding of emerging forms of digital crime and vulnerability.

 

  • Do police cases of digital and non-digital sexual abuse differ systematically?

  • What insights do cases provide about the emergence of new forms of crime?

 

 

Existing police data enhances our understanding of emerging forms of digital crime and vulnerability. However, there are nuances in digital sexual abuse that are not captured in police-recorded sexual offense cases, often because these assaults are not reported.

To better understand unreported sexual crimes, interviews are conducted with professionals in the field as part of the project. These interviews help to uncover the dark figures of digital violations that go unreported and to characterise how digital sexual abuse differs from non-digital sexual abuse.

 

The project is funded by the ROCKWOOL Foundation and is conducted in collaboration with the National Cyber Crime Center (NC3).

 

 

 

Researchers

Name Title Phone E-mail
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Sidsel Kirstine Harder Assistant Professor - Tenure Track +4535332646 E-mail

Funded by:

Digital Divides in Sexual Crime (DOKS) has received a two year funding from the ROCKWOOL Foundation

Project: Original Danish title: DOKS - Digital Opdeling af Kriminalitet om Seksualitet
Period: 1 May 2024 - 30 June 2026

Contact

Sidsel Kirstine Harder (PI)
Assistant Professor - Tenure Track
Department of Sociology
Email: skh@soc.ku.dk 
Telephone: +45 35 33 26 46

in Danish

External members:

Name Title Phone E-mail
Lars Højsgaard Andersen Research Professor and Head of Research in marginalised groups, The ROCKWOOL Foundation  +45 61 66 63 78 lha@rff.dk
Jonas Færch Lotz PhD Student, The ROCKWOOL Foundation +45 30 27 09 05 jfl@rff.dk