Delinquency and Victimization of Digital Natives; from Etiology to Response in the Restorative Justice Paradigm

With the autonomy of the generation known as "Network Natives" or "Digital Natives", there has been an exponential increase in the rate of crime in cyberspace, especially in social networks and the crime pattern has undergone a sudden change in the types of crime, crime scenes, age and gender of the perpetrators and the victims. The method of this research is qualitative and its method of analysis is grounded theory. This research seeks to address the origins of the problem and provides answers tailored to the causes of crime and victimization.  In this paper, the causes of victimization are explained by the application of the "lifestyle" attributed to Hindelang and the causes of delinquency by employing the theory of "the neutralization of crime" attributed to Matza. The statistical population of the study was 20 teenage victims and delinquents of social networks from whom the information has been gathered by means of interview and observation. Findings of the research show that the unpredictability of virtual behaviors and interactions provides grounds for the victimization of adolescents and for juvenile delinquents’ avoidance of responsibility by resorting to victim's fault. The result of this study shows that between the two corrective and restorative patterns, restorative responses to digital indigenous people are more suitable for delinquency and juvenile victimization, since restorative responses lead to "cyber alertness" of the victim, "taking responsibility" by the delinquent and "participation" of the passive society of the cyber space.