The evolution and formation mechanism of the spatial distribution of cyber fraud offenders in China
Cyber fraud has become one of the most detrimental crimes in China, and its governance has entered a new stage focused on combating regional offenses. This paper utilizes natural language technology to extract data from judicial documents, comprehensively employs methods such as spatial autocorrelat...
| Authors: | ; ; |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
2025
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| In: |
Crime, law and social change
Year: 2025, Volume: 83, Issue: 1 |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Keywords: |
| Summary: | Cyber fraud has become one of the most detrimental crimes in China, and its governance has entered a new stage focused on combating regional offenses. This paper utilizes natural language technology to extract data from judicial documents, comprehensively employs methods such as spatial autocorrelation analysis, standard deviation ellipses, space-time transition, and a two-way fixed effects model to analyze the spatial distribution of cyber fraud offenders and the influencing factors. The conclusion comprises the significant spatial imbalance in the growth of the number of cyber fraud offenders. Offenders have transitioned from random distribution to spatial clustering, with the degree of clustering continuously increasing. Cyber fraud has expanded from the southeastern coastal cities of Fujian, gradually forming a trend of nationwide coverage and multi-center expansion. The spatial distribution tends to polarize in the northeast-southwest direction and disperse in the southeast-northwest direction. The center of gravity of cyber fraud crime shows a "southeast-northwest" moving trend, with the movement distance and speed gradually decreasing. The LISA analysis illustrates the spread paths of such crimes, and the space-time transition analysis further indicates relatively high spatial dependence characteristics of criminal clustering. Regression results from a two-way fixed effects model reveal that wage levels, educational expenditure, public fiscal expenditure, and internet penetration are significant factors influencing the spatial distribution of cyber fraud. The spread of cyber fraud is propelled by offenders' adaptive learning processes, with both "expansive spread" and "migration spread" playing key roles in reshaping its spatial distribution. |
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| ISSN: | 1573-0751 |
| DOI: | 10.1007/s10611-025-10202-z |
