Legal Prevention Management and the Control of Organized Gang and Cybercrime

Abstract

This article examines the management of legal prevention and the control of organized gang and cybercrime and seeks to fundamentally redefine legal prevention management in response to organized crime through a descriptive–analytical method. Undoubtedly, no effective criminal policy can be designed without an accurate understanding of the substantive differences between gang-related and cybercrime, a conceptual distinction between cyberspace and virtual space, and attention to the principles of knowledge-based practice, intersectoral coordination, and outcome orientation. The findings indicate a lack of conceptual distinction between “cyberspace” and “virtual space” in Iranian legal and policy documents, resulting in inappropriate definitions, ineffective criminalization, and inconsistent enforcement of laws. Although “cyberspace” is defined as a technical, physical, and logical environment comprising systems, networks, and data, the Iranian legislature has often used terms such as “virtual space” and “virtual platforms” interchangeably. Examples include Article 2 concerning Article 500 bis of the Islamic Penal Code, Article 9 of the Law on the Protection of Children and Adolescents, and Articles 59 and 60 of the 2021 Law on the Protection of the Family and Youthful Population, without recognizing the inherent differences among these concepts. This not only complicates statutory interpretation but also undermines the possibility of designing a precise criminal policy tailored to the specific characteristics of cyberspace. Another problem is the absence of an integrated legal framework for crime-prevention management, which has resulted in a proliferation of parallel institutions, insufficient intersectoral coordination, and an emphasis on deterrent approaches rather than structural prevention. In Iran, despite the existence of institutions such as the Supreme Council of Cyberspace and the Cyber Police, no central and independent institution is responsible for managing the legal prevention of crime. Consequently, prevention management has become a nonsystematic, unstable, and outcome-driven process. Another concern is the neglect of the criminological and etiological dimensions of cybercrime, particularly in analyzing criminal motivations. Although economic, social, and cultural motives have received some attention in relation to conventional crimes, cybercrime-related factors such as entertainment, fame, psychological complexes, personal revenge, and technical curiosity—identified in domestic and international studies—have frequently been overlooked. This omission impedes the development of non-penal and knowledge-based preventive measures. A further problem concerns the inadequate adaptation of criminological theories to the realities of cyberspace. Although classical theories such as social control theory, strain theory, and social learning theory are effective in analyzing crimes committed in physical environments, they require reformulation and adaptation in cyberspace, where social bonds are weaker, identities are more anonymous, and motivations are more complex. Such adaptation has, in practice, not occurred within the Iranian legal system. The findings of this study demonstrate that, in Iran, prevention law remains confined to a duty-oriented framework. This has produced an identity crisis in prevention law and impeded the development of a scientific and sustainable criminal policy. Crime prevention must no longer be regarded as an ancillary obligation; rather, it must be placed at the heart of Iran’s criminal policy as a national, systematic, knowledge-based, and outcome-oriented policy. Unless parallel preventive institutions are dissolved, criminological theories are adapted to digital realities, and the legislature abandons inappropriate definitions, no adequate solution will be achieved for the legal prevention and control of organized gang and cybercrime.