Decoding the Bois Locker Room Chat: A Theoretical Analysis of Juvenile Cyber-Delinquency

Screenshots of chats from an Instagram chatgroup known as the Bois locker room surfaced on social media in May, 2020.As reported by the police, the members of the chatgroup were boys (mostly in school), who used the chatgroup to share morphed pictures of women (including those of minor girls), made objectionable comments on women and glorified rape. With the increasing use of Internet by juveniles in India and the world in general, they are vulnerable to both victimization in cyberspace and turning into cybercrime perpetrators themselves. As juveniles increasingly come in conflict with law in cyberspace, often unaware of the ramifications their actions, it is pertinent to understand the phenomenon which leads to this. This paper presents a theoretical analysis of the causes of cybercrime by juveniles in general and the bois locker room controversy in particular. Theories of crime applicable in cybercrime context such as neutralization theory, routine activity theory and social learning theory are used for this purpose. In addition to these, Space Transition theory developed specifically to study cyber-crime is also used for analysis in the paper. The paper further attempts to proffer possible and pragmatic suggestions to deal with the issue.