Dr Andrew Childs
Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University
Dr Andrew Childs is a Lecturer in Criminology at the School of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Griffith University. He is an expert in the human factors of cybercrime and has a research program focussed on the development of online illicit markets, the social organisation of cybercrime communities, and the criminogenic affordances of ‘disruptive’ technologies (e.g. cryptocurrencies). His work often uses novel digital research methods to understand digital crimes, which has ranged from conducting qualitative interviews with active offenders via encrypted messaging applications to analysing native online data (e.g. forum posts and chat logs). Dr Childs has led pioneering research into evolving digital crimes, including the first published work on social media and encrypted messaging application drug supply, organised identity fraud during COVID-19, and the victimisation processes of cryptocurrency scams. His expertise in these topics is widely recognised and he has provided expert commentary on cybercrime issues to national and international media outlets along with authoring submissions to Australian parliamentary inquiries.
