The goal of this study was to better understand pathways into cybercrime and the various stages that young people move through before engaging in criminal hacking behaviors. The study draws on unique data resulting from interviews with 22 criminal hackers from the Netherlands and the UK, of which 15 were caught by the police, and 7 were self-identified criminal hackers. Qualitative analysis revealed that young hackers tend to have early experiences with information technology and remain preoccup