Academic literature on the topic 'Online child sexual abuse'

The purpose of this treatise was to synthesize the current research, nationally and internationally, both qualitative and quantitative, concerning online child sexual abuse. The study focused on crimes of a sexual nature perpetrated against children, with or without consent, in an online environment. The aim was to clearly articulate the characteristics of victims, including both their vulnerabilities and their protective factors and to provide offender profiles, including their methodologies. Method: A systematic search for peer reviewed articles published between 2000 and 2006 was conducted. The final sample included 73 articles, which were arranged in order of publication, and the top and bottom interquartile range was selected for review and coding. Results: 36 articles were thematically coded in order to identify the most prominent themes in the articles. The result of this review was a typology of victims and offenders, as well as offender methodologies that reflects an aggregation of the most prominent research on the subject of online child sexual abuse. Conclusion: Much of the common knowledge concerning online child sexual offenders and their victims is incorrect. The typologies identified in this review show a much more diverse picture of both offenders and victims than is held in popular knowledge. This research has identified the damage that misinformation can do, and has highlighted the need for accurate, empirically sound information to be made available to parents, teachers, health care professionals and youth.

This study seeks to understand and explain the problem of online child sexual abuse (CSA). More specifically, it presents a theoretical and empirical investigation of the current tactics and operational procedures employed by the London Metropolitan Police High Technological Crime Unit (HTCU) and Paedophile Unit, and it explores patterns and characteristics of online grooming. The thesis is divided into two parts. Part One is concerned with theoretical, empirical and legislative context. It critically reviews the existing literature on online CSA and assesses the operational challenges to policing this high profile social problem. Part Two uses this framework to explore the methods and practices used by suspected sex offenders to groom children online, and the covert and overt procedures used by the police to tackle online CSA. The approach is ethnographic in nature, since this is the only way in which the complex dynamics that shape the perpetration and policing of online eSA can be explored in sufficient depth. Other methods such as participant observation, in depth interviews and narrative and case analysis of sex offenders were also utilised. Key findings highlight that whilst there is no such. thing as a typical online child groomer, it is nevertheless both possible and instructive to identify a range of distinctive child grooming behaviours. The research explores a spectrum of grooming behaviours from online fantasists who groom for immediate sexual gratification in the virtual world, to persistent predators who groom online to lay the foundations for CSA in the physical world. This study shows that sex offenders can anonymously and simultaneously target a number of victims in a short period of time without taking into account the risk of being monitored by the police. Findings also emphasize that the police must prioritise in order to allocate their limited resources to dealing with those online groomers who are perceived to pose the greatest risk in the physical world. Informed prioritisation is a process that requires undercover officers entering the world of the online groomers and interacting over time to develop an understanding of their intentions. This research explores the complex, multi-faceted and at times counterintuitive relationships between online grooming behaviours, risk assessment, police practices, and the actual danger of subsequent abuse in the physical world. The ultimate aim is to generate a deeper knowledge and understanding of the under researched and sensitive area of online CSA, with direct relevance to policy and practice. This research makes an original contribution to theory, methods and epistemology.

Online child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a growing problem that transcends geographical borders. In order to improve cooperation between international law enforcement, knowledge concerning the jurisdiction, procedure and issues with investigations in different countries is needed. This study aims to provide information on the Swedish context by (a) exploring how the Swedish police work with investigations of online CSAM, and (b) identifying potential challenges. The research questions have been answered by qualitative interviews with law enforcement personnel. Systematic text condensation revealed that there is a significant difference in the procedure between the police regions and that four major problems face the police. First, the police are dependent upon digital forensic experts but have limited access to their expertise and other resources due to the crime not being prioritised. Second, Internet Service Providers are not required to save their users IP-addresses, which complicates identification of the suspect. Third, a holistic perspective within the police is required. Investigators should work with all sexual crimes against children and not just CSAM, in order to be able to see reoccurring elements in the identification process. Four, there is a lack of public knowledge concerning CSAM that affects the resources and number of cases the police receive. The Swedish police is currently creating regional cybercrime centres in an attempt to create a national strategy for computer-related investigations. The implications on the victim identification process and development of treatment for offenders are discussed, as well as future directions. Clearer guidelines are needed.

Research has shown that individuals' willingness to believe a disclosure of childhood sexual abuse (CSA) is related to just-world beliefs, ambivalent sexism, and defensive attribution. However, researchers do not know whether these variables relate to posts made in response to online articles describing CSA. Negative or disbelieving posts may impact not only the author, but also readers who view these comments via hindrance of disclosures, increased self-blame, and avoidance of help seeking. In this quantitative study, just-world, ambivalent sexism, and defensive attribution theories provided the theoretical basis used to determine whether just-world beliefs, ambivalent sexism, and defensive attribution influenced comments made in response to an online article about CSA disclosure. Eight-hundred twenty participants read the article where the author discloses she was sexually abused as a child. Response comments were coded negative, neutral, or positive. Participants also completed demographic questions, the Global Belief in a Just World Scale, the Ambivalent Sexism Inventory, and questions regarding their similarity to the offender and victim. Multinomial logistic regression analysis showed relationships between negative posts and hostile sexism, perceived similarity to the perpetrator, frequent involvement in online discourse, and, to a lesser extent, belief in a just world. Parenthood and perceived similarity to the author increased one's odds of posting positively. Responses of CSA survivors resulted in unexpected findings. Study findings may be used to challenge stereotypes and vitriol often used to silence survivors in public discourse, for thought challenging in psychotherapeutic settings, and for future public education and research to increase support for CSA survivors.

Objectives: This study examined how frequently online sexual solicitation of adolescents and children by adults occurs and what characteristics the perpetrators have using a novel methodological approach. Method: In an online survey, we investigated the frequency of online sexual solicitation exhibited by adult Internet users (N ¼ 2,828), including a subgroup recruited on pedophilia-related websites. Perpetrators soliciting adolescents were compared to those soliciting children concerning solicitation outcomes (e.g., cybersex) and demography. Results: In total, 4.5 percent reported soliciting adolescents and 1.0 percent reported soliciting children. Most solicitors of adolescents and children were from pedophilia-related websites (49.1 and 79.2 percent). Solicitation frequently involved sexual outcomes (47.5 percent), which also followed nonsexual interaction. The minors’ age did not affect the odds of sexual outcomes. A substantial proportion of perpetrators were female. Conclusions: This study offers unprecedented data on the number of adults soliciting minors. Although adolescents were more often target of solicitation, the risk of sexual outcomes was equally high in solicitation of children, suggesting younger children to be considered in prevention efforts as well. Nonsexual interactions resulting in sexual outcomes need to be more closely examined to inform appropriate prevention efforts. Moreover, awareness should be raised about females as perpetrators.

This thesis is an anthropological study of Internet sexual offending, more specifically the viewing of child abuse media. It is based on 17 months of participant-observation in UK group programs for individuals who had downloaded illegal child abuse media, semi-structured interviews with participants, program staff, and police, and staff focus groups. Through engaging directly with offenders and those managing them, it provides an in-depth, qualitative understanding of how Internet use and perceptions of online spaces play a key role in Internet sexual offending, while also asking broader questions about online sociality, morality, and effects on normative behaviour. The central argument posits that in moving beyond commonplace explanations for Internet offending, more attention must be given to Internet use, perceptions and constructions of online spaces, and effects on social norms to explain this phenomenon. It then follows to suggest that for some offenders, these elements can be instrumental in their sexualization of children and choice to view abusive media. The thesis specifically explores why and how some people in the UK engage with illegal child abuse media, with particular attention to notions of risk, childhood, morality, and the Internet. Employing Foucauldian and neo-Foucauldian theory, anthropology of the Internet, and constructionist theories of childhood, focus is placed on multiple areas: the potential social, emotional, sexual, and Internet-specific factors associated with offending; participants' relationships with the Internet and constructions of online spaces; participants' perceptions of childhood and children online and offline; and, societal and institutional efforts to respond to the above, including the larger justice system and fieldwork group program. The general research areas are social science of the Internet, childhood studies, human sexuality, group therapeutic processes, policy and law, and research methodology and ethics.

Social networks are a popular way for people to engage in activities and find new friends over the Internet. One central feature that these services share is the possibility for users to interact and share personal information. However, social networks also enable sexual predators with an interest in children to have access to rich hunting grounds with a reduced risk of detection. This thesis applies grounded theory to provide domain knowledge from eight experts on online child sexual abuse. This domain knowledge is used to create informational structures that can be applied in intelligent software systems to potentially detect these types of crimes. The results provide structures for automated dialogue detection including ontological structures, models of influential circumstances (social and psychological) and a normative dialogue structure of a nested deliberation dialogue. Implementation of intelligent software systems in this domain has the potential to detect probable outcomes of dialogues much faster than human analysts. Future work is needed to provide further theoretical sampling to extend the proposed models and to evaluate the models on real-world data sets.<br>Sociala nätverk är ett populärt sätt att delta i aktiviteter och hitta nya vänner på internet. En central funktion för dessa tjänster är möjligheten för användare att interagera och utbyta personlig information. Dock medför sociala nätverk också möjligheter för sexualförbrytare att utnyttja barn då de får tillgång till plattformar där många barn befinner sig, samtidigt som de har en minskad risk för detektion. Den här kandidatuppsatsen använder grundad teori för att samla in domänkunskap från åtta experter kring sexuellt utnyttjande av barn på internet. Denna domänkunskap används för att skapa informationsstrukturer som kan tillämpas inom intelligenta mjukvarusystem för att potentiellt upptäcka denna typen av brott. Resultaten bidrar med strukturer för automatiserad dialogdetektion vilket inkluderar ontologiska strukturer, en modell för psykologiska- och sociala faktorer som kan påverka förhållandet mellan offer och förbrytare samt en normativ dialogstruktur baserad på dialogteori. Införandet av dialogmodeller inom intelligenta mjukvarusystem har potential att förutse utfallen av dialoger snabbare än mänskliga granskare. Fortsatt forskning behövs för att bistå modellerna med ytterligare teoretisk applicering samt att utvärdera modellerna på verkliga fall.

Denna studie undersöker olika svenska aktörers arbete mot live-streamade sexuella övergrepp på filippinska barn samt deras syn på ansvarstagande gällande fall där svenska förövare begår detta brott. Det finns fyra svenska rättsfall där svenska män dömts för att ha beställt, regisserat och bevittnat sexuella övergrepp på barn i dagsläget. I dokumentärer och radioprogram som lyfter problematiken framkommer att dessa övergrepp sker i det dolda (på internet) och att det därmed finns ett stort mörkertal som innebär att övergreppen fortsätter att ske och att barnen riskerar att inte få rätt stöd och hjälp. Syftet med studien är därför att bidra med fördjupad kunskap inom området genom att undersöka huruvida svenska frivillighetsorganisationer samt myndigheter anser att deras arbete är tillräckligt eller behöver utvecklas. Det empiriska materialet bygger på fem intervjuer med ett urval av svenska myndigheter och frivilligorganisationer, där en aktör befinner sig på Filippinerna. Studien har en kvalitativ och induktiv ansats där resultatet analyseras utifrån Ludwig von Bertalanffys generella systemteori samt tidigare relevant forskning. Resultatet visar att informanterna anser att svenska aktörer har ett stort internationellt ansvar för de filippinska barn som blir utsatta för live-streamade övergrepp då förövarna är svenska. Två informanter menar att Sverige inte gör tillräckligt för dessa barn i nuläget. Samtidigt menar vissa informanter att ansvaret slutar någonstans och att Filippinernas egna aktörer behöver ta vid då vissa insatser inte anses kunna skötas från Sveriges håll. Resultatet visar även att nya idéer och resurser krävs för att de ska kunna uppfylla dessa ambitioner samt att det finns många utmaningar som försvårar och stoppar utvecklingen av arbetet. Empirin presenterar också möjligheter inom arbetet och förslag på nödvändiga åtgärder. I en avslutade diskussion lyfter vi fram bristen på ett barnfokus hos svenska aktörer samt några tankar kring vad detta kan bero på. Vi diskuterar även konsekvenserna av svenska rättsliga insatser för barnen och huruvida dessa gynnar eller skadar barnet. Avslutningsvis redovisar vi önskemål för framtida forskning inom området.<br>This study examines the work of various Swedish organizations regarding live-streamed sexual abuse of Filipino children and their view on responsibility for cases where Swedish perpetrators commit the crimes. There are four Swedish court cases where Swedish men have been convicted of this crime and documentaries and radio programs now highlight this problem. It appears that the crime is hidden, because it takes place on the internet, and for this reason there is a large number of hidden statistics that makes it difficult to protect and support the vulnerable children. The aim of this study is therefore to contribute with deeper knowledge in the area by examining whether Swedish non-governmental organizations and governmental authorities believe that their work is sufficient or needs to be developed. The empirical material is based on five interviews with a selection of Swedish authorities and non-governmental organizations. The study has a qualitative and inductive approach where the results are analyzed based on Ludwig von Bertalanffy's general systems theory and previous research. The result shows that the informants believe that Swedish actors have a great international responsibility for the Filipino children who are exposed to live-streamed abuse when the perpetrators are Swedish. Two informants believe that Sweden is not doing enough for these children at this moment. At the same time, some informants believe that their responsibility ends somewhere and that the Philippine government and non-governmental organizations have their responsibility. The result also shows that new ideas and resources are required for them to be able to fulfill these ambitions and that there are many challenges that stop the development of their work. The empiric also presents opportunities within the work and proposals for necessary measures for the future. Concluding in the discussion we highlight the lack of child focus among the work of Swedish governmental and nongovernmental organizations and what we believe is the reason for this. We also discuss the consequences of Swedish legal efforts for the children, such as damages, and whether these consequences benefit or harm the children. Finally, we come with suggestions for future research within the area.

<p>The main purpose of the present thesis was to develop a measurement instrument aimed to reveal attitudes towards child sexual abuse, and to measure attitudes and associating personal, social and cultural factors among three different samples of Norwegian adults. Additional aims were to explore the relation between participants’ knowledge-seeking on the one hand, their experiences, attitudes and actual knowledge about abuse on the other hand.</p><p>Three studies are presented based on the same data material collected in Norway in spring 2004. Three samples were included in the survey: A sample of randomly selected adults between 18-67 years (n = 296). A sample of active Christians between 22-65 years (n = 125) and finally a sample of imprisoned child sexual offenders between 21-74 years (n = 36).</p><p>Study I was primarily concerned about the development and validation of a new measurement instrument, entitled Attitudes towards child sexual abuse (ACA). The scale consisted of four different attitudinal dimensions. A confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) confirmed the four-factor structure. The four dimensions were entitled 1) Acceptance and responsibility, 2) Fatalism, 3) Damages caused by abuse, and 4) Legal issues. The result showed that there were significant attitude differences across the samples. The differences were in the expected direction e.g. offenders reported more abuse-accepting attitudes than the random adults and active Christians, and men had more abuse-accepting attitudes than women. This confirms the discriminative properties of ACA. Furthermore, the factors hypothesized to be associated with attitudes towards abuse behaved as expected, e.g. high empathy was related to more averse attitudes. Conclusively, the scale was found to be valid and reliable.</p><p>Study II further investigated attitudes towards abuse and explored cultural, social and personal factors associated with these attitudes. The results showed that different factors were predictors of attitudes in the three samples. Empathy and normlessness were the best predictors of attitudes among the random sample of adults and the active Christians. The most significant predictors of attitudes among the prisoners were their view of women and femininity. This may imply that different intervention strategies should be chosen depending on the target group.</p><p>Study III aimed to explore attitudes towards and knowledge-seeking about child sexual abuse among the samples. It was hypothesized that those who seek more knowledge had more accurate knowledge about abuse, and that the difference in knowledge-seeking and attitudes were related to the respondents’ own experience with abuse. It was furthermore expected that both knowledge-seeking and attitudes were predictors of abusive behaviour. The results suggested that attitudes and knowledge-seeking differed across samples and gender. The active Christians had most aversive attitudes towards child sexual abuse and sought more knowledge about abuse than the comparing samples. The respondents who reported high knowledge-seeking seemed to have more knowledge of abuse as well. However, a more comprehensive measurement of both knowledge-seeking and actual knowledge is recommended in future studies. Knowledge-seeking was related to both direct and indirect experience, e.g. victims of abuse had higher knowledge-seeking compared to non-victims and those who knew a victim had higher knowledge-seeking than those who did not know a victim. Abusive behaviour was predicted by attitudes, gender and sample. Knowledge-seeking did not predict abusive behaviour.</p><p>Taken together, the three studies showed that the hypothesized attitudinal differences between the three samples, were confirmed. Furthermore, the expected relation between attitudes on the one hand and social, cultural, and personality factors and knowledge-seeking on the other hand, was supported. The result as a whole may serve as a guide to interventions aimed to prevent abuse.</p>

The National Society of Protection and Cruelty to Children (NSPCC) estimate that 1 in 20 children are a victim of sexual abuse (Bentley, O’Hagan, Raff, & Bhatti, 2016). Furthermore, recent figures indicate that there has been a rise in child sexual abuse cases across the UK. Research into perpetrators of child sexual abuse have focused primarily on male offenders. Researchers have explored the cognitive distortions of male offenders and developed theories of sexual offending based on the risk factors associated with this population. More recently, studies have explored the core beliefs and schemas of child offenders to understand the factors that underpin their cognitive distortions. This empirical paper explores the Early Maladaptive Schemas and Implicit Theories of mentally disordered child sex offenders. Historically, societal perspectives of women indicated that females were highly unlikely to perpetrate sexual offences against children. More recent findings suggest that females account for approximately 5% of all sexual offenders across the UK, Canada, USA, Australia and New Zealand. However, this statistic varies depending on the data gathering methods employed: self-report studies indicate higher prevalence rates of female perpetrated sexual abuse compared to case report studies. This systematic review explores societal perspectives of female child sex offenders compared to male perpetrators.