Trends in online child sexual abuse material

Abstract

CSAM crimes are varied and subject to<br/ >change, terminology differs across researchers<br/ >and practitioners, and inconsistent ways of<br/ >operationalising and measuring CSAM make<br/ >comparison across studies difficult. This has had a<br/ >negative impact on global efforts at data collection<br/ >across different forms of child sexual abuse and<br/ >exploitation and is the case with online CSAM.<br/ >Our capacity to evaluate the scale of the problem in<br/ >terms of the quantity of CSAM is compromised by<br/ >the volume of online content in the open, and also<br/ >hidden, Internet and the reality that content may be<br/ >removed but not destroyed.<br/ >Criminal justice data from public records, as well<br/ >as research surveys, would suggest an increase<br/ >over time in the number of CSAM crimes.<br/ >Youth-produced images pose a problem for law<br/ >enforcement in terms of resource demands<br/ >alongside their ability to determine the age of the<br/ >child and whether they have been produced as part<br/ >of coercive activity by adults or peers or represent<br/ >behaviour that is consistent with adolescent<br/ >development and risk-taking.<br/ >Mapping of existing national and international CSAM<br/ >databases would suggest that they fall largely into<br/ >two groups: hash collections and image collections.<br/ >While there are a number of databases globally, <br/ >there is limited connectivity between them.<br/ >Differences in how data is defined and recorded<br/ >means that it is impossible to draw firm conclusions<br/ >as to whether there have been changes in the<br/ >gender, age and level of violence within recorded<br/ >CSAM. However there is some converging evidence<br/ >that the percentage of egregious images has<br/ >increased over time.<br/ >Across three studies, younger victims are associated<br/ >with greater levels of sexual violence, produced<br/ >within a family context and more likely to be widely<br/ >distributed. However, the preponderance of images<br/ >are of pubescent and pre-pubescent children and<br/ >the numbers of images of very young children<br/ >(infants and toddlers) remain relatively low. This is in<br/ >contrast to the views of experts interviewed in the<br/ >current study.<br/ >The majority of victims and offenders are white<br/ >Caucasians, and while there has been an increase<br/ >in other ethnic groups, these numbers remain<br/ >disproportionately small. This does require further<br/ >investigation given the increasing availability of<br/ >Internet connectivity through hand-held devices<br/ >across hand-held devices and the concerns<br/ >expressed about, for example, live streaming of<br/ >abuse.