Child Sexual Abuse Material Online: The Perspective of Online Investigators on Training and Support

The development of online technologies in recent decades has led to the proliferation of the distribution, consumption, and sale of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) online. This trend has arguably also contributed to the sexual abuse of children offline. In this context, many organizations, including financial institutions and police agencies, have invested human, financial, and technological resources to address this problem. Combining statistics on recent crime trends with data collected from online police investigators suggests the critical need for this phenomenon to be taken more seriously on a global scale. Using data obtained from interviews conducted with online CSAM police investigators across several Australian police agencies, this study presents a detailed view of what is needed to best support police work in this domain. The most frequent responses obtained from investigators grouped around three dimensions: (1) knowledge and skills related to the tools used during investigations, such as computers, information technology, the Internet, and legislations; (2) knowledge related to offenders, how they operate, and how investigators should interact with them virtually; and (3) mental health wellbeing of investigators.