Policing and protecting children from on line child sexual abuse.

By, Elena Martellozzo

 

 

Introduction
The sexual abuse of children on line is a people problem and not a technological ne. Those who endanger children are people and not computers. As argued by Jones (2003), “the most important issue surrounding ‘Child abuse and the Internet’ is child protection” (Jones 2003:41). Thus law enforcement agencies will ultimately attempt solutions by using traditional policing methods in addition to computer technologies. However, the relationship between the police and technology is long-standing and complex: “On the one hand, the police were created to deal with the social disorder caused by technologies of the industrial revolution. On the other hand their responsive and localised nature always meant that they feel behind in their access to, and use of, technology” (Wall 2007: 190).

The aim of this article is to explore the challenges that official agencies such as the police, educational and charitable sectors face in promoting and enforcing the protection of children against on line CSA. The first part of this article seeks to identify and evaluate how the government and the police have reacted to the exponentially growing problem of the production and distribution of inecent images of children and the problem of on line grooming. It will therefore provide a historical overview of how on line CSA developed, focusing particularly on some prominent police operations such as Operation Cathedral1 and Operation ORE2.

The second part looks at the problem of grooming children on line for the purpose of sexual abuse and the measures implemented to combat this solicitation. The final section focuses on the educational and informational measures that have been created by official agencies and the charitable sector to inform and educate children, parents, and the public about on line CSA.

There are considerable gaps in existing research, particularly around the issue of how the police in the UK and other agencies became involved in combating cyber crime and the question why certain operations, like Operation ORE, were highly criticised and deemed unsuccessful.

Government and Police Responses to CSA: Indecent Images
The distribution and production of child abuse images is a serious problem that takes place every second on the Internet. This has been labelled as a problem of “international proportion” (News on line, BBC 2001). There have been thousands of newspaper articles written on the first operations on on line CSA (BBC Panorama 2001). Every daily newspaper carried the headlines of the convictions and sentences issued by the Crown Court (BBC Panorama 2001). Unprecedented access was given to the BBC, who produced a Panorama television programme on Operation Cathedral. The documentary was subsequently shown in eighteen different countries, which generated not only significant public support for the National Crime Squad, but also public intolerance and anger towards child sex offenders. This is not to suggest that the National Crime Squad’s Press Office launched this subject into the public arena unprofessionally, but forcibly. This ‘fanned the media flames’ (Cohen, 1972 #217) and allowed the public to ask the very significant question: How has it got to this?

The demand for child abuse images through, for example, the use of filesharing technology has grown so rapidly that law enforcement agencies are now employed in a global race to track down children who are being abused. A number of high profile police operations against those involved in the distribution of indecent images via the Internet have raised the public consciousness regarding child abuse on line. These include most notably the very first international police operation against paedophiles, Operation Starburst (1995), followed by exponentially larger operations such as Operation Cathedral (1998) and Operation Ore (2001). This is not to say that the production and distribution of indecent images did not exist prior to Operation Starburst. On the contrary, child abuse images have been in circulation since Victorian times (Quayle and Taylor 2005) and probably before. The following sections will critically examine how the most widely reported operation in the UK commenced and how this changed the landscape for dealing with such cases from both a governmental and law enforcement perspective. It will highlight how operations such as Cathedral and ORE helped the police to learn to identify potential sex offenders living in the anonymity of cyberspace and how the growth of Internet use has required police forces, both nationally and internationally, to work together to be able to cope with the scale of the problem.

 

Operation Cathedral
Operation Cathedral was the world’s first large operation involving paedophilia on the Internet that police embarked upon. Seven British sex offenders who were members of the notorious ‘W0nderland club’ were convicted (Spindler 2003). According to Dowd (2003), the prosecutor in Operation Cathedral, the ‘W0nderland club’ was protected by powerful gate-keeping and encryption devices, including a computer programme called Alice in addition to the letter ‘o’ in ‘w0nderland’ being replaced by the numeric ‘0’3. In order to become a member of the club, interested parties were asked to submit 10,000 indecent images after receiving an invite from an existing member (www.Zdnet.co.uk 10 Jan 2001 ). Other codes of conducts were created to become a member of the group, which are listed in Appendix 1.
The images were distributed world-wide. However, what was even more disconcerting was that members of the club created a facility with which they could record real-time abuse and transmit it simultaneously to other members. These members could in turn, have input and give instruction as the abuse took place (Dowd 2003:89). Although not all members were hands-on-abusers, the vast amount of indecent material available proved the seriousness of the matter being investigated.

The operation involved 12 other countries and was led by the National Crime Squad. It successfully seized nearly a million indecent images as well as around 1,800 “computerised videos” depicting children suffering sexual abuse (Zdnet 2001). What was uncovered was defined as a vast ‘lending library’ of images of child abuse which attracted the world’s largest Internet paedophile gang (News on line BBC 2001). QC David Perry, the prosecutor of the seven British defendants, reported: “All of the children involved were under the age of 16 and in one case the child was only three months [old]” (QC David Perry in BBC 2001). Carman Dowd (2003), the CPS prosecutor in the Operation W0nderland case, was also shocked by the nature and the volume of the images: “When I first embarked upon this case I had no idea of the nature of the images involved (actual abuse on children whose ages ranged from less than a year old to teenagers). Nor was I aware of the sheer volume of images the offenders possessed –there were an excess of 750,000 images recovered from the UK offenders alone. When I gave a presentation on the case in 1999, my observations were that the legislation did not take account of this type of offending, and this was reflected in the fact that the maximum sentence for distribution was only three years at that time.” (Dowd 2003: 96)

Dowd’s presentation had the desired impact. The operation was fully reported in the media, and, soon after, Part II of the Criminal and Court Services Act 2000 came into force, which increased the maximum sentence for possession and distribution considerably. Prior to this operation, sentences for possession ranged from fines, through to probation, to six months imprisonment for Gary Glitter in 1999 (BBC News On line 12th November 1999).

As a result of this particular operation, governments in many countries started to pay close attention to this growing and serious phenomenon. They felt the need to respond to the public concern fuelled by the extensive media coverage of sex offenders’ activities (Soothill and Walby 1991; Greer 2003; Spindler 2003; Davidson 2008). As a result, the G8 ministers decided to place on line CSA within the international political agenda. England and Wales set up a group of police officers representing the main law enforcement agencies4. Their task was to bring together expertise and ideas to find strategies to combat such problem and present them at the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) Crime Conference. According to Spindler (2003) “this was the first real opportunity the various law enforcement agencies who had previously answered to separate ACPO leads –clubs and vice, child protection, and high-tech crime, had been given to share their knowledge and experience in one group” (Spindler 2003 :35). Thus, it is apparent that the police in recognition of the global nature of the problem, from the very beginning, joined their forces together and co-operated internationally with other police forces. In May 2001, former Home Secretary Jack Straw, in response to the concerns about possible risks that children may encounter on line, announced the creation of the Home Office Task Force (HOTF) on Child Abuse and the Internet. The aim of the HOTF was to create a partnership amongst representatives from the Internet industry, children’s charities, the main opposition parties, governments departments, law enforcement agencies and others “who share the aim of making the United Kingdom the safest place in the world for children to use the Internet” (Straw 2005 :4). Within the HOTF each group had a responsibility and a part to play. Furthermore, a number of subgroups were also created on issues around criminal law, law enforcement, training, child protection measures, education and awareness for children, parents and teachers. The main remit for law enforcement agencies has always remained child protection and to make the Internet a safe place for its users. As argued by Spindler (2003) “while […] this is a new business for policing […] our investigations begin, not end, with the location of the computer and its users, as the Internet has given us the first opportunity to identify those who have the propensity to abuse children” (Spindler 2003 :35; emphasis added).

The Internet is a vital tool for accessing information and for communication, entertainment, and education. It provides immediate access to a vast array of materials, as well as anonymity at an affordable price (Cooper, McLaughlin et al. 2000 b; Robbins and Darlington 2003). However, with “approximately 600 million users world-wide accessing almost four million websites and up to 70,000 newsgroups” (Robbins and Darlington 2003:79), it is inevitable that offensive behaviour such as making, producing and distributing indecent images of children as well as grooming, continuously takes place. Therefore, the Internet should not be viewed simply as a library or an exceptionally advanced encyclopaedia. It would be more appropriate to perceive the Internet as a mirror image of our society in all its diversity and human expression, including deviance.

As argued by Demetriou and Silke (2003), “on the Internet the opportunity to commit crime is never more than three or four clicks away” (Demetriou and Silke 2003: 219). Consequently, law enforcement agencies, particularly after Operation Cathedral, felt the need to urgently intervene in a proactive manner. Thus, four aims, objectives and action points were immediately identified. These were:
1. Victim identification. That is, identify victims of child abuse both past and present and locate new victims.
a. Create an international database of child abuse images.
b. Work in partnership with child protection teams, statutory agencies and non-governmental organisations to identify victims.
c. Build international relationships through Interpol, Europol, and Eurojust.
d. Design mechanisms to detect real-time abuse and enhance aroundthe-clock response.

2. Suspect location. That is, identify at an early stage and arrest those Internet users who exhibit the sexual prediction predilection for children.
a. Establish a British Experts group of practitioners to share expertise and identify training needs.
b. Combine effort to avoid duplication and maximise impact through the creation of a tasking  and co-ordinating forum.
c. Co-ordinate activities through a national joint agency and devise a ‘flagging system’ for Internet provider addresses.
d. Provide best practice guidelines for covert on line police activity.
e. Evaluate the information on software and other specialist support available to law enforcement.

 

3. Industry co-operation. That is, work with the Internet industry to remove child abuse images and reduce the opportunity for access by children and potential/future paedophiles.
a. Liaise with the National High Technology Crime Unit (NHTCU) to enhance co-operation from industry.
b. Build relationship with the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF, an organisation set up to assist law enforcement in the fight against criminal content on the Internet) and other interested parties.
c. Actively support the Home Office Task Force.
d. Monitor and evaluate industry response to request from law enforcement.
e. Identify gaps within the industry framework allowing the suspects to escape detection.

 

4. Crime reduction and public safety. That is, reassure the public through the media that the police is committed to police the Internet and to ensure that fear of crime is placed firmly on the offender.
a. Devise media strategy for law enforcement operating in this area.
b. Develop effective techniques for chatroom and newsgroup monitoring.
c. Influence legislation and policy through robust research and practical examples.
d. Integrate the strands of vice, high-tech crime, child protection and paedophilia into a common package.
[Adapted from Spindler, 2003: 36-40]

 

Operation ORE
Operation ORE5 was the largest police operation to take place in the UK (Renold, Creighton et al. 2003), and it has “paradoxically accelerated and hampered the police’s commitment to combating cybercrime” (Jewkes 2003:502). In April 1999, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service in Texas received information concerning a website on the Internet named Landslide Productions Inc., which was privately owned by an American couple. The purpose of Landslide Productions was to provide access to either images of adult pornography or children being subjected to sexual abuse. The company was acting as a brokerage business for hundreds of child abuse images and between 1997 and 1999 made an estimated profit of $9,275,9006. The website was very cleverly constructed, as it could not be found by chance and various screens provided warnings to prospective customers. Customers used credit card facilities to purchase periods of time on these sites, which contained images of children being abused.

On May 17th1999, a federal Grand Jury in Texas indicted Thomas and Janice Reedy who were sentenced to 1,335 and 14 years respectively. As a result of this arrest INTERPOL was provided with the credit card and bank details of 250,000 subscribers to Landslide’s website. As argued by Sarti “when a person pays for access to a website is creating demand for Internet paedophilia and is guilty of the crime of inciting another to distribute indecent images of children. If they have also copied these images onto their computer they are guilty of making indecent images. However, the major concern for the police was that every single name on the LANDSLIDE list could have been an immediate risk to children” (Sarti 2003).

It is argued that people who download these images assist in CSA. There is now a large volume of research that indicates that people who download and view these images “increase the likelihood that children will be continued to be abused in the service of providing pictures for people to download” (Quayle 2003:25 emphasis as in original; also see Carr, 2003). Carr strongly believes that anybody who downloads images and views them is already taking part in the abuse (Carr 2003). However, there is a huge number of legal images of children posing that are downloaded every second. These images have been perceived by some experts as a “continuum of victimisation” (Quayle 2003).

The examination of seized records belonging to Landslide Productions by the FBI revealed that over 7000 users were British (Carr 2003). The FBI handed over the names of suspects to the UK Police, who disseminated these names throughout the country. The Metropolitan Police alone were dealing with approximately 1200 suspects and were under pressure to act rapidly7 (Sarti 2003). Once investigations were conducted and the suspects identi fied, officers, in possession of a warrant card, had the power to enter and search suspects’ premises nd to confiscate their computers.

Because of the scale of Operation ORE and the publicity it received, the vast majority of the suspects who downloaded images and accessed the sites were expecting the police to visit them sooner or later (Sarti 2003). As argued by Sarti, “when you go inside a house and show that you are executing a warrant under the Protection of Children Act 1978, you have just started to contribute in the destruction of this person’s life. Up until now they thought they were safe in their environment downloading child abuse images; they thought it was acceptable for them to download indecent images into their computer; and you now are walking into their life to tell them that it is not and that you are paedophiles. We ruin their lives. If we find images, they get convictions and they go to the sex offender register. For lot of these people the stress and the loss is far too much.” (Sarti 2003).

When a police officer walks into a person’s home for on line CSA allegations, his8 life is generally put on hold until the forensic examination confirms his innocence or guilt: he has to be separated from his children in one way or another, and if his job involves working with children he is not allowed to return to work. Not surprisingly, as a result of the pressure of the investigation, 39 men committed suicide (Campbell 19/04/2007). Operation ORE also dragged some famous names into the spotlight. Alongside Gary Glitter, Pete Townshend, songwriter and guitarist for “The Who”, appeared to be on the Police’s long list of suspects. However, he claimed he joined the website ‘for research purposes’ only, but did not download any images to his computer. As a result he was only given a warning and put on the Sex Offenders Register. Undoubtedly, when conducting these operations it is important for the police to know about the suspect’s occupation (in case they work with children), the suspect’s location, and whether there are children on the premises where they live. These elements clearly prioritise police intervention. Assessing risk and identifying the victims is an extremely important task for the police. A factor for the police to consider is the duty of care owed by the police to the public. The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child 1989, signed by the UK, aims to protect children’s rights. Article 19 bestows upon all parties to take: “…all appropriate measures to protect the child from all forms of physical or mental violence, injury or abuse…including sexual abuse” (Article 19 in Fortin 2003: 57). This places a positive obligation on states to ensure children are protected, including an appropriate investigation when child safety is at risk.

It could therefore be argued that a failure to investigate people who are believed to have purchased indecent images of children or have paid to become members of illegal websites could be interpreted, in light of the duties and responsibilities mentioned above, as a breach of a failure to protect a child. Academic research indicates that those who purchase such material may present a threat to children (Quayle and Taylor 2001; Carr 2003; Jewkes 2003). Indeed, indecent images of children have a specific role in Wolf’s (1985) cycle of abuse: They fuel sex offenders’ fantasy with the risk of becoming an addiction to the point of contact sexual offences (Wolf, 1985; Finkelhor, 1986; Sandberg and Marlatt, 1989; Eldrige, 1990; Sullivan and Beech, 2003). Although it is not possible to calculate with accuracy the percentage of sex offenders who use indecent images of children to commit an offence (Itzin 1996; Wyre 1996), it is important to recognise the risk collectors they may pose to children. Therefore, once the police force is in possession of the illegal and harmful material that identifies potential persons with a sexual interest in children, it has a duty to analyse each image in an attempt to trace the perpetrators and save further victimisation (Gillespie and Upton 2004).

As argued by Sir Richard Mayne (1829), “the primary object of an efficient police is the prevention of crime, the next that of detection and punishment of offenders if a crime is committed” (Sir Richard Mayne 1829 in www.met.police.uk/met/ ). These sentiments are adopted by modern day policing with the implementation of the National Intelligence Model9. The combined theories of Finkelhor’s ‘inhibitors’ and Sullivan’s ‘behavioural conditioning’ are key to the positive search and arrest strategy. It should be noted that police activity and the criminal justice process acts both as an internal barrier (the fear of being caught), and an external barrier (imprisonment) (Carrabine, Iganski et al. 2004). Thus, a positive search and arrest strategy will help reinforce such barriers, together with controlled press coverage, to assist in the prevention of such crime.

Working with various statutory authorities, the police identified individuals on Operation ORE’s list who either worked with children or were known sex offenders (Carr 2003). However, what had been discussed so far does not highlight the complexities and the economic cost of one individual investigation. According to Sarti (2003), one individual job of the MET under Operation ORE comprised: 12 computers seized; 2530 cd-roms; 580 floppy disks; 55 videos and 99 films. It is clear that each arrest generates a vast amount of work for the police as every suspect has more than one computer and each computer, cd-rom etc. must be forensically analysed by experts.

Publications on the scale of Operation Ore have highlighted both the difficulties and unique opportunities presented to modern policing. The difficulties lie in the competing policing priorities and the resources for the intense measures required dealing with such investigations. It is both costly and time-consuming to amass electronic evidence from individual computers. Some UK police forces have waited over a year for forensic results, and it may cost an estimated £2500 to analyse each computer. Clearly, the lack of funding and manpower has seriously undermined operations such as ORE. However, what also diluted the operation from the very beginning was the lack of both specialists within the police force and of decision–making capabilities. As argued by a number of undercover police officers at the HTCU, which at the time of ORE did not exist, “when the  list provided by the US authorities landed on the UK authorities’ desks, notmuch was done for more than a year” (Taylor 2005: 2). Therefore, by the time the problem was acknowledged, decisions were made, resources and funding were allocated, new units created and trained, two years had passed before any form of police intervention took place. Thus, many of the alleged suspects appearing on the list, most likely terrorised by the media portrayal of CSA on line as the moral panic of our age (Jewkes 2003), destroyed their old computers containing the evidence and bought new ones resulting in charges being dropped due to a lack of evidence (Taylor 2005).

Police tactics were widely criticised during Operation ORE, and from the ensuing debate, many lessons were learnt for future operations. First of all, it was argued that the UK police invested far too many resources and funding to try to arrest people who were presumably guilty of downloading child abuse images. By doing this, they overlooked other more serious problems related to child protection or cyber-crime in general. In an interview with the BBC, Detective Chief Superintendent Derrick Kelleher admitted he took officers away from child protection units to arrest suspects identified by Operation Ore (BBC News On line 27 January 2003).

Furthermore, a common allegation that was raised during ORE is that the police failed to establish if the suspects reported by the US authorities were the real users of the credit cards to purchase indecent images, or if they had really purchased indecent images, considering that Landslide contained both legal and illegal material. These flaws have not been documented within the academic arena, but are present in a series of controversial articles published by investigative journalist Duncan Campbell (19/04/2007).

According to Campbell, who claims to be an expert witness in defence cases, some of the people that purchased indecent images from the American base site were using stolen credit cards, others used their credit cards to purchase legal material only, and the people who allegedly signed up to visit the sites never logged in on the site (Campbell 19/04/2007). In a letter to the House of Lords, which is available on line10, Campbell sympathizes with the defendants who “continued to be prosecuted and to face jail sentences, loss of family career, and the stigma of a Sexual Offenders registrar entry, solely on the basis of their credit card data and personal information having being used by third parties for fanatical gains in 1998 and 1999” (Campbell 2007:2 emphasis added ). In the same letter, he openly accuses the police of misconduct for failing to understand the nature of the Internet and for the inappropriate use of resources “that should have been deployed against Internet financial crime and Internet organized terrorism” (Campbell 2007:2).

However, Campbell’s beliefs and accusations contain notable flaws. When Jim Gamble, the Chief Executive of the Child Exploitation and On line Protection Centre (CEOP) was asked whether the prevalence of credit card fraud raised any problem in the conduct of on line CSA investigations his response was as follows: “We never prosecute someone simply on the basis of their credit card being used. You are going to look at all of the circumstantial evidence which when taken together provides overwhelming evidence” (Gamble 01/06/2007 emphasis added).

In a letter to Lord Broers in response to Campbell’s accusations Gamble provides some interesting statistics with regards to ORE. He claims that “more than 2450 individuals have been successfully held to account. This figure presently shows a ninety three per cent rate of guilty pleas and includes more than 700 people admitting their guilt upon receiving a formal caution.

In almost 2300 cases, child abuse image were discovered” (Gamble 01/06/2007:2). Furthermore, he also claims that a stolen credit card number does not provide as much information on an individual  that a subscription to a website offering child abuse does. It in fact may provide:
• Name.
• Postal address.
• Email address.
• A personal password.
• Credit card details.

In addition, the IP address of the subscriber, which can provide information indicating the address or location of the subscriber, may be captured by the system. As a result, this information is analysed by the local police who then start with the identification of the subscriber. The enquiries may include:
• Offending History.
• Verification of the postal address.
• Whether the credit card was reported as lost or stolen.
• Whether the suspect works with children.
[Gamble 01/06/2007:3]

 

It is certainly fair to claim that Operation ORE has presented the police with enormous challenges in terms of effectively investigating and accumulating evidence (Findlater 13/1/2003). However, what should not be overlooked is that the Internet is technologically sophisticated and difficult to monitor, as it constitutes a highly fluid and changeable environment (Shannon 2007).

Furthermore, as previously stated, Operation ORE has also provided the police with unique opportunities, namely to be proactive against those who may present a threat to children. When people download or simply view indecent images of children, they create a demand for more children to be abused. If there was no market for downloaded images less children would be abused in order to supply it (Carr 2003; Davidson and Martellozzo 2005).

Indecent images of children give a view into the hidden world of child exploitation, which is primarily domestic in nature (Taylor 2002). Therefore, the importance of the operations aforementioned can be perceived as a ‘wake up call’ not only for law enforcement agencies but also for the government and other organisations such as the CEOP and the IWF, which have been established as a result of the identification of such serious problems.

The IWF employs a dedicated team to track and monitor commercial child abuse websites. Their work faces a number of challenges. For example, in 2006 they found that some of the most prolific websites selling child abuse images avoided detection by changing server. In other words, they changed their websites’ domicile to change police jurisdiction so as to avoid prosecution and their sites being closed down and (Internet Watch Foundation 2006:9).

According to the IWF annual report, one site had been reported to the IWF 224 times since 2002; another 54 times since 2000, and in that time it had been found on seven different servers in different countries. Some of the most prolific of these commercial child abuse websites have remained ‘live’ for long periods of time, despite the IWF’s concerned efforts to the contrary (Internet Watch Foundation 2006: 9). As stated in a report by the NSPCC, “children suffer in the knowledge that there is a permanent record of their sexual abuse, which can subsequently prevent, delay or exacerbate the fear of disclosure” (Renold, Creighton et al. 2003:3). The words of a 16 year-old child summarise this fear:

“I never escape the fact that pictures of my abuse are out there forever. Everything possible should be done to stop people looking at pictures of child abuse. Each time someone looks at pictures of me, it’s like abusing me again.” (Internet Watch Foundation 2006:9)

 

Government and Police Responses to CSA: Grooming
On line child abuse does not only comprise the production and the distribution of indecent images of children, but also that of ‘on line grooming’, which involves the process of socialisation during which an offender interacts with a child in order to prepare him/her for sexual abuse (Sexual Offences Act 2003). This emergent on line offence, facilitated by the anonymous nature of cyberspace and its vague boundaries, has grown exponentially during the past four years, and the government, the police and other agencies such as IWF and CEOP have been training and developing new tactics and awareness programmes to protect children from sexual abuse. Like the production of child abuse images, the process of grooming is not a new phenomenon. It dates back to when child sexual abuse was first identified and defined (Conte, Wolf et al. 1989), and it takes place off line as much as it does on line (Gillespie 2004). However, there has been little systematic research on the process whereby adults identify, recruit and maintain the compliance of child victims (Conte, Wolf et al. 1989).

Studies have generally focused on the victims’ or offenders’ characteristics and the type and frequency of deviant sexual acts (Groth, Longo et al. 1982; Abel, Becker et al. 1987; Stermac, Hall et al. 1989), despite the significance of offenders engaging in repetitive patterns of behaviour (Groth 1978), carefully planning their offences (Herman 1981; Laws 1989; Salter 1995), and repeating these patterns with multiple victims (Abel, Becker et al. 1987).

Five studies examining the grooming process in the real world (Lang and Frenzel 1988; Budin and Johnson 1989; Beliner and Conte 1990; Elliot, Browne et al. 1995) revealed striking similarities. They identify that offenders utilise strategies that are part of the positive aspects in normal, non-abusive adult-child relationships. Most offenders (N=308) acted alone with individual children. Groth (1985) also found that offenders preferred their own children, or those who were pretty, young, small, passive, quiet, trusting, lonely, lacking in confidence, physically alone, or from broken homes. They rarely abused a child unknown to them, although 34per cent of the perpetrators in Elliott et al.’s (1995) study had assaulted strangers.

The offenders generally had a preference regarding the gender of their victims, with 58per cent targeting girls, 14per cent preferring boys, and 28per cent targeting both boys and girls Elliott et al. (1995). Also, as reported by Berliner et al. (1990), sex offenders believe they possess a special ‘skill’ for identifying vulnerable children. Offenders who found child victims outside their immediate families frequented places where children were likely to go such as schools, shopping centres, arcades, amusement parks and playgrounds. Interestingly, children who are victimised in the realm of the cyber show characteristics similar to those abused in the real world. The IWF found that 80per cent of the child victims in all the Uniform Resource Locators (URL) since 2003 are female. 91per cent of all these children appear to be twelve years of age or under (Internet Watch Foundation 2006: 9) and are lonely, trusting, and vulnerable (Wolak, Mitchell et al. 2003).

It is important to highlight that the main difference between the real world and cyberspace is anonymity. Although it can be exciting and fun for children to go on line and form new friendships, what should not be underestimated is that the Internet allows people to be whoever they want to be, at any time and in any place (Davidson and Martellozzo 2007). In a small number of cases, young people thought they met someone special who they could implicitly trust, but in reality, they had been talking to an adult who has a sexual interest (O’Connell, Price et al. 2004).

These adults target children and young people with the intention of making the child feel loved and comfortable enough to eventually meet so they can take advantage of them. The Home Office Task Force (2007), together with practitioners and consultants, put together a list of techniques that they thought sex offenders could use to make contact and establish relationships with children or young people. These are:
• Gathering personal details, such as name, address, mobile number, name of school and photographs.
• Offering opportunities for modelling, particularly to young girls.
• Promising meetings with pop idols or celebrities, or offers of merchandise.
• Offering cheap ticket to sporting or music events.
• Offering material gifts including electronic games, music or software.
• Offering virtual gifts, such as rewords, passwords and gaming cheats.
• Suggesting quick and easy ways to make money.
• Paying young people to appear naked and perform sexual acts via webcams.
• Gaining a child’s confidence by offering positive attention and encouraging him or her to share any difficulties or problems they may have at home, and providing a sympathetic and supportive response.
• Bullying or intimidating behaviour, such as threatening to expose the child by contacting their parent to inform them of their child’s communications or postings on a social networking site, and/or saying they know where the child lives or goes to school.
• Using webcams to spy and take photographs and movies of victims.
• Asking sexually themed questions, such as “Do you have a boyfriend?” or “Are you a virgin?” .
• Asking children or young people to meet off line.
• Sending sexually themed images to a child, depicting adult content or the abuse of other children.
• Masquerading as a minor or assuming a false identity to deceive a child.
• Using schools or hobby sites to gather information about a child’s interest, likes and dislikes.
[Source: Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007:15]

During the four years spent with undercover officers, the researcher came across hundreds of cases such as this where individuals engaging with children adopted a number of different approaches with the same objective.

 

Measures to combat the Grooming of children via the Internet
After the the introduction of Section 15 of the SOA 2003 (grooming), the police began to consult previous research, learn and employ new undercover tactics to effectively combat the problem of on line grooming. Findings from previous research helped the police to set up on line children’s profiles to track down sex offenders and to understand their modus operandi11.

Research suggests that the primary means of establishing sexual contact were reported as accidental touches and children’s games which became increasingly sexual, establishing trust through friendship, over approaches, showing the victims adult pornographic material, slowly desensitizing the child into sexual activities, rewards and bribes, misrepresentation of moral standards, threats, fear, and physical force (Finkelhor, Kimberly et al. 2000). In a study of children’s victimisation by male offenders (N=84), Briggs and Hawkins (1996: 230) found that the most brutal and sadistic offenders were religious figures, fathers, and men of high social status in ‘paedophile rings’. Furthermore, compliance, co-operation and maintenance of the child’s silence were achieved by not disclosing the ‘special secret’ and by portraying the abuse as education or as a game. The police, in setting up undercover police operations, carefully took into account these important elements of offending behaviour.

Clearly, Internet abuse has presented, and continues to present, law enforcement agencies with some unique challenges. However, despite the difficulties involved in controlling the crime problem, the police recognized that they have an important role to play and in order to maximise their contribution, police departments needed to:
a. Acquire technical knowledge and expertise in Internet child abuse.
b. Establish links with other agencies and jurisdictions.
c. Establish links with ISPs.
d. Prioritize their efforts.
[Adapted from Wortley and Smallbone 2006:42]

From the very beginning, the NHTCU had a remit to counter national and transnational computer-enabled criminality that impacted on the UK. A number of objectives were set out, but the most significant for tackling on line grooming was to run proactive network investigations to identify and disrupt child sexual abuse.

Other objectives of the training included the development of a coordinated police response to hi-tech crime across all criminal jurisdictions in England and Wales (Taylor 2005). Police training enabled officers to carry out proactive operations on the Internet where they could locate, trace, identify, and ultimately arrest individuals or organizations who were abusing children on line. They started to monitor the web where traded the images - such as User groups, chat rooms, file sharing programs and “pay per view” web sites.

 

The Development of Social Networking Sites
The World Wide Web has evolved and still is evolving very rapidly and has become a compelling activity for many Internet users. Durkin and Bryant argue: “Just as the computer has begun to revolutionise social life, it will revolutionise crime and deviancy; especially the parameters of deviant sexual behaviour…in fact, it is doing so already” (Durkin and Bryant 1995: 186). On line social networks represent important and exciting social opportunities for both adults and children. However, they can also represent a risk, particularly to children and teenagers (Brennan 2006). There is a proliferation of these services, and user-generated content has taken hold in mainstream culture, due to its authentic and original appeal (Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007). Some examples of social networking sites include Bebo, Facebook, Faceparty, Hi5, MySpace, Yahoo! 360 etc. Other services focus on particular features or themes, for example, video sharing sites such as, YouTube, Daily Motion, iFilm, Google Video. However, these have similar characteristics to social networking services, for example, having a user profile and the ability to interact with others (Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007).

In a way, social networking is nothing new. It simply brings together, for the first time, pre-existing interactive technologies on a single service (Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007). Facebook for example allows people to make new friends, send emails, messages; post photos, music, blogs, videos etc. and, as shown in the table below, it is currently the most popular social network site.

 

ComScore, an Internet marketing research company, reported that Facebook attracted 132.1 million visitors in June 2008, compared to MySpace, which attracted 117.6 million. There are many reasons for the popularity of social networking services. Children and young people can express themselves and easily connect and communicate with others. According to the Home Office Task Force some of the key activities of such services include:
• Keeping in touch with friends and interests.
• Experimenting with their identity and opinions.
• Having a place or space where their parents or carers may not be present
• Demonstrating their technical expertise and skills.
[Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007: 6]

 

Indeed, social networks are important not only in terms of emocional support for users, but are crucial in providing opportunities and giving them power (Boeck, Fleming et al. 2006). However, there are concerns that these facilities, combined with children’s own high risk behaviour, may lead them to become potential victims for sexual exploitation by adults, or, sometimes, by other young people.

Exploitation may include:
• Exposure to harmful content, including adult pornography and illegal child abuse images.
• Engaging in sexually explicit communications and conversations that may reduce children and young people’s inhibitions.
• Manipulation and exploitation which can include being encouraged or paid to pose in sexually provocative ways and pose naked and/or perform sexual acts via webcams.
• Grooming and luring of children to meet off line to sexually exploit them.
[Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet 2007: 14]

 

The aim of the next section is to provide a brief overview of the existing educational and informational measures directed at children, parents and the public. It will seek to prove that responsible Internet use and on line safety are considered essential skills for children and young people. Nationally and internationally, a number of scientific evaluations of educational programmes have been published, with results that indicate that educational programmes have had a positive impact on children’s attitudes towards various risks that they may encounter on line (Crombie and Trinneer 2003; Davidson and Martellozzo 2004; Chibnall, Wallace et al. 2006).

 

Educational and Informational Measures Directed at Children, Parents and the Public
There have already been considerable efforts to increase on line child protection nationally and internationally. Organisations such as the Virtual Global Taskforce (VGT) and the IWF are making some headway in attempting to protect children on line (Davidson and Martellozzo 2008). The VGT is an organisation that includes a number of law enforcement agencies12 from around the world with the aim of building an international partnership to protect children from on line abuse by providing awareness and support (The Virtual Global Task Force).

In the UK, public bodies like CEOP, formed in 2006 to pro-actively combat on line abuse of children, play a vital role in child protection. They launched a national campaign ‘Think you know’ to provide children with advice and guidance on how to use the Internet safely (CEOP 2006). This programme has been distributed around schools and is directed at both pupils in secondary and high school. Other countries around the world, like Italy (www.securityclick.it), the USA (www.netsmartz.org), or New Zealand (www.netsafe.org.nz), have embarked upon very similar initiatives.

Educational programmes have also been created for parents, carers, and the public. For example, the Internet Crime against Children (ICAC) Task Force in the US has initiated a program to help parents learn about the great resources the Internet holds for their children but also how to be aware of, and to overcome, the dangers they may come across. The programme has been developed by NetSmartz Workshop, an interactive educational safety resource from the National Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Boys & Girls Clubs of America (BGCA) that uses age appropriate, 3-D activities to teach children and teens how to be safer when using the Internet. NetSmartz has been implemented in more than 3,000 BGCA Clubs nationally, serving more than 3.3 million young people (www.netsmartz.org; Davidson and Martellozzo 2008).

Parents share a great responsibility in educating their children on how to stay safe on line and providing them with guidelines. As recommended by Davidson and Martellozzo (2004) in their evaluation of the Safer Surfing Programme (one of the first programmes created in the UK), it is vital that parents have direct conversations, particularly with teens, on a regular basis. In the real world, it is usual for parents to ask their children questions like: ‘Where are you going?’; ‘Who are you going with?’; ‘What time will you be home at?’ These three questions should be the bases for Internet use also but formulated differently: ‘What sites will you visit?’; ‘Who will you talk to?’; ‘How long will you be on line?’; ‘Where will you be using the computer?’

However, asking these questions may not be sufficient. They need to be able to explore their children’s answers, and in order to do so, they need to become involved in their children’s use of the Internet, including social networking and other user interactive services.
Furthermore, it is important for children to feel comfortable talking to their parents if they are involved in anything that made them feel scared, uncomfortable, or confused. Often children are afraid to communicate bad experiences on line for fear their Internet use will be taken away. If this happens, the children w ill be more reluctant to tell their parents of a problem because of fear of overreaction.  Sometimes children get into situations that have escalated beyond their comfort level.  Thus, trust should be created and maintained (Davidson and Martellozzo2004; Davidson and Martellozzo 2008; Davidson and Martellozzo 2008).

Conclusions
This article sought to explore the challenges that official agencies –including the criminal justice, educational and charitable sectors– face in promoting and enforcing the protection of children against on line CSA. Reports from a number of leading agencies like the Police, the Home Office Task Force, CEOP, the IWF, VGT and international scientific academic research have shown that adult male sex interest in children is more extensive than previously thought. The Internet has clearly provided new pathways for sex offenders to express their attraction to children. Its anonymity has motivated them and given them confidence to search for images of abused children in order to satisfy their imagination and eventually to help their deviance take form.

Policy makers and law enforcement agencies have had to understand and learn how to tackle this “old crime in an new technology” (Martellozzo 2006). As highlighted in the first part of the article, the Police’s initial response to on line CSA has been deemed as reticent, belated, and uneven (Gallagher, Fraser et al. 2006). This inefficiency was mainly due to a lack of experience and appreciation of the seriousness of the problem. Furthermore, the massive scale of the operations previously discussed, together with the lack of resources and expertise did not contribute to a fast and efficient response. There is no doubt that operations such as Cathedral and ORE have been the benchmark for the investigation of on line CSA. These operations have highlighted the need for law enforcement agencies to enhance their knowledge and skills in this arena. Individual governments have been encouraged to review their legislation and in many cases to change their sentencing guidelines and procedures. In the United Kingdom for example, the sentencing for possession of indecent images of children has been increased from six months to five years imprisonment and for the distribution of images it has been increased from three to ten years. Those convicted will also be added to the Sex Offender Register.

Since the completion of Operation ORE and the implementation of the new Sexual Offences Act 2003 in which the ‘grooming’ offence was incorporated, the police have embarked upon an increasingly robust response to the problem and have been investing more resources in training, undercover operations and thorough investigations. However, this is not to say that the problem has been resolved.

The world of cyberspace is in a constant state of flux and the police, the government and supporting agencies need to continue to build upon previous improvements particularly in terms of “resources, prioritisation and commitment” (Gallagher, Fraser et al. 2006:125) and to learn from past experiences and mistakes. However, for a crime to be prioritised and for it to receive the necessary financial support, it needs to be documented with statistical data (Taylor 2005).

If a crime statistic is created based on the reporting of a crime, then law enforcement agencies and senior management teams can deliberate its importance, establish the risk and act upon it. Unfortunately, on line CSA does not get reported, and, as a result, it does not appear in the statistics (Taylor 2005).

This is why, in last part of the article, attention shifts to educational programmes for children, parents, carers and society in general. It is argued that on line child abuse can be reduced by sharing responsibilities. Indeed, law enforcement agencies need to continue to focus on the policing aspects, carers on the educational efforts aimed at protecting children and the IT industry on improving child-safety technologies in the on line environment (Carr 2003).

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Notes
1. Operation Cathedral was an international police operation which started in October 1997 with the arrest of Ian Baldock, by Sussex Police. His computer was seized and a large library of indecent images was found. Further forensic analysis showed that the suspected offender was member of a large group called ‘w0nderlad’.
2. Operation ORE was an international police operation which started in 1999 following information form the USA law enforcement which reported thousands of world wide Internet users featuring indecent images of children.
3. This is also defined ‘elite spelling’ whereby letters are replaced by numbers.
4. These included: the Greater Manchester Police Indecent Images Unit; West Midlands Paedophile Squad, Metropolitan Police Clubs and Vice Unit; Scotland Yard’s Paedophile Unit joined with the National Criminal Intelligence Service (NCIS) Serious Sex Offenders Unit and the National High-Tec Crime Unit (NHTCU). This project was under the chair of Detective Peter Spindler who also provided the researcher with complete access throughout this doctorate.
5. Operation ORE in the UK was a consequence of a massive undercover operation  n the US in 2002, Operation Avalanche.
6. Approximately 85per cent of this was attributable to the scale of websites depicting  child abuse images.
7. Police officers of the Metropolitan Police took action against a number of these customers and prosecuted where indecent images were found. They were charged with Making an indecent photograph of a child contrary to section 1 (1) a of the Protection of Children Act 978 and/or Possession of an indecent photograph of a child contrary to section 160 Criminal Justice Act 1998. In cases no images were found, consideration was given to charging incitement to distribute indecent photographs of children contrary to section 1 (1) a of the Protection of Children Act 1978 subject to the rules of  incitement.
8. The majority of individual investigated during ORE were males (99.9 per cent) ranging from 25 to 65 years of age. Although  95per cent a great number of these did not have any previous conviction for CSA, 46per cent were abusing childrenwhen investigated (Sanderson 2007).
9. The National Intelligence Model (NIM) provides a model for policing. In April 2004, all forces in England and Wales were required to officially adopt the model to a set of agreed minimum standards. Codes of Practice came into effect on the 12th of January 2005.
10. http://www.publications.parliament.uk/ pa / ld200607/ ldselec t / lds c t ech /165/ 165we01.htm
11. A full analysis of online undercover police operations including the evaluation of the profiles designed to attract sex offenders and their modus operandi will be provided in the findings’ section.
12. The VGT is formed by: the Australian Federal Police, the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre in the UK, the Italian Postal and Communication Police Service, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, the US Department of Homeland Security and Interpol.