Investigation into Child Exploitation

With the announcement by the NT police force yesterday of their inclusion in the ThinkUKnow cyber safety program, which has begun with the inception of the Northern Territory Police Force Online Child Exploitation Investigation Unit, it raises a larger debate around the issue of child pornography and its classification as a crime.

As an article in The Conversation argues, by delineating materials featuring children in sexually exploitative positions as child pornography, legislators and media commentators alike are missing the point of the discussion - the material is actual child exploitation materials and a separate and much more serious crime.

The Australian Institute of Criminology this month held a Child Exploitation Material forum to examine issues surrounding this crime, especially the collection, and sharing of the images, and the law enforcement issues that follow detection and arrest.

The forum discussed many related issues such as offender patterns and interventions, jury attitudes to people charged and sentenced with collecting and distributing child exploitation material. However one strong theme that arose several times was about the use of terminology and the disconnect between the growing cultural acceptance of mainstream pornography and how this is applied to images of child abuse.

Through this forum, the Australian Institute of Criminology identified many reasons why offenders may be more inclined to take up child exploitation behaviours, most frequently due to the high uptake of information and communication technologies leading to new criminal activities and new ways of committing traditional crimes.

In terms of legislative development, much work is still to be done but the commencement of the Cybercrime Legislation Amendment Act 2012 (CTH) in late 2012 has gone some way to helping investigations of these types of crimes.

Apply for a free trial to TimeBase's LawOne Service, a one stop shop for Australian Legislation at a cheaper price; One of the many services provided by TimeBase.