Child Pornography: Crime, Computers and Society

This book explores the enduring appeal of child pornography and its ramifications for criminal justice systems around the world. It is based on a review of academic literature and newspaper coverage, a trawl of websites frequented by those with a sexual interest in children, a survey of how police investigate these offences, examination of prosecutors' decisions, and interviews with judges. Child Pornography provides a framework for understanding the contemporary nature of this problem, especially the harms it causes, its intimate relationship with new technologies and the challenges it poses to the relevant authorities. The Internet plays a pivotal role. Its sheer size, the anarchic way it grows, the lack of any boundaries to its expansion and its disregard for national borders make it a law enforcement environment without parallel. A heightened focus on the threat of sexual abuse has contributed to the emergence of a context where routine dealings with children are viewed through a 'paedophilic' lens. This can have the unfortunate consequence of distracting attention from more urgent concerns - such as poverty and neglect - which make children vulnerable to sexual exploitation. In this way an emphasis on the sexualisation of children could be said to aggravate the problem that it sets out to address.

Ian O'Donnell is Professor of Criminology at University College Dublin and Director of the UCD Institute of Criminology.