Online Offending

There is an argument, recently repeated to me, that people who view obscene child abuse material do not go on to offend offline. Now clearly viewing such images IS an offence in itself and often means that you are watching a child being abused. However, the link between consuming such online content and carrying out what is termed ‘contact’ abuse has been under debate.

This article (warning it is quite graphic about the material viewed) outlines a recent survey of 5000 people carried out by a Finnish organisation called ‘Protect Children.’ They found that a third of people accessing such material do go on to attempt to contact a child so we really should not minimise the online behaviour of such offenders.