Child Pornography: - Center for Problem-Oriented Policing

ecuting child-sexual-exploitation cases is to adopt a multijurisdictional and multidisciplinary
approach. By enabling the law-enforcement, child-welfare, and service-provider communities
to combine expertise, manpower, and other institutional resources on these complex cases,
investigations can be more thorough, prosecutions more numerous, and services more complete.
Successful work in the area of child sexual exploitation requires a formidable array
of resources, information, and expertise that can be realized only by tapping the capacity of
numerous agencies. 545 Perhaps, more importantly, it requires a community-wide commitment
to collaborate and coordinate on the shared goal of protecting children. 546
In addition multi disciplinary approaches can enhance investigations by bringing different
professional perspectives and additional knowledge to the case. For instance known victims
of child pornography should regularly receive medical evaluations as in routine
child-sex-abuse cases. Such evaluations can help ensure a safer environment for the child,
assess long-term physical trauma, document and treat sexually transmitted diseases, diagnose
and treat mental-health conditions that are evident in the victims, and provide medical advice
and support to nonoffending family members. Valuable information can be uncovered in the
context of a medical history, and medical professionals should be included in the
multidisciplinary response. 547
| Conduct Proactive Investigations
Law enforcement should proactively work to arrest and prosecute producers, distributors,
and those who possess and collect child pornography by using all available investigative
techniques, including covert and sting operations, to build strong cases. An increase in arrests
is usually attributable to increased enforcement. 548
Recognizing the personal toll on investigators of investigating such graphic and often
gruesome crimes against children, law-enforcement agencies should also, as resources allow,
provide psychological support for professionals responding to child-sexual-exploitation cases.
Likewise prosecutors should develop policies that clearly set forth when they will or will
not pursue a case in court to guide investigative efforts. Some suggested criteria for this determination,
when the case does not involve production of child pornography, include the time
and energy put into a collection; its size, format, and sexual themes; the age of the children
portrayed; receipt and/or distribution; any profit; the offender's access to children; and any
past or present molestation. 549 When such policies are consistently applied, law-enforcement
officers know what evidence to pursue and that their efforts will not be futile. 550
Improve Education and Training
Evidence suggests a compelling need for increased education and training among law
enforcement, criminal-justice programs, child-welfare agencies, and service providers about
child sexual exploitation. 551
Law enforcement should provide adequate training for all investigators and officers who
might come in contact with victims of child pornography and their families including personnel
in child abuse, sex crimes, vice, juvenile, and other units. Investigators should do their best
to protect the identities of child victims as they investigate cases. They should also provide a
full explanation of the pending criminal process to the child victims and their families. Investigators
also need specialized training on the use of computers in child-pornography cases
56 - CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-SYSTEM RESPONSE