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4.5.2 Young people accessing child abuse imagesThe second group of sexually abusive practices by adults and young people, involvingabusive images of children, were described in an important research report examining casesinvestigated by the Department of Internal Affairs Censorship Compliance Unit (CCU)in New Zealand. The results of this study were subsequently updated later that year byWilson and Andrews (2004), using the same methodology, and including an additional 79offenders. Their results indicated that of the 184 people in the study, only one was female,and 89% were classified as New Zealand Europeans. The largest single group of offenders,which remained the same as in Carr’s (2004) study, “continues to be aged between 15 and19 years. Those under 20 years of age at the time of detection comprise a quarter (24.3%) ofall offenders” (p. 2). The largest occupational group was students (32.4%), followed by thosewhose career was in information technology (19.5%). The majority of the offenders werefound to be in possession of child sex abuse material, with images of bestiality and materialcontaining the use of urine and excrement being the second and third most commonlyfound sorts of objectionable material. These two New Zealand reports provided the firstsystematic analysis of seized materials. They caused considerable concern because theyidentified a high number of young people engaged in the collection of illegal images, andthis was substantiated in the second data set. The results were somewhat different fromthose reported by Wolak et al. (2005) in the US in a study called N-JOV (National JuvenileOnline Victimisation Study) where only 3% were younger than 18.However, it should be noted that all of the school students were found to trade and/orpossess images of children and young people engaged in explicit sexual activity, includingimages of children aged between 2 and 7 years, giving cause for concern about theiractivities. Also of concern was that school children were also proportionately more likelyto trade and/or possess images of children and young people that suggested or impliedincest. Nonetheless, Carr (2004) felt that the data did provide clues as to the motivationfor initially accessing this material and that it offered support for, “the concept of asexually curious group of adolescents”. In contrast to the results of school students, thoseindividuals who were identified as tertiary students aged under 25 years and non-studentsaged under 25 were found to demonstrate a much greater range of image preferences andwere identified as being proportionately more likely to collect images portraying babies asthe subject of sexual exploitation. In addition, 60% of those aged under 25 spent less than10 hours per week using the Internet. The research did not provide any evidence that theseindividuals were involved in the commission of physical sexual offences against children,but the author expressed concern about the nature of the images in the light of researchsuggesting offence behaviour beginning in adolescence.Child Pornography and Sexual Exploitation of Children Online |73