Borders Conference - Rethinking the Line: The Canada-U.S. Border / Child Pornography on the Internet Session
Appendix III: Presentation Materials – Max Taylor
Slide 1
Child Pornography, the Internet and Offending
Professor Max Taylor
COPINE Project
Department of Applied Psychology
University College Cork
Slide 2
Overview
- COPINE Project
- Child Pornography
- Offenders and Offending
- Virtual Community
- Thoughts and concerns
Slide 3
COPINE Project Background
- Grew out of Child Studies Unit
- Reflected a concern with child protection issues arising from new technologies
Slide 4
Project Activities
- Child Pornography
- Assessment of dangerousness
- Understanding qualities of offending and offenders
- Evidential analysis of pictures
- Identification of victims
- Nature and incidence of child sex tourism and child trafficking
Slide 5
Distinctive features of the Project
- close association with law enforcement
- emphasis on forensic/evidential value of pictures
- focus on engagement with Internet
- COPINE database
- pictures
- posting histories
Slide 6
What is child pornography? Irish Law (1)
(a) any visual representation
- (i) that shows or, in the case of a document, relates to a person who is or is depicted as being a child and who is engaged in or is depicted as being engaged in explicit sexual activity* * [n.b. not obscenity]
Slide 7
Irish Law (2)
- (ii) that shows or, in the case of a document, relates to a person who is or is depicted as being a child and who is or depicted as witnessing any such activity by any person or persons, or
- (iii) whose dominant characteristic is the depiction, for a sexual purpose, of the genital or anal region of a child,
Slide 8
Irish Law (3)
- (c) any visual or audio representation that advocates, encourages or counsels any sexual activity with children …., or
- (d) any visual representation or description of, or information relating to, a child that indicates or implies that the child is available to be used for the purpose of sexual exploitation ……..
Slide 9
Interpol Standing Working Group on Offences against Minors
Child Pornography is the consequence of the exploitation of sexual abuse perpetrated against a child……any means of depicting or promoting sexual abuse of a child, including print and/or audio, centred on sex acts or the genital organs of a child.
Slide 10
Legal vs. Offender perspective (1)
Taylor (1999) “…whilst legal definitions are …. important from legislative and judicial perspectives, approaching child pornography as a legal problem does not … help our understanding of why child pornography is produced or collected- legal definitions do not tell us about its nature…the issue of producing and collecting child pornography is essentially a psychological, rather than a legal problem”.
Slide 11
Legal vs. Offender perspective (2)
Dilemmas
- legal specification necessary for law enforcement management of problem
problem of 'good' and 'bad' offenders
- wider psychological perspective necessary for understanding and control of problem
problem of becoming 'thought' police
Slide 12
Child Pornography
- Neither pictures nor collections are accidents
- Result from deliberate choices made by an individual to acquire and retain sexual material
- Not all material collected will fall into legal definitions of child pornography, yet may be as sexually arousing to the individual
Slide 13
Child Pornography
- Not homogeneous
variety of different kinds of images attractive to adults with a sexual interest in children
- Typology of pictures collected
- based on COPINE reference database
- central focus - increasing sexual victimisation
1-10 point scale of increased deliberate sexual victimisation
Slide 14
Typology (may not be illegal)
- Level 1 Indicative
- Level 2 Nudist
- Level 3 Erotica
- Level 4 Posing
- Level 5 Erotic Posing
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