Investigating Child Exploitation and Pornography

The Internet, Law and Forensic Science

Monique M. Ferraro, Eoghan Casey

• Publisher: Academic Press
• Year: 2004
• ISBN:
  9780080478760
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Political Corruption & Misconduct
• Index: Politics & International Relations

Investigating Child Exploitation and Pornography provides the historical, legal, technical, and social background for the laws prohibiting child exploitation, in particular, child pornography.

It offers a history of child exploitation cases and studies, outlining the roles of technology in this type of crime and the evidence they can contain, and documenting new research performed by the authors.

It details how successful undercover Internet operations are conducted, how the associated evidence is collected, and how to use the evidence to locate and apprehend the offender. The heart of this work is a legal section, detailing all of the legal issues that arise in Internet child exploitation cases. A forensic examination section presents evidentiary issues from a technical perspective and describes how to conduct a forensic examination of digital evidence gathered in the investigative and probative stages of a child exploitation case.

The book will become an indispensable resource for those involved in the investigation, prosecution, and study of computer-assisted child sexual exploitation.

• The first comprehensive title in this subject area
• Uses real cases and examples of criminal behavior and the means to detect it
• Provides guidelines for developing a Field Manual and a Checklist to supplement the investigation and legal process
• Establishes a reliable system and legal, procedural-backed protocol by which to conduct an online sexual investigation and collect evidence

SECTION I

THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY

CHAPTER 1 OVERVIEW

I was born into an insane family where my grandfather physically and sexually abused me from a young age until I was fifteen. Part of what he did was send me to strangers’ homes for child prostitution where I was also used for child pornography. My grandfather would take pictures of me, as well as show me haunting pictures of other kids who looked drugged and dazed.

Growing up and trying to fit into a normal life after so much abuse is hard. I have nightmares, flashbacks and struggle with everyday tasks that most people take for granted. … There is a haunting that surrounds me constantly, reminding me that I don’t have control over keeping my past a secret. The pictures that were taken when I was so young are still out there. Who knows where they are and how many people have seen them. I wonder if they will show up when I least expect it. I am away from abuse now, but know that someone could be pleasuring himself while looking at my pictures or showing them to kids. (childlustrecovery.org 2003)

Child sexual assault and exploitation were once limited to physical locations such as school playgrounds, church vestibules, trusted neighbors’ homes, camping trips, and seedy, darkly lit back rooms of adult bookstores. Rapid increases in Internet usage have created a virtual hunting ground for those who prey on children and have fueled a brisk, multi-billion dollar trade in the associated illicit material. Online child exploitation includes all forms of sex abuse of children with an online nexus, particularly enticement of minors to engage in sexual activity; manufacture, distribution, and importation of child pornography; and child sex tourism.

Sexual predators who travel to meet victims that they have acquired online are sometimes called travelers.

In addition to providing a new venue for child exploitation, the Internet reduces disincentives by providing anonymity and facilitating fantasy development. The Internet gives offenders easier access to support groups of like-minded individuals, reducing their sense of being marginalized (Taylor and Quayle 2003). The Internet is also very easy to use, making it readily accessible to even the least technologically literate among the population.

The impact of these peer support groups can be profound, “normalizing” abnormal desires, enabling offenders to view their behavior as socially acceptable and possibly lowering their inhibitions to act on impulses that would otherwise remain fantasy. Additionally, these types of support groups can give offenders access to child pornography, children and technical knowledge that would otherwise be beyond their reach. (Casey, Ferraro, and McGrath 2004)

While the Internet has made the world smaller by bringing distant people and places within easy reach, computer storage media have grown larger to hold almost unfathomable amounts of information. Computer storage capacity has increased to the point at which a small personal computer hard drive can hold as much information as the United States Library of Congress. Child pornographers use this space to store personal libraries of tens of thousands of digital images. Additionally, people increasingly conduct their communications and store more records electronically—financial, personal, and otherwise.

Many people view their communications, online activities, and the information stored on their computers as private. Few people anticipate that law enforcement will ever discover their computer’s contents—actually, few people realize the volume of information retained by their computer about their activities. To take advantage of the large amounts of data stored and transmitted using computers, investigators and lawyers must be cognizant of the way information is processed and stored by computers. We talk about “digital forensics” throughout the book. The term refers to the study of the technology, the way criminals use it, and the way to extract and examine digital evidence. Criminals are becoming aware of the risks and are taking steps to conceal their online activities. In response, digital investigators are developing methods and tools to see through such concealment behavior. This ongoing battle of wits, combined with rapid developments in technology, makes this a challenging and dynamic area requiring intelligent and dedicated investigators and attorneys.

Approximately half of the caseload in computer crime units involves the computer-assisted sexual exploitation of children. Despite the scale of this problem, or perhaps because of it, no published resources bring together the complex mingling of disciplines and expertise required to put together a computer-assisted child exploitation case. This work fills this void, providing police, prosecutors, and forensic examiners with the historical, legal, technical, and social background for the laws prohibiting child exploitation—in particular, child pornography—and enticing minors to engage in sexual activity using the Internet. In addition to providing guidance on the technical and legal aspects of child exploitation investigations, cases and associated data are presented to provide a deeper understanding of the crimes, victims, as well as offenders and the level of danger they pose to themselves, their victims, and investigating officers.

1.1) BACKGROUND

Children, by definition, are not capable of making the decision to have a consensual sexual relationship. Because of their tender years, lack of education and transportation, children are completely dependent on the adults responsible for their care. When a child is enticed into sexual activity, s/he is manipulated into the act—not a full participant. It simply is not possible for a child who is not granted full adult rights—to vote, to self-determination and self-support—to consent to sex with an adult. The law has sometimes referred to sexual activity between an adult and a person not yet of adult age as “statutory rape” because the sex was “consensual” but illegal by statute based on the difference in age between the partners. When the child is younger, the act has often been classified as “molestation,” a watered-down, euphemistic term for the child’s victimization. The authors consider sex between a minor (as defined by the jurisdiction) and an adult to be sexual assault. Sexual assault of a child can include kissing, fondling, oral contact to genitals, and penetration whether with an object or a part of the body.

Child pornography is a permanent record of a child’s sexual assault that exploits the victim each time it is viewed for pleasure. It is impossible to gauge the damage that such an assault can have on a victim, family, and community.

CASE EXAMPLE

The case of Marc Dutroux shook Europe in the late 1980s. He was married and the father of three children. He owned several houses. A large source of his income was from the sale of young girls he kidnapped and sexually assaulted into prostitution and creating child pornography.

Dutroux was convicted of the rape and abuse of five girls and was sentenced to thirteen years in prison. He served only three years. Not long after his release, young girls began to disappear near his several houses. Police searched his houses, only to find nothing. Unfortunately, the police failed to search the basement of one of the houses where two teenaged girls were still alive—hidden and hoping to be saved.

In 1996, police again searched one of Dutroux’s houses where they found a soundproof concrete dungeon in the basement. Two girls, a fourteen-year-old and a twelve-year-old, were found in the dungeon. They were alive, but Dutroux sexually assaulted them and filmed the assaults. Police also found at least 300 child pornography images. Investigation revealed that Dutroux killed at least four girls and sexually assaulted many more. His final capture and conviction inspired public outrage that he had served only three of thirteen years for his initial crimes. The public demanded reform of the laws, the way the laws were enforced, and the punishments given to those preying on their children. (Bell 2003)

Offenders who intentionally seek out children and take advantage of their weaknesses for sexual purposes are a form of sexual predator. The weakness can be emotional, psychological, or physical—or any combination of these. There may seem to be some lack of clarity inherent in such a definition, as it would seem that a sex offender by definition is taking advantage of or exploiting the victim. Inherent in the description, though, is the expectation that the predator has, on some level, planned the offense.

A sexual predator is defined by the authors as a sex offender who takes advantage of a weakness (or weaknesses) of a victim to further sexual exploitation of the victim, with at least some element of planning involved.

This chapter presents an overview of online child exploitation, examining the scope of the problem and providing a foundation for the rest of the book. The history of child exploitation and the way technology is used to facilitate it are explored. A section on how child protection laws developed in the United States and abroad is followed by a brief summary of the book’s structure and contents.

The online child exploitation discussed in this book has two faces: child pornography, together with all of the activities necessary to perpetuate it (manufacture, distribution, importation, and possession), and the enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity using an online facility. Sometimes the two crimes will be treated separately and sometimes together. Since the historical roots of the crimes are found in the sexual assault of children...

Table of contents

• Cover Image
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Dedication
• ABOUT THE AUTHORS
• PREFACE
• ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
• Table of Contents
• SECTION I: THE INFLUENCE OF TECHNOLOGY
• SECTION II: INVESTIGATING INTERNET CHILD EXPLOITATION
• SECTION III: FORENSIC EXAMINATION OF DIGITAL EVIDENCE
• SECTION IV: THE LAW OF INTERNET CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION
• INDEX