Pathways to CSAM Offending

Overview

This briefing document summarizes key findings from “Accessing child sexual abuse material: Pathways to offending and online behaviour” by Wortley et al. (2024). The research, based on a self-report questionnaire of 75 male CSAM offenders in a community-based treatment program, offers critical insights into how individuals become involved with CSAM, their online behaviors, and factors influencing their offending.

Summary

I. Pathways to CSAM Offending

The study reveals a progressive and often inadvertent entry into CSAM offending.

• Inadvertent Exposure and Curiosity:

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  A significant majority of participants (92%) “reported that they did not seek CSAM from the start, but that they progressed from adult or barely legal pornography, or that they were inadvertently exposed to CSAM on other sites.”
• Gateways to CSAM: Two main online gateways are identified: “barely legal” pornography (actresses over 18 but appearing younger, Dines 2009) and “embedded CSAM in legal adult pornography sites” (Iati, 2021; Pornhub, 2021).
• Progression and Escalation: Involvement in CSAM “subsequently progressed over time and their offending generally became more serious.” This progression typically involves “a pattern of habituation and escalation,” where offenders seek “new experiences” as they become “bored with their current diet of CSAM.” This can lead to seeking images of younger children, more extreme behaviors, and increased viewing/downloading time.
• Fluctuating Patterns: While escalation is common, the study notes that offending seriousness (frequency, graphic nature, amount, age of child, collection size) often “fluctuated over time” rather than showing a “straight linear increase.” This fluctuation includes “efforts to stop, including deleting their CSAM collection” (Bailey et al., 2022; Fortin, et al., 2019; Steel et al., 2021), indicating a capacity for remorse and a desire to change.
• Sexual Interest in Children: “Nearly a third of participants claimed not to have, nor ever to have had, a sexual interest in children, even though they do not deny offending.” This challenges the stereotype that all CSAM offenders are solely driven by pedophilic interests and suggests other motivations like “curiosity, Internet addiction, as one manifestation of collecting behaviour, or as part of a broader spectrum of sexual interests” (Seto et al., 2010).

II. Online Behavior and Offender Characteristics

The study’s findings on offenders’ online behavior debunk common misconceptions.

• Lack of Technical Sophistication: The “most notable feature of participants’ online behaviour is the general lack of sophisticated technical expertise revealed.” Most offenders are described as “casual users” (Steel et al., 2023) with skill levels similar to the general population.
• Common Security Strategies: The most frequent “security efforts involved deleting files and search histories,” strategies offering “little protection from forensic scrutiny.” “Only around a quarter of participants used anonymising strategies and fewer still encrypted their files.”
• Access Methods: While initial encounters were often on the “open web” (48%), over time, participants accessed a wider range, with “P2P file sharing used by almost half” and a “significant minority now reporting that they went on the dark web.” However, “nearly half of participants still accessed CSAM on the open web.”
• Routine Activities and Situational Factors: Offending patterns are deeply influenced by daily routines and situational factors.
• Timing and Location: The most common time for accessing CSAM was “in the evening,” and mostly “at home in a separate room of the house.”
• Devices: “Most used desktops or laptops, with mobile devices seldom used.”
• Triggers: Key triggers included “opportunity (being alone, surfing the net); feeling aroused (viewing adult/barely legal pornography, seeing attractive child); negative emotional states (lonely, upset, angry, depressed); and life stresses (financial trouble, divorce, loss of job, work stress).”
• Deterrents: Significant deterrents included “moral concerns (feelings of guilt and shame, thinking of the victim, desire for self-improvement, feeling religious); concerns about others finding out (caught by police, what others would say, being caught by family); logistical difficulties (working patterns, partner at home, social plans and commitments, taking care of children); and positive emotional states/relationships (feeling happy, healthy relationship, recent sexual activity, sobriety).”
• Sociodemographic Profile: The study confirms previous research showing the “apparent normality of the offender socio-demographic profile.” Participants often had “particularly high levels of education, occupational status, and rates of employment.” Most were heterosexual, in relationships, living with partners or family, and had no prior criminal justice involvement.
• Enhanced Policing (24%): Calls for “larger budgets – more officers + forensic teams” and “improved international co-operation.” Focus on finding “the source, the highest priority being the creators but also the distributors.”

Implications for Mitigation

This study calls into question the assumptions that individuals who possess CSAM are intentionally seeking the materials and validates the assertions by many defendants that they came across the materials inadvertently. The study also validates sexual compulsivity as a motivation for some CSAM offending.

Reference

Pathways to Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) Offending and Online Behavior Date: October 26, 2024 Source: Excerpts from “Pathways-to-CSEM-Wortley-et-al-2024.pdf” (Child Abuse & Neglect 154 (2024) 106936)

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