Child sexual abuse images, youth produced images and the varieties of image-based sexual exploitation and abuse

• NCJ Number: 307468
• Journal: Child Abuse & Neglect Volume: 143 Dated: 2023
• Author(s): David Finkelhor; Heather Turner; Deirdre Colburn; Kim Mitchell; Ben Mathews
• Date Published: 2023
• Grant Number(s): 2020-R2-CX-0015
• Agencies: NIJ-Sponsored
• Publication Type: Research (Applied/Empirical)

Annotation

This paper categorizes sexual image crimes and abuse that occur against children and highlights the predominance of youth-made sexual images among the image exploitation and abuse affecting youth.

Abstract

This paper presents a categorization of sexual image crimes and abuse that occur against children; it also compares their frequency, dynamics, and emotional impact and highlights the predominance of youth-made sexual images among the image exploitation and abuse affecting youth according to self-report. It further underscores the difference between what victim surveys reveal about the problem and what is inferred from police record studies. A national sample of 2639 respondents aged 18-to-28 to an online, self-administered questionnaire disclosed 369 childhood episodes involving a variety of image abuse. The analysis classified the cases into five incident types: 1) adult made images (child sexual abuse images), 2) images non-consensually made by other youth, 3) voluntarily provided self-made images that were non-consensually shared by other youth, 4) voluntarily provided self-made images non-consensually shared by adults, and 5) voluntarily provided self-made images to adults that entailed an illegal age difference or were part of a commercial transaction. We propose to refer to this aggregation of types as Image Based Sexual Exploitation and Abuse of Children (IBSEAC). Only 12% of the image episodes qualified as adult produced, child sexual abuse images. Such adult produced image experiences were also not higher in negative emotional impact than the youth produced images. Only 10% of the episodes involved images of children under age 13. (Published Abstract Provided)