*Machine Translation
Understanding the risks and drivers behind online CSAM offending is essential for effective prevention, investigation, and intervention. This paper provides a clear and systematic overview of the risk factors associated with these crimes, based on a review of 43 quantitative studies.
Key insights include:
This review offers valuable knowledge for practitioners, policymakers, and researchers working to combat online CSAM offences. If you’re interested in a deeper understanding of the factors driving these offences and their theoretical implications, we encourage you to explore the full document.
Possession and distribution of child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is a serious criminal offence facilitated by online technologies. To prevent, investigate, and treat online CSAM offending, comprehensive knowledge of potential risk factors for these crimes is required. Given the large body of relevant research, a systematic overview of the risk factors typically considered in research and their link to (testable) theories is lacking. We present a review of 43 quantitative studies (sample sizes ranging from N = 60 to N = 14,804) identified from 56 meta-analyses, reviews, and book chapters on online CSAM offending. Risk factors were extracted and grouped into 12 categories and 75 subcategories via qualitative clustering. The most frequent categories were Criminal History, Socio-Demographics, and Social Relations, whereas genuine psychological constructs were rare. Comparing risk factors for online CSAM offending to those for general (sexual) offending, the need for more specific theories of online CSAM offending is discussed along with implications for future research.
On behalf of the ARICA project team, we cordially invite you to read this article:
The article was first published in the Journal of Sexual Aggression in November 2024.
Full title: A review of risk factors for online and mixed child sexual abuse material offending: what is being researched? [Link]
Authors: Arjan Blokland, Anton Daser, Frederic Gnielka, Rebecca Reichel, Alexander F. Schmidt, Robert Lehmann.
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