Child sexual abuse and the Internet - Martin C. Calder

Sexual crime through the Internet poses a major new challenge to everyone working in the child sexual abuse field. What can be effectively transferred to our developing work with Internet offenders from our existing - rapidly expanding and changing - knowledge, theory and practice wisdom about sexual offending? What new material needs to be generated? To date, no other book has collated these challenges, which are much discussed at conferences and indeed over the Internet, nor attempted a synthesis of some of the preliminary signposts for frontline practitioners. This text achieves this goal by bringing together some of the most important ideas on the topic. It also stimulates discussion and encourages the development of effective management strategies. In particular, it sets out: What we know from research about the modus operandi of Internet sexual offenders; What practice and knowledge we can transfer from other areas of sexual offending to our identification, assessment and treatment of Internet sex offenders; What particular issues are raised by chat rooms as well as child pornography; The links between Internet and 'hands-on' sexual offending; What new materials are being gen