Investigating Child Exploitation and Pornography: The Internet, Law and Forensic Science

Crime scenes associated with child sexual exploitation & trafficking in child pornography were once limited to physical locations such as school playgrounds, trusted neighbors' homes, camping trips & seedy darkly lit back rooms of adult bookstores. The explosion of Internet use has created a virtual hunting ground for sexual predators & has fueled a brisk, multi-billion dollar trade in the associated illicit material. Approximately half of the caseload in computer crimes units involves the computer assisted sexual exploitation of children. Despite the scale of this problem, or perhaps because of it, there are no published resources that bring together the complex mingling of disciplines & expertise required to put together a computer assisted child exploitation case. This work fills this void, providing police, prosecutors & forensic examiners with the historical, legal, technical, & social background for the laws prohibiting child exploitation.