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Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force personnel face various forms of child exploitation on a daily basis; their jobs require them to view child pornography, participate in undercover chats, interact with offenders in person, and interview abuse survivors. Although exposure to child exploitation and sexual violence has been shown to cause secondary traumatic stress (STS) in certain professions, this is the first large-scale study to investigate risk for STS among ICAC personnel. We circulated an Internet-based survey to ICAC personnel throughout the country and more than 600 individuals responded. Results provide insight into how STS impacts personal and professional well-being. In addition, they highlight which coping mechanisms were inversely related to STS scores. Implications and limitations of the results are discussed.

Research investigating how secondary traumatic stress impacts those who work in the field of child exploitation is in its early stages. In the current study we investigate how attempts to cope with secondary traumatic stress vary between investigators in the United States and their counterparts in the United Kingdom. After examining the best-fitting models we found both similarities and differences in predictors of secondary traumatic stress. For example, the level of self-reported difficulty and frequency of interactions with disturbing media were positively related to higher secondary traumatic stress scores in both groups; supervisory support, however, was related to lower secondary traumatic stress scores only in the U.S. sample. The implications and limitations of our findings are discussed.

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