Online Sexual Violence, Child Pornography or Something Else Entirely? Police Responses to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Sharing among Youth

Abstract

Due to child pornography laws, non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth is subjected to complex legal landscapes in a variety of jurisdictions such as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. While a growing number of scholars have problematized the use of child pornography charges to respond to these cases, there remains little understanding regarding how the police that enforce these laws conceptualize this issue and how this influences responses to these cases. Drawing from interviews with members of sex crime–related units in police service organizations from across Canada, this article examines how police conceptions of non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth correspond with and/or diverge from legal and critical understandings of this issue. While it is widely understood that online and digitally enabled forms of sexual violence pose unique challenges for police, our research fills a gap in the literature by examining how police themselves understand and respond to these challenges.

Punishing ‘Revenge Porn’: Legal Interpretations of and Responses to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Distribution in Canada

“…wherein a 14-year-old boy was convicted of a child pornography offence for sharing images of 14-16 year-old girls, would be included as a case of NCIID as I am in agreement with literature asserting that such acts among youth are more in line with definitions of NCIID than child pornography (See Chapter 3 for further arguments in this regard) ( Dodge and Spencer 2017, Shariff and DeMartini 2015). However, the line between a case of NCIID and one of child pornography was not always easy to determine, such as in my decision to include R v Schultz wherein the victim was 16years-old and the offender 20.…”

“…Understandings of NCIID as a form of cyberbullying are less common within Canadian case law. References to cyberbullying appeared in six cases in my dataset, however these appearances were generally cursory, with judges only fleetingly mentioning "cyberbullying" as an example of the new dangers of digital technology (Doe v ND 2016, R v CNT 2015 Dodge and Spencer, 2017).…”

“…First, as discussed at length in Chapter 2, the inclusion of NCIID within the term cyberbullying wrongly implies that all cases of NCIID involve the use of digital technology and that these technologies are always an important aspect of this act. The second issue with the cyberbullying framing is that the word bullying tends to incorrectly imply that this issue is one only, or primarily, involving youth and "childhood wrongdoing" (Lidsky 2012 Angelides 2013, Dodge and Spencer, 2017).…”

“…Child pornography charges are extremely stigmatizing and their application to youths should not be taken lightly (West Coast LEAF 2014, Shariff and DeMartini 2015). In fact, police in Canada are often apprehensive about using child pornography charges in youth cases of NCIID and, while some officers continue to charge youth with child pornography offences at times, many officers believe that these charges are far too harsh and generally inappropriate to use against youth, as they perceive the charge as having been created to respond to the high level of predation and social scorn associated with adult "sex offenders" ( Dodge and Spencer, 2017).…”

“…The evidence does, however, support the charge of criminal harassment" (R v SB et al, 2014, para 19-20). Wodda and Panfil 2018); however, there has been much less discussion regarding whether it is appropriate to apply child pornography charges to youth who share images without consent (Shariff andDeMartini 2015, Slane, 2013, Dodge and Spencer, 2017). Slane broaches this issue, asserting that the reluctance on the part of some Canadian police and Crown prosecutors to charge youth with child pornography offences, even for widespread distribution of intimate images, "seems to be seated in the sense that child pornography offences are meant to address the use of images of minors for sexual ends" (Slane, 2013, 119).…”