Understanding Revenge Pornography: A National Survey of Police Officers and Staff in England and Wales

Abstract

Online abuse, facilitated via social media and mobile technologies, has recently attracted considerable academic attention. The nonconsensual sharing of intimate images-revenge pornography-can have a devastating effect on victims, is a global problem, and constitutes interpersonal violence. The national helpline in the United Kingdom has now received over 7,000 calls. In the United Kingdom, new legislation making revenge pornography a crime was introduced in 2014, yet the police do not always respond appropriately to victims. This article presents the findings of a national online survey of police understanding of revenge pornography, undertaken in the United Kingdom in March 2017. The study set out to investigate police knowledge of revenge pornography legislation, their confidence in responding to cases of revenge pornography, and what level of training they had received. A total of 783 members of the police force responded to the survey and, to the authors' knowledge, this the first study to seek to quantify the understanding of revenge pornography by police officers and staff in England and Wales. The findings suggest that the police in the United Kingdom have a limited understanding of revenge pornography legislation and lack confidence both in investigating cases and in effectively responding to victims. The implications of the study demonstrate that there is an urgent need for training across police forces to ensure that cases of revenge pornography are appropriately responded to, victims are safeguarded, and offenders brought to justice.

Technology-Facilitated Domestic and Sexual Violence: A Review

“…These include: inconsistent laws, a lack of police resources, evidentiary limitations, jurisdictional boundaries, and victim blaming or harm minimization attitudes (Powell & Henry, 2018; Henry, Flynn, & Powell, 2018). Bond and Tyrrell (2018), who surveyed 738 police and related personnel in England and Wales, have also pointed to similar problems, including: police knowledge of legislation, their confidence in responding to cases, and the level of training they had received. They found overwhelmingly that police had a limited understanding of laws and lacked confidence in both investigating cases and effectively responding to victims.…”

Police Officer Perceptions of Non-consensual Dissemination of Intimate Images

“…There is a reason to suspect that the majority of NCII cases remain unreported (Bond and Tyrrell, 2018;Henry et al, 2018b), similar to other sexual offenses (Grubb and Turner, 2012;Van der Bruggen and Grubb, 2014). Negative and victim-blaming attitudes on the part of the police might increase reluctance of victims to report NCII offenses and cooperate with police investigation.…”

“…Yet, being a relatively new phenomenon, only a few studies have addressed the issue of perceptions of NCII (Bothamley and Tully, 2018;Scott and Gavin, 2018;Zvi and Shechory-Bitton, 2020). To our knowledge, only one study has addressed the issue of police officers, examining 783 UK police officers and their knowledge of and experience with NCII cases (Bond and Tyrrell, 2018). It was found that the participants had limited understanding of these sorts of crimes and lacked confidence in investigating them and in responding to victims.…”

Image-Based Sexual Abuse: Online Distribution Channels and Illicit Communities of Support

“…Other challenges relating to law enforcement include a lack of understanding of the law by police, members of the judiciary, and the public, as well a lack of will to prosecute offenders (Bond & Tyrrell, 2018). Cross-jurisdictional barriers between different countries can also make it difficult, if not impossible, to detect, apprehend, and prosecute offenders (Henry, Flynn, & Powell, 2018).…”