BBC.COM
Studying the web's impact on sex offenders
By Mark Ward
Technology correspondent, BBC News
Operation Alpine recovered a server holding a huge store of images of abuse
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In May 2011, Lincolnshire Police announced that it had broken up a web-based news group that sold and distributed images of child sex abuse.
A four-year investigation named Operation Alpine led to the closure of the site and resulted in 132 UK children being identified and safeguarded. In addition, 55 arrests have been made of people who ran and used the site. More arrests are expected.
The vast majority of the 200 UK suspects who accessed the illegal images were not previously known to the police.
It is a feature that crops up time and again during investigations of sites that peddle child sex abuse images, said Mick Moran, Interpol's co-ordinator on child abuse.
"The vast majority of people being arrested for possession of child sex abuse material are between 25-45, white and taxpayers," he said. "Those people are not normally the ones that come to the police's attention."
Mr Moran believes that is odd because the web's openness and lack of anonymity make it a poor choice for anyone breaking the law.
Clockwise from top left: George Frost, Ian Frost, Ian Sambridge and Paul Rowland were convicted for their roles in distributing child abuse images
"From a law enforcement point of view and a sex offender point of view the web is not the ideal source of this material," said Mr Moran.
Established offenders prefer to get material they covet via more covert sources such as invitation-only discussion forums, peer-to-peer networks and dedicated file transfer sites, he explained.
When images of child sex abuse appear on the web there's usually a very obvious motive.
"The web is only used where there is an attempt to monetise this material," he said.
That view stands in contrast to the other places where established abusers trade content, not for cash, but on a like-for-like exchange basis.
Material world
In the UK, the Internet Watch Foundation shuts down websites where images of child sex abuse are being shared and offered for sale. In 2010, the IWF's annual report said that it knew of 14,602 sites peddling images. About 59 pages a day were added to that list.
Most of the reports about sites hosting the images come from members of the public that stumble across the material, said Emma Lowther, a spokesperson for the IWF.
Much of the material found online is simply copied from elsewhere, she explained.
"A lot of the content is recycled," she said. "As soon as an image is put up in one place it can be copied and replicated elsewhere."
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Child abuse web pages worldwide
Based on location of hosting provider
- North America: 42% (7,058)
- Europe, including Russia: 41% (6,829)
- Asia: 17% (2,839)
- South America: 0% (12)
- Australia: 0% (1)
Source: Internet Watch Foundation Operational Trends 2010
The ease with which content can be copied and shared creates its own problems for police forces as they comb through it to identify victims, abusers and networks.
Operation Alpine netted more than one million images and 6,000 films. Other operations have produced similarly huge amounts of material.
In many cases it is far too much for any individual to look through and categorise, said Pelle Gara from technology firm Net Clean which helps some police forces catalogue what they find.
Analysing all the content was important, he said, because the charges brought against defendants depend on the severity of the images and films found.
Computers can do the work quickly by reducing images to a digital shorthand. They can compare what has been turned up in a recent raid to older material. The analysis can also aid investigations by teasing out links between sites and offenders.
"The pictures are the constant, not the sites they appear on," he said.
Letting computers do the analysis also means investigators and officers only have to look at content that has never been seen before.
That is good, said Mr Gara, because it reduces the number of images investigators have to look at. The psychological toll of viewing thousands of pictures or videos can be heavy.
Community work
Some experts believe that child abuse websites act as a "gateway" for new offenders
While more experienced offenders shun the web when seeking images of child sex abuse, evidence is starting to accumulate about the broader effect it has.
"The web has hugely facilitated exposure to this type of material," said Mr Moran, particularly for a class of what is known as "naive" offenders who are only starting to seek out such content.
That may help to explain why highly professional, educated people that were not known before to police are being caught in possession of the material.
Law enforcement agencies and psychologists are debating the relationship between the availability of the material online and those who are interested in it.
Dr Ethel Quayle, a lecturer in clinical psychology at the University of Edinburgh said that studies have done little to settle the question of what was more important to them - the easy availability of images or a latent sexual attraction to minors.
What was clear, she said, was that the web fulfils many of its founding impulses for the communities of offenders that spring up online.
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"The web has hugely facilitated exposure to this type of material”
Mike Moran
Interpol co-ordinator on child abuse
"The internet was always thought of in its early stages as really good learning environment," she said, "and to some extent that's what we also see if we look in some of the chat logs."
"A large amount of the content is learning from others how not to get caught," she said. Dr Quayle also believes that mixing in such a community helps to legitimise an interest in images of child sex abuse.
"Whatever else it does, no matter how large a step you take into that community, there's growing evidence that hanging out with the bad guys means you may do more," she said. "There's evidence to suggest that, but we are still a long way from knowing what that relationship is."
Dr Quayle said that it was unclear whether individuals would have begun offending, without access to the images.
But the figures are worrying. Although convictions for sexual offences against children are falling, the proportion of offences that relate to internet crimes against children are going up.
"It's a problem that's simply not going away," said Dr Quayle.
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- Massive paedophile ring uncovered 16 MARCH 2011, UK
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CNN.COM
Inspector: No sign of investigation in 1,111 New Orleans sex crime-related calls
updated 3:22 PM EST, Wed November 12, 2014
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- NEW: Inspector general says he's not sure how many sex assault victims denied justice
- In one case, a 2-year-old was found to have a sexually transmitted disease, report says
- Yet, the report alleges, detective said toddler gave no information warranting investigation
- In 1,290 sex crime-related calls, only 13.9% showed evidence of investigation after initial report
New Orleans (CNN) -- The report is full of harrowing details alleging that five New Orleans Police Department detectives in the special victims unit may have failed to investigate sex crimes over a three-year period.
But one case stands out.
According to the seven-page document released Wednesday by the city's Office of Inspector General, a 2-year-old was brought to a hospital emergency room after an alleged sexual assault. Tests would show the toddler had a sexually transmitted disease, the report said.
The detective in the case wrote in his report that the 2-year-old "did not disclose any information that would warrant a criminal investigation and closed the case," the inspector general's report said.
The detectives are not being identified because of the ongoing investigation, but their names have been provided to the NOPD's Public Integrity Bureau, the inspector general's report says.
Though the detectives weren't identified, Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said they were not rookies. Police Superintendent Michael Harrison said the detectives were "seasoned," and some had been with the NOPD for more than a decade.
"These people should have known... the right way to do things," Quatrevaux said.
'Not a word, even a single word'
The inspector general's findings indicate "there was no effective supervision of these five detectives over a three-year period. Nor could there have been any effective supervision of the supervisors, or any review of the outcome of the cases assigned to these five detectives."
The Public Integrity Bureau identified 1,290 sex crime-related calls assigned to the five detectives and determined that in only 179 instances -- 13.9% -- did the detectives file "supplemental reports documenting any additional investigative efforts beyond the initial report; these 179 supplemental reports were the total written investigative product of the five detectives for sex crime-related calls for service for three years."
When officers file an initial report, it's intentionally short and vague so as not to identify the victim, Quatrevaux told CNN. The report mentions the assault and the location and notes that a supplemental report will follow, he said.
"But in 60 percent of the cases, there was no supplemental report," he said. "There were a total of 1290 cases; 840, there's not a word, even a single word. Nothing. Nothing. There's nothing to note."
Because of the void of information in those 840 cases, the inspector general's report said, investigators "could not analyze 65% of the sex crime-related calls for service assigned to the five detectives."
Of the remaining 450 calls that were designated as rape, simple rape or indecent behavior with a juvenile, documentation suggests the five detectives followed through in less than 40%, or 179, of the cases, the report said.
How many victims denied justice?
The findings leave Quatrevaux wondering "how many potential sexual assault victims are out there without justice." He further called on the Public Integrity Bureau to launch investigations into police misconduct.
I'm committed to making sure that these crimes are investigated. ... We want to make this right.
Police Superintendent Michael Harrison
Police Superintendent Michael Harrison
He couldn't speak to the motivation, he said, but his office's findings point to an "organization whose culture has evolved to where this level of work is not that unacceptable."
Harrison, who took the department's reins from Ronal Serpas in August, months after the incidents in question, said he was disappointed by the report, which makes him realize there's more work to do within the department than he originally thought.
Serpas was superintendent for the entire period under investigation. He was named chief in 2010, about two years before the Justice Department announced an overhaul of the NOPDbecause of its history of corruption, excessive use of force, illegal searches and widespread racial discrimination. Last year, a court approved a settlement resolving the Justice Department investigation.
"I'm committed to making sure that these crimes are investigated and that any allegations brought against our officers are investigated," Harrison said. "We want to make this right."
The department has transferred the five detectives to "patrol-related duties" and has instituted policies to ensure cases are being thoroughly investigated, he said.
"Yes, they are getting paid," the superintendent said of the detectives, "and now there's an internal investigation to find out if there are departmental infractions or criminal laws that were violated."
In another alleged sex assault cited in the report, a juvenile went to an emergency room and spoke to a specialist who reported that the child gave "specific information" about sexual and physical abuse perpetrated by "a named individual who was living in the same house with the juvenile." That person was a registered sex offender, according to the report.
Detective D told at least three different individuals that Detective D did not believe that simple rape should be a crime.
Inspesactor General report
Inspesactor General report
Detective A wrote that the child disclosed no information about a sexual assault and closed the case "due to a lack of evidence," the report said.
Ignoring medical reports?
Quatrevaux said these sorts of allegations are concerning because "if we're not going to pay attention to what's in the medical reports, then I don't know how we could even get to these sorts of crimes."
In another similar case more than two years ago, Detective E was assigned two cases in which the victims underwent sexual assault exams yielding documentation of physical injuries and other potential physical evidence.
The Louisiana State Police DNA Laboratory contacted the NOPD to say one of the specimens matched DNA from another crime scene, but the NOPD still has yet to submit "a reference sample to confirm the match," the report said.
In the other case, the DNA lab told NOPD it had submitted an incorrect kit, but "the NOPD has not responded," according to the report.
A review of the DNA Laboratory's records shows that as of October 13, 2014, the NOPD has failed to respond to 53 state lab requests for "reference samples" to confirm that DNA obtained in an investigation matches DNA in an FBI database, the report said. The requests date back to July 2010.
Another portion of the report homes in on Detective D, who, according to the investigation, was given 11 simple rape cases over the three-year period.
Simple rape is defined as an assault in which the perpetrator rapes a victim that the perpetrator knows is incapable of resisting or understanding what's happening because the victim is in a stupor, intoxicated or "through unsoundness of mind" is temporarily or permanently incapable of understanding the nature of the act.
Of those 11, five had no supplemental reports, one had no file at all and one was taken to prosecutors, the inspector general's report said.
"Detective D told at least three different individuals that Detective D did not believe that simple rape should be a crime," it said.
Phone records, rape kits & back-dated reports
Among the other allegations in the report:
-- A victim told Detective B she was sexually assaulted and robbed of her iPhone, but there is no documentation indicating police tracked the phone;
-- A victim told a nurse before a sexual assault exam that she was receiving threatening text messages from her assailant, but there is no documentation showing Detective D tried to obtain phone records. Detective D also never submitted the rape kit to the Louisiana State Police DNA Laboratory because, the detective wrote, "the sex was consensual";
-- Detective A was assigned two cases in which infants were taken to the emergency room with skull fractures. In one case, a nurse suspected "non-accidental trauma," but Detective A did not investigate. In the other case, a doctor found a previous skull fracture, and the infant's mother gave conflicting accounts of what happened, but Detective A determined there was "no cause for criminal action."
-- Detective A was given 13 total cases, including the aforementioned, in which potential juvenile victims of sexual or physical abuse were still in the home where the abuse occurred. Eleven of those cases had no documents showing "any investigative effort beyond the initial report."
-- Detective B was given three cases in which the state laboratory identified DNA evidence, but there are no documents indicating a follow-up investigation.
-- In 2013, the inspector general requested supplemental reports missing from case files belonging to Detective C -- three from 2011 and one from 2010 -- but after the reports were submitted, investigators learned all four reports "were created on the same day in 2013, shortly after NOPD received the OIG request for the missing reports." Investigators determined the same thing happened with a 2010 and 2011 reporting missing from Detective E's files;
That last example was "perhaps the most egregious," Quatrevaux said.
"The auditors point out that they didn't have certain case files and asked the NOPD to send it to them," he said. "We got the cases a few days later, but when we checked with the (NOPD information technology) department we found that those records were post-dated two and three years. ... They were created when we made the request."
It began with a few dozen reports
The probe began when the Office of Inspector General's investigations division reviewed 90 sex crime-related reports acquired by the audit division.
There's so many cases where the documentation suggests nothing was done.
Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said
Inspector General Ed Quatrevaux said
A May audit report cited a litany of violations of NOPD practices and policies, including mis-classifying crimes, failure to investigate, incomplete incident reports, failure to remit items to Central Evidence and Property, failure to maintain documents and backdating supplemental reports.
Investigators then identified detectives who either failed to provide documents showing they investigated the cases or "provided questionable documentation," the report said.
Of those 90 cases, six reports had been created later than the date stated on the report, seven had no supplemental reports detailing investigative efforts and four contained information that didn't match medical documents, according to the inspector general's report.
The curious documentation led the investigations division to review every case assigned to those five detectives from January 2011 to December 2013. They listened to audio tapes, interviewed nurses, visited the property room, examined the record on rape kits and talked to state police to put together the "full picture," Quatrevaux said.
The inspector general told CNN he'd never seen anything like this, "not in terms of the volume, the wholesale nature of it."
"There's so many cases where the documentation suggests nothing was done," Quatrevaux said. "We don't know that for a fact, but we're missing the documentation. That's what we need to have because the documentation is the evidence of investigative effort, and if it's not there, then obviously we're going to think it doesn't exist."
The NOPD's special victims section is composed of the sex crimes, child abuse and domestic violence units and "has the responsibility to handle the investigation of all rapes and attempted rapes, sexual batteries, and carnal knowledge cases (except in child abuse cases)," the department's website says.
CNN's Eliott C. McLaughlin wrote and reported from Atlanta, with Javier de Diego reporting from New Orleans. CNN's Alina Machado also contributed to this report.
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