Interesting article about how Child Pornography affects investigators
Reply With QuoteCertainly an interesting article, and a big issue.
The fact of how much work will be around that kind of material was hammered home early for us at LMU, and I did a report, and therefore research into it. I can honestly say I'm prepared for the impact of it. I know myself well enough to know that I'll be able to deal with it - although, obviously, I don't know what it will be like. The levels of severity that I believe are used to grade the material, give a decent idea of what's coming up, I guess, but that's obviously nothing like seeing it. Whether it will affect me in a deep-seated psychological way over a longer term, I have no idea (not a pysch expert), but one has to assume not - or why would one train to do the job? Support from your employer must be present though, I think.
I suppose you're never used to seeing that kind of material, but it becomes a process that you have to go through, rather than a notable experience each time. We've all got our own personal thought-processes and feelings, but we share the disgust at it, and the desire to contribute toward stopping it, and it's perpetrators/distributers/possesors (within the role as forensic analysts - we have to know our remit, naturally). Known File Filters and auto-recognition tools etc can help of course. Perhaps the introduction of AI tools (we've been talking about auto-detection of crime in CCTV images at uni) for illegal images could reduce the need for human viewing? But seeing the material is, for now at least, a necessary evil, that we have to prepare for, as much as we can without seeing it beforehand.
Ryan
Bookmarks