The internet has revolutionised communications and information sharing. It provides an
ever increasingly important platform for creativity and economic growth. Online social
media services are providing new ways of interacting and keeping in touch. Online
communications enable expressions of human behaviour both positive and negative;
sometimes downright criminal. Our inquiry has focused on three disparate aspects of
online content and behaviour, all of which are of widespread concern: illegal content,
especially images of child abuse; harmful adult content being made freely available to
children; bullying and harassment on social media.
Both the publication and possession of child abuse images are rightly illegal. While these
offences are bad enough, it must not be forgotten that such images represent crime scenes,
often of the most horrific kind. There is a clear need to ensure that the police have
adequate resources to track down and arrest online paedophiles in sufficient numbers to
act as a meaningful deterrent to others. If necessary, additional funding should be
provided to recruit and train a sufficiently large number of police officers adequate to the
task.
The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Command, now part of the new
National Crime Agency, has a well-deserved reputation as a lead body in tackling child
abuse. It has been increasingly effective not least because it is not solely a criminal justice
organisation: its education and social care work has also been very important in increasing
public understanding of the problem of child abuse and in offering means of countering
abusers. All three elements of its mission – education, social care and criminal justice –
need to be actively pursued and publicised.