At ‘The Knock’, we highlight the injustices of the current criminal justice system surrounding those people who have accessed child sex abuse material. Under no circumstances do the family members of these offenders condone this behaviour. The impact of CSAM not only deeply impacts the victims directly, but by way of proxy, the families of those who have accessed this material, are also greatly affected. Innocent spouses of offenders and their children are subjected to a myriad of impacts so considerable as to cause long-lasting severe PTSD that affects immune function. Many are left destitute without support and children are targeted for abuse and harassment from the community.
97% of those accessing CSAM are men, and their wives are left to pick up the pieces. Overnight, they are thrust into the world of child protective services and typically regarded with suspicion as secondary perpetrator by government agencies. Innocent women are blamed and shamed. The intensive and extensive resources that are spent by Social Services is intermittent and hugely traumatising for these families. Innocent non-offending partners are scrutinised and discriminated against instead of supported in the way that secondary victims should be.
Pleas from offenders are often ignored and despite undergoing rigorous risk assessments which prove they are not a risk to contact sexual harm to children, they are treated as dangerous high-risk for a long time. This is despite very low recidivism rates and adherence to educational rehabilitative programmes. This over-estimation of risk and heavy-handed approach by the criminal justice system and Social Services cause significant harm to the innocent wives and children of the offenders.
The grief that is experienced by non-offending family members of these low-risk CSAM offenders is not socially permitted. Even though their lives have been torn apart, they are not recognised officially as victims and hence not protected by the Victims Charter. This gives carte blanch to Social Services, who in numerous cases keep families living apart for long periods of time, overmanaging risk. This breaches the Human Rights Act 1998 (Article 8) which advocates that families have a right to private life. The Children’s Act 2014 identified that more emphasis should be kept on keeping children within their families. Further, it highlighted reoffending rates are a lot lower of inmates who have contact with their children. Despite this the heavy-handed approach of Social Services has devastated family life for many innocent secondary victims.
Not all accessors of CSAM are alike. The Police Foundation (Police’s Think Tank), in July 2022 released a report entitled “Turning the Tide Against Online Child Sexual Abuse”. It suggested “dedicating more investigative resources at proactively identifying serious offenders, in particular those involved in grooming and possessing first generation material”. The report recognises that not all CSAM are high risk, and low risk offenders should be cautioned instead of heavy punitive custodial sentences. You can read more about this below.
‘The Knock’ is a collaborative project between non-offending family members of these low risk offenders. We welcome this report by The Police Foundation. It recognises that offenders’ families need more support. Faster processing time by the police and streamlining of risk assessments of offenders being fast-tracked will help reduce the huge destruction that offenders’ families face.
Excerpt below from the “Turning the Tide Against Online Child Sexual Abuse” July 2022 report.
Criminal investigation remains essential in each CSAM case to identify those in which there is a risk of more serious sexual abuse. Where none is discovered however the police should be able to issue a conditional caution to CSAM only offenders with the following provisions:
• As a minimum, the offenders should be mandated to attend an educational course at their own expense. The courses would communicate the harms from these crimes, address criminogenic attitudes,
give information on the law and signpost additional services if needed.
• Compliance with these conditions would be monitored and criminal sanctions imposed in the event of a breach.
• Appropriate safeguarding controls should be in place. Each offender would remain on police systems so that their risk to the community could be monitored. and with their participation in the scheme revealed via enhanced DBS checks so that they could never work in a role involving contact with children. This scheme should be trialled in the first instance and would be subject to a full evaluation.