Soldino V, Seigfried-Spellar KC. Criminological differences between contact-driven and online-focused suspects in online child sexual grooming police reports.
Child Abuse Negl 2024;
149:106696. [PMID:
38359776 DOI:
10.1016/j.chiabu.2024.106696]
[Citation(s) in RCA: 0] [Impact Index Per Article: 0] [Reference Citation Analysis] [What about the content of this article? (0)] [Affiliation(s)] [Abstract] [Key Words] [MESH Headings] [Track Full Text] [Subscribe] [Scholar Register] [Received: 07/20/2023] [Revised: 02/05/2024] [Accepted: 02/08/2024] [Indexed: 02/17/2024]
Abstract
BACKGROUND
Differences exist between contact and noncontact-driven online child sexual abuse offenders; however, there is still a notable lack of empirical studies with police samples from non-English speaking countries, including Spain.
OBJECTIVE
We address this gap by analyzing the criminological characteristics of online child sexual grooming (OCSG) suspected offenders from de-identified law enforcement investigations in Spain.
PARTICIPANTS AND SETTING
We anonymously coded data provided by Spanish law enforcement agencies from 257 OCSG cases (i.e., unique chat logs between a suspect and minor) extracted from 98 police reports with index investigation years from 2008 to 2021. A total of 101,391 messages were analyzed.
METHODS
Three distinct datasets were created: 257 OCSG cases, 120 unique suspects (79 online-focused, 41 contact-driven), and 234 unique victims. Each dataset focused on different criminological variables for analysis, such as grooming strategy, motivation, and victim high-risk behaviors.
RESULTS
There were no significant differences between suspects on gender, age, or criminal offense history. Contact-driven suspects were more likely to use positive rapport (ɸ = 0.18), send unprompted sexually explicit images of themselves (ɸ = 0.19), and offer something in exchange (ɸ = 0.25). Victims of contact-driven individuals were more likely to be male (ɸ = 0.52) and offer something in exchange for sex or sexually explicit images (ɸ = 0.18). Victims of online-focused individuals were more likely to be younger (r = 0.26).
CONCLUSIONS
These findings suggest criminological differences in the online grooming strategies between contact-driven and online-focused suspected offenders in Spain.
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