Summary
The Internet, its affordability, accessibility, and anonymity provide new venues where child exploitation crimes have increased. An exponential rise in the exchange of images of sexual abuse, commonly referred to as ‘child pornography’, has occurred. The purpose of this major paper was to explore this phenomenon within an international context, and assess the capacity of Canadian law enforcement (national and municipal) to respond. In order to do so a survey was sent to police departments across Canada, to have officers identify the challenges they faced in responding to images of child abuse on the Internet, and to solicit officers’ general opinions on this issue. The research resulted in five key findings that implied that existing capacity gaps were rooted in a lack of applied or ratified international agreements and commitments, a failure of system interoperability, a lack of effective private-public partnerships, and the weaknesses in current Canadian legislation, particular to mandated reporting of suspicious content (which is now under review). Finally, a lack of appropriate, accessible support and training for police was identified. Informed by the research, the author makes several recommendations.