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With the increasing number of individuals accessing online child sexual exploitation material (CSEM), there is an urgent need for primary prevention strategies to supplement the traditional focus on arrest and prosecution. We examined whether online warning messages would dissuade individuals from visiting a honeypot website purporting to contain barely legal pornography. Participants ( n = 419) seeking the site were randomly assigned to one of five conditions; they went straight to the landing page (control; n = 100) or encountered a warning message advising of the potential harm to viewers ( n = 74), potential harm to victims ( n = 65), ability of police to track IP addresses ( n = 81), or possible illegality of such pornography ( n = 99). We measured the attempted click-through to the site. Attrition rates for the warning message conditions were 38% to 52%, compared with 27% for the control group. The most effective messages were those that warned that IP addresses can be traced (odds ratio [OR] = 2.64) and that the pornography may be illegal (OR = 2.99). We argue that warning messages offer a valuable and cost-effective strategy that can be scaled up to help reduce the accessing of CSEM online.

Child sexual abuse material in child-centred institutions: situational crime prevention approachesThis paper focuses on the potential for child-centred institutions to use situational crime prevention (SCP) strategies to prevent or reduce child sexual abuse material (CSAM) 2 offending as a distinct form of child sexual abuse (CSA). We discuss the failure of the Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse (RCIRCSA) in Australia to address the potential for CSAM offending to occur in child-centred institutions. Our premise is that CSAM offending is markedly shaped by the situation in which it occurs, rather than by any pre-existing preparedness to offend sexually against children. In this context, SCP for CSAM offending must be considered as part of overall strategies to combat CSA in institutional settings. However, we acknowledge that effective implementation of SCP in this area is not straightforward. We consider some of the challenges in implementing SCP at an institutional level.

Forensic scientific evidence is becoming increasingly important to the criminal justice system. However, it is essential not to become complacent about the possibility of errors occurring with such evidence. The case of the wrongful conviction of Mr Farah Jama in Victoria on no more than a single piece of flawed DNA evidence serves as an object lesson for all actors involved in the investigation and prosecution of criminal cases to adopt a critical approach to forensic scientific evidence. This article discusses the role of the prosecutor with reference to practice in New South Wales and the particular recommendation of the inquiry conducted by Mr Frank Vincent AO QC into the Jama case that the investigator, the forensic specialist and the prosecutor find ways to work together that respect their independence while ensuring that the possibility for error is minimised.