Legal, ethical, and methodological considerations in the Internet‐based study of child pornography offenders

Abstract

With its ever-growing penetration of remote regions of the world, the Internet provides great opportunity for conducting research. Beyond clear advantages such as increased cost-effectiveness and efficiency in collecting large samples, Internet-based research has proven particularly useful in reaching hidden or marginalized populations who engage in illegal or deviant behaviors. However, this new medium for research raises important and complex legal, ethical, and methodological/technological issues that researchers must address, particularly when studying undetected criminal behaviors. The current paper chronicles various issues that were encountered in the implementation of an active Internet-based pilot research study of child pornography (CP) users. Moreover, this study was undertaken to address a critical gap in the existing research on CP offending, which has to date primarily focused on incarcerated or convicted samples. The Internet provides the optimal medium for studying community populations of CP users, given that it has become the primary market for CP distribution. This paper is designed to serve as a guide for researchers interested in conducting Internet-based research studies on criminal and sexually deviant populations, particularly CP offenders. Several recommendations are offered based on our own experiences in the implementation of this study.

The Psychological Profiles of Internet, Contact, and Mixed Internet/Contact Sex Offenders

“…It can be assumed that offenders who have been sentenced to a community sentence will have committed offenses that were not considered serious enough, or did not have a long enough criminal history, to warrant incarceration. Internet offenses are often very difficult to detect, and hence, there may be subsets of online offenders who we do not see or have access to (Neutze et al, 2010; Ray, Kimonis, & Donoghue, 2010). Similarly, it is not known whether or not individuals in both our internet and contact samples have undetected offenses of the other type.…”

Examining Implicit and Explicit Evaluations of Sexual Aggression and Sexually Aggressive Behavior in Men Recruited Online

“…Second, participants were provided with information about withdrawing from the study and national and international resources in case of distress prior to completing the study (prestudy debriefing form); participants were able to withdraw from the survey at any time and still receive compensation; and a debriefing form following withdrawal from or completion of the study was provided that contained information on sexual assault, cognitions about sexual assault, and the harmful effects of this type of behavior, as well as national and international resources in case of distress. Third, all of the data collected were anonymous (see Qualtrics anonymous link: https://www.qualtrics.com/support/survey-platform/distributions-module/web-distribution/anonymous-link/) and were encrypted using Secure Socket Layers (SSL) ensuring that they are meaningless while in transit (Nosek et al, 2002; Ray, Kimonis, & Donoghue, 2010). More generally, past research suggests there is minimal emotional harm in asking participants to self-report whether they have engaged in past sexually aggressive behavior (e.g., Edwards, Gidycz, & Desai, 2012; Shorey, Cornelius, & Bell, 2011; Yeater, Miller, Rinehart, & Nason, 2012).…”

Constructive and Enabling Ethics in Criminological Research

“…A further aspect of managing disclosures is to ensure that the researcher does not induce the participant, consciously or otherwise, to incriminate themselves (Ray et al 2009). For example, asking a participant about their personal illegal substance use is potentially incriminating.…”