Secondary Trauma and Parenting Practices in Internet Crimes against Children Task Force Investigators

Abstract

Investigating cases of child pornography requires daily exposure to sexually explicit material involving children and may have negative implications on the mental wellbeing of those in this line of work. This study aimed to identify whether secondary traumatic stress symptoms were associated with participants' parenting behaviors and concerns about their own children's use of the internet. Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force workers (n = 212) completed online questionnaires measuring work exposure to sexually explicit material, secondary traumatic stress symptoms, and parenting behaviors. Professionals in this field reported a wide range of secondary trauma symptoms, and their parenting behaviors were both directly and indirectly (via secondary trauma) affected by prolonged exposure to sexually explicit material involving children. Internet monitoring behaviors were more prevalent for parents of younger children, and mothers' parenting behaviors were more strongly associated with secondary trauma symptoms than were fathers. Results have implications for mental health and parenting services for professionals in this field.Keywords Secondary traumatic stress . Parenting . Child abuse investigators . Internet crimes against children Law enforcement officials who investigate cases of child pornography and other forms of child sexual abuse are required to interact with children and families who have been through extreme trauma. Unfortunately, professionals who work in this field do not experience these situations sparingly, as the requirements of their job involve frequent exposure to disturbing material on a daily basis (Hurrell et al. 2018). The resulting stress from this type of work often takes a psychological and emotional toll on the individuals who work in this field, such as experiencing emotional distress from working with and hearing accounts from traumatized victims (Figley 2002).

Feeling with the victim: Empathy for suffering as a job stressor in Internet Child Exploitation Investigation

“…Consistent with prior ndings (Bourke & Craun, 2014a;Brady, 2017;Perez et al, 2010;Vang et al, 2020) and in alignment with the JD-R model (Bakker et al, 2023;Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004), prolonged exposure poses a threat to health, leading to posttraumatic stress disorder. This indicates that the daily confrontation, inherent in the work role (Brady, 2017;Stewart & Witte, 2020), serves as a source of long-term posttraumatic stress. Additionally, by extending previous measurements of exposure (Brady, 2017;Perez et al, 2010), we highlight that intensity is as relevant as frequency for investigators.…”

“…Firstly, we re ne existing research by distinguishing between exposure and empathy for suffering, categorizing exposure as a work-related trauma confrontation (Fischbach, 2020;Kleineidam & Fischbach, 2023). Exposure to disturbing material is an inherent and essential task in internet child exploitation investigation (Brady, 2017;Stewart & Witte, 2020). However, prolonged exposure to traumatic experiences of child abuse at work can directly lead to posttraumatic stress disorder in the long run (American Psychiatric Association, 2013), previously identi ed as an indirect or secondary form of traumatization (Parkes et al, 2019).…”

How we can protect the protectors: learning from police officers and staff involved in child sexual abuse and exploitation investigations

“…CSAE officers and staff have reported desensitisation, intrusive thoughts, increased hypervigilance, suspiciousness and overprotectiveness ( Perez et al, 2010 ; Powell et al, 2015 ; Parkes et al, 2018 ), particularly in relation to their own children ( Stewart and Witte, 2020 ; Tapson et al, 2021 ). In their development of a traumatic events checklist for police, Miller et al (2021) asked police officers to rank their work-related traumatic events and found that the most populated category involved children, and included fatalities, abuse and sexual exploitation.…”