Child abuse

FEATURE: A new resource package for forces in England and Wales is designed to improve the response to cases of witchcraft, spirit possession and ritualistic abuse (WSPRA) includes an operational briefing, case studies and academic research, along with calls for police and other statutory agencies to shed their “institutionalised disbelief” of WSPRA reports in an effort to improve awareness and recognition of an offence that is barely reflected in recorded crime figures, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: The latest report from the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) on AI-generated child sexual abuse material (CSAM) highlights an “alarming” rate of growth in imagery that is leaving investigators facing a “needle-in-a-haystack challenge”; the IWF is urging governments, tech companies and institutions not to waste the opportunity to act now on AI CSAM imagery, and that ignoring the risks would be “failing children and ourselves”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A ‘deep dive’ review of the multi-agency safeguarding responses to county lines exploitation and serious youth violence has highlighted the “vast and complex landscape” around safeguarding children and young people, with fragmented strategies, gaps in legislation, and a reluctance among young-in-service police officers to undertake foot patrols all contributing to an ongoing “perfect storm” of continued child exploitation, as Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: UK policing’s current national training approach to child criminal exploitation (CCE) and criminal exploitation (CE) is “largely deficient”, according to a new report from the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, which also calls for a shift from an enforcement lens to one of vulnerability to tackle CCE/CE and criminal exploitation in drug markets, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report by Criminal Justice Inspection Northern Ireland into how the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) and the wider criminal justice system recognises, assesses and responds to child criminal exploitation highlights the “inconsistent and, in many respects, inadequate” responses, and urges the PSNI to improve its delivery model as well as recoding and monitoring systems to better protect children targeted by paramilitary groups and criminals, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: A “revolutionary” suite of tech tools developed as part of the Tackling Organised Exploitation (TOEX) programme’s Capabilities Environment is now being made available to all police forces in England and Wales, to assist with complex investigations into child sexual exploitation and abuse as well as other serious crime, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INTERVIEW: Human trafficking and exploitation are challenges that law enforcement cannot “police your way out of”, warns UCL’s Ella Cockbain, Professor of Human Trafficking and Exploitation, with more focus on a public health approach, improved listening to the voices of victims and survivors, and a better understanding of what really works among the key steps to meeting those challenges, as Prof Cockbain explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

ADVERTISEMENT FEATURE: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children says GenAI-related child exploitation increased 6,345% in the US from 2024 to 2025. One alarming trend is the use of GenAI to general deepfake child sexual abuse materials. SS8 helps detect and investigate these images by combining EXIF metadata analysis, third party detection solutions like wasitAI, lawful intelligence data, and more, but standardized legal definitions and technological guardrails are necessary as well.

FEATURE: Two recent reports into group based child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) in the UK – one by HM Inspectorate of Constabulary and Fire & Rescue Services, the other by the Hydrant Programme – have highlighted a lack of data around CSAE, the need for more consistency around understanding and identification of crimes, and the importance of a “robust national solution” to tackling CSAE, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report from the Vulnerability Knowledge and Practice Programme which analyses the latest figures around child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) in the UK highlights a 6% rise in recorded offences – although under-reporting of CSAE is still regarded as a major concern – with the growth in online platforms, the wider use of AI, and the effects of the cost-of-living crisis among a range of factors contributing to the increase, reports Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

OPINION: Research from the National Association for People Abused in Childhood (NAPAC) is spearheading survivor-informed change throughout operational policing and the criminal courts; NAPAC Chief Executive Gabrielle Shaw outlines how the research offers an alternative approach to justice which looks beyond criminal conviction, prioritising support for survivors and building a system that provides accessible routes to both formal and personal justice outcomes.

OPINION: Former West Midlands Sergeant Phil Cleary, co-founder of SmartWater and now a published novelist, shares one officer’s account of how underfunded services, not indifference, may have shaped the failures around the UK child grooming scandal that are now widely condemned, explores what could have been done differently, and suggests steps the current Government could take to reset the child protection and safeguarding response.

ANALYSIS: New figures from Childlight’s Into the Light index show that around five million children across western Europe report having been raped or sexually assaulted by the age of 18, with more than 50 million in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka experiencing the same sexual violence; Childlight’s Director of Data, Professor Deborah Fry, says the “deeply troubling” data is being driven by a surge in AI-generated child sexual abuse material, but believes that enforcement and prevention efforts can have a significant impact.

FEATURE: A report into the organised ritual abuse of children and adults in England and Wales is warning of the considerable barriers to reporting abuse involving multiple offenders acting in concert to terrorise victims, and that the limited number of detections and convictions for such offences is likely to be the “tip of the iceberg”, suggesting that policing and other agencies need to take seriously “the prospect of multiple undetected homicides”, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

ANALYSIS: Baroness Casey’s latest review was pounced upon as proof the authorities have suppressed uncomfortable truths around the ethnicity of grooming gangs, and while her findings don’t quite confirm that, she is critical of the lack of action to protect vulnerable girls during the past decade; the Government has committed to implement her recommendations – but Policing Insight’s Ian Wiggett examines whether they will really make a difference.

FEATURE: Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons spoke to two officers from the South Australian Joint Anti-Child Exploitation Team (SA JACET) – one of a number of JACET units across the country – about their successes in protecting children and arresting offenders involved in online child sexual exploitation, as annual referrals to the national Centre to Counter Child Exploitation soar, increasing more than five-fold over the past seven years.

OPINION: Baroness Casey’s recent report into grooming gangs and child sexual exploitation (CSE) in England and Wales made 12 recommendations, including a new national inquiry into child sexual exploitation; but Aisha K Gill, Professor of Criminology at the University of Bristol, warns that, with none of the previous independent inquiry’s 20 recommendations fully implemented, identifying and rectifying the failures of police and local authorities remains crucial to securing justice for the victims of CSE.

ANALYSIS: A new report exposes the financial mechanisms that are enabling the online sexual exploitation and abuse of children on a global scale, as well as highlighting that financial institutions, tech companies and online payment platforms are also profiting from this “grotesque marketplace”, as Deborah Fry, Professor of International Child Protection Research at the University of Edinburgh and Global Director of Data for Childlight, the Global Child Safety Institute, explains.

FEATURE: A new report from the Vulnerability Knowledge Practice Programme analysing police-recorded child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) highlights the scale of the crime, gaps in reporting, and threats that could contribute to further increases in CSAE, as well as legislation and other measures that could improve the police response, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report from the Financial Action Task Force explores the financial drivers behind the “heinous” crime of online child sexual exploitation, with the increasing prevalence of live-streamed sexual abuse of children and the financial sexual extortion of children creating millions of embarrassed and vulnerable young victims around the world every year, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: A new report from the Centre of expertise on child sexual abuse into the latest trends in child sexual abuse (CSA) offences in England and Wales has highlighted record levels of charges for CSA and long delays in court cases, but also significant geographical variations in data recording and trends that suggest the response to sexually abused children “depends on where they live”, prompting calls for a Government-led national prevalence survey to establish the true scale of the problem, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

INNOVATION: As forces increase contact channels to include digital and online routes, the likelihood of comms staff being exposed to harmful images has increased, says Rebecca Malpass, Digital Communications Development Senior for Derbyshire Constabulary; now a new AI-based image filter together with additional guidance for staff can help to protect individuals from being exposed to indecent images, as she explained to Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons.

INNOVATION: With the increasing use of artificial intelligence (AI) to generate online child sex abuse material (CSAM), a new report from the Australian Institute of Criminology has highlighted the potential of the new technology to be deployed in the fight against CSAM and to relieve some of the burden on human investigators – but also warns that many would-be AI solutions are still not fit for purpose, as Policing Insight’s Sarah Gibbons reports.

FEATURE: With the rapid development of artificial intelligence (AI) making the technology both more available and easier to use, Policing Insight’s Andrew Staniforth looks at law enforcement efforts to tackle AI-generated online child sexual abuse material – including last month’s success of Operation Cumberland, involving European, UK, Australian and New Zealand forces – as well as EU steps to tackle other damaging AI-generated online content.