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Journal article
Words That Carry Weight: Messages of Reprimand Delivered by Judicial Officers in Child Sexual Abuse Material Cases
Sexuality and Culture, Vol.Advanced access
2025
Abstract
Child sexual abuse material (CSAM) offending is a very serious crime, with long-term impacts on its victims. However, prior research indicates some clear disjuncture between public attitudes on the severity of this offending and the law. Such attitudes are problematic, particularly in potentially initiating and maintaining CSAM offending. There is a great need and value to tackle such attitudes, and utilizing sentencing remarks appears to be one educative vehicle for providing the public with messaging about the harms of this offending. While sentencing remarks delivered by the judiciary offer a rigorous form of data, they are rarely examined in research. Therefore, this research proposes to examine the key messages within the reprimand communicated by the judiciary for offenders convicted of CSAM offenses, allowing for a nuanced exploration of how censure is delivered to the offender and wider community. The study used the sentencing remarks of CSAM convictions from January 1, 2011 to April 30, 2020 in one jurisdiction of Australia (46 cases, each with one offender). A qualitative descriptive design was adopted, and data was analyzed using an inductive content analysis. Two themes were identified: (1) contributing to market demand; and (2) the harm extends beyond the offending. Theme two had several sub-themes: the circumstances beyond the abusive experience; additional impacts from circulation; and impacts on professionals involved in the investigations and judicial proceedings. We offer insights, including ideas for future research, to assist with understanding and preventing CSAM offending and reducing its associated impacts.
Details
- Title
- Words That Carry Weight: Messages of Reprimand Delivered by Judicial Officers in Child Sexual Abuse Material Cases
- Authors
- Larissa S. Christensen (Corresponding Author) - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, Sexual Violence Research and Prevention UnitJoanne Astle - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyJodie Woods - University of the Sunshine Coast, Queensland, School of Law and SocietyGeorge Tsagaris - Cleveland State University
- Publication details
- Sexuality and Culture, Vol.Advanced access
- Publisher
- Springer New York LLC
- DOI
- 10.1007/s12119-025-10453-x
- ISSN
- 1936-4822; 1095-5143
- Copyright note
- This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
- Data Availability
- Not applicable.
- Organisation Unit
- School of Law and Society; Sexual Violence Research and Prevention Unit
- Language
- English
- Record Identifier
- 991171843302621
- Output Type
- Journal article
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- International collaboration
- Web Of Science research areas
- Social Sciences, Interdisciplinary
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