Online Sexual Violence, Child Pornography or Something Else Entirely? Police Responses to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Sharing among Youth
| Author | Dale C. Spencer,Alexa Dodge |
| DOI | 10.1177/0964663917724866 |
| Date | 01 October 2018 |
| Published date | 01 October 2018 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
Article
Social & Legal Studies
2018, Vol. 27(5) 636–657
Online Sexual Violence,
ª The Author(s) 2017
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DOI: 10.1177/0964663917724866
Something Else Entirely?
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Police Responses to
Non-Consensual Intimate
Image Sharing among Youth
Alexa Dodge and Dale C. Spencer
Carleton University, Canada
Abstract
Due to child pornography laws, non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth is
subjected to complex legal landscapes in a variety of jurisdictions such as Canada, the
United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. While a growing number of scholars
have problematized the use of child pornography charges to respond to these cases,
there remains little understanding regarding how the police that enforce these laws
conceptualize this issue and how this influences responses to these cases. Drawing
from interviews with members of sex crime–related units in police service organiza-
tions from across Canada, this article examines how police conceptions of non-
consensual intimate image sharing among youth correspond with and/or diverge
from legal and critical understandings of this issue. While it is widely understood that
online and digitally enabled forms of sexual violence pose unique challenges for police,
our research fills a gap in the literature by examining how police themselves under-
stand and respond to these challenges.
Keywords
Child pornography, cyberbullying, discretion, intimate images, online sexual violence,
policing, revenge porn, sexting
Corresponding author:
Alexa Dodge, Department of Law and Legal Studies, Carleton University, D581 Loeb Building, 1125 Colonel By
Drive, Ottawa, Ontario K2G6C9, Canada.
Email: alexandra_dodge@carleton.ca
Dodge and Spencer
637
Introduction
The term ‘online sexual violence’ (which may also be referred to as sexualized cyber-
bullying, cyber misogyny, technology-facilitated sexual violence or simply as part of the
continuum of sexual violence) refers to the ways that the Internet and digital technolo-
gies are utilized in the perpetration of sexual violence. Bourgeoning research on online
sexual violence widely asserts that this issue should be recognized as part of the con-
tinuum of sexual violence rather than as a new phenomenon detached from ‘traditional’
forms of sexual violence and related issues such as misogyny and sexism (see Benoit
et al., 2014; Salter, 2015; Powell, 2010). Thus, although online sexual violence is ‘new’
to the extent that technology enables certain new affordances (such as the shareability,
reach and permanence of digital images and text) for committing sexual violence (Boyd,
2014), this newness should not be seen to erase the connection to the sexist, racist,
homophobic, transphobic and otherwise discriminatory roots of all forms of sexual
violence (Bettcher, 2007; Mason 2002; Razack, 1994).
One form of online sexual violence that has garnered a great deal of media attention
and public concern is the non-consensual sharing of intimate images (Powell, 2010). The
non-consensual sharing of intimate images can accompany physical sexual violence
through sharing photographs or video of a sexual assault – such as occurred in inter-
nationally prominent cases like Steubenville in the United States1 and Rehtaeh Parsons
in Canada2 (Dodge, 2016; Fairbairn & Spencer, 2017; Broll and Huey, 2015). Such
sharing of images can also be a harmful form of sexual violence in and of itself when
photographs are non-consensually shared as a way to humiliate, ‘slut-shame’ or control
others. Whether or not the image is created consensually at the outset, ‘the distribution is
itself a direct violation of an individual’s sexual autonomy with the effect of humiliating,
intimidating or otherwise harassing the victim’ (Powell, 2010: 77).
While the issue of non-consensual intimate image sharing is a problem that affects
both adults and youth, this article focuses on police interpretations and responses to
incidents involving youth who non-consensually share intimate images of peers who are
considered children under local child pornography laws (those under the age of 18 in the
Canadian context). Due to child pornography laws, non-consensual intimate image
sharing among youth is subjected to notably complex and fraught legal landscapes in
a variety of legal jurisdictions such as Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom
and Australia3 (Angelides, 2013; Hassinoff, 2015; Henry and Powell, 2015; Salter et al.,
2013; Yar, 2013; Shariff and DeMartini, 2015). The present legal context around non-
consensual intimate image sharing creates challenges not only for youth who are
attempting to gain support from the criminal justice system, but also for police who are
attempting to understand and respond to these issues. A number of approaches have been
deployed in the aforementioned nations in their response to non-consensual intimate
image sharing including victim responsiblization, educational programmes and/or for-
mal police intervention. For example, Australia has deployed a number of approaches
including police interventions, educational programmes and the development of an
online reporting tool for non-consensual sharing of intimate images (Fifield, 2016).
Canada, like other English-speaking countries, has primarily relied on police interven-
tions as the main modality of investigating, responding to and preventing non-consensual
638
Social & Legal Studies 27(5)
intimate image sharing. In this article, we map how police conceptualize this social
problem and understand the legal frameworks guiding their response.
Drawing from a portion of 70 semi-structured interviews conducted with members of
specialized sex crime–related units, in this article, we ascertain how police conceptions
of youth non-consensual intimate image sharing correspond with and/or diverge from
legal and critical understandings of this social issue. In this article, we demonstrate that,
while the charge of child pornography continues to be utilized in cases involving youth,
police often find child pornography laws ill-suited to cases of non-consensual intimate
image sharing among youth and will often utilize discretion to avoid the criminalization
of (primarily male) youth (cf. Broll and Huey, 2015). Specifically, police use their
discretion to go against the letter of the law in responding to the dissemination of images,
citing the harsh nature of child pornography laws and the commonplaceness of the
offense as the main reasons for responding in non-criminalizing ways. We show that
due to the ‘big stick’ nature of child pornography charges and the deluge of complaints
brought before the police regarding the sharing of non-consensual intimate images
among youth, police often utilize alternative, extra-judicial means to respond to this
offense. It is particularly salient to comprehend the ways police understand and enforce
laws related to non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth as these considera-
tions directly affect the ways victims of and offenders involved in online sexual violence
are treated. More research is needed regarding the ways that police – and society more
generally – understand and respond to complex cases that exist at the intersections of our
understandings of youth sexuality, violence and digital technology. While a growing
number of scholars have problematized the use of child pornography charges to respond
to non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth (Angelides, 2013; Henry and
Powell, 2015; Shariff and DeMartini, 2015), there remains little understanding regarding
how this issue is conceptualized by the police that enforce these laws and how this
influences responses to these cases. While it is widely understood that online sexual
violence poses unique challenges for police attempting to respond to these cases (Henry
and Powell, 2015; Yar, 2013), our research fills a gap in the literature by examining how
police themselves understand and respond to these challenges.
The following article is structured in four main sections. First, we provide context for
our examination of police responses to non-consensual intimate image sharing by out-
lining relevant Canadian laws and both Canadian and international critiques of the use of
child pornography charges in these cases. In the second section, we consider the role of
police discretion in responding to non-consensual intimate image sharing among youth.
The third section outlines the methodology of this study. The final section offers an
analysis of police officer interpretations of and responses to non-consensual intimate
image sharing based on interviews with police officers from across Canada.
Legal Responses to Non-Consensual Intimate Image Sharing
in Canada
While adolescence is a perennial period of risk-taking, the Internet and advances in
communications technology, especially over the last 10 years (i.e. mobile connections
coupled with the rise of social networking sites), have amplified both opportunities for
Dodge and Spencer
639
identity formation, intimacy and sociability, as well as risks related to privacy, bullying
and sexual victimization (Hinduja and Patchin, 2014; Livingstone, 2008; Ngo and
Paternoster, 2011). More specifically, online sexual violence has been recognized as
a growing issue within our increasingly digitized world. However, while youth are
grappling with new cyber realities and technological affordances, it is important to
recognize that these behaviours are not new kinds of violence...
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