‘Paedophile Hunters’: Practitioner Perspectives
| Published date | 01 June 2023 |
| DOI | http://doi.org/10.1177/02645505211070084 |
| Author | Laura Frampton |
| Date | 01 June 2023 |
| Subject Matter | Articles |
‘Paedophile Hunters’:
Practitioner
Perspectives
Laura Frampton
Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Probation, Manchester, UK
Abstract
The National Police Chiefs’Council (NPCC) position on Online Child Abuse Activist
Groups (OCAGs), more commonly referred to as ‘paedophile hunters’, is that their
motivation should be questioned since there is no positive advantage to policing.
The problematic nature and inaccuracy of the term ‘paedophile hunter’will be
explored within this article, but the term is widely used in practice. Such activism
increases risk to potential victims, the suspect and to the efficiency and effectiveness
of criminal justice processes (NPCC, 2018). The Probation Service (PS) has no formal
position regarding the activity. Yet public fascination with those convicted of sexual
offences against children and the appetite for naming and shaming these individuals
is not a new phenomenon. The rise in popularity of the internet and the surge in con-
tent available online is more recent, and so is the problem of threat exceeding cap-
acity. But what are the views of practitioners on this issue? Using in-depth
qualitative interviews with police and probation practitioners, this paper examines
how ‘paedophile hunting’activity has become a concept in the management of sexual
offending in England and Wales, and for the first time, reveals the views and attitudes
of professionals working on the front line.
Keywords
paedophile hunters, probation, police, risk assessment, risk management, sexual
offending
Corresponding Author:
Laura Frampton, HM Inspectorate of Probation, Civil Justice Centre, Manchester,M3 3FX, United Kingdom.
Email: laura.frampton@hmiprobation.gov.uk
Article The Journal of Communit
y
and Criminal Justice
Probation Journal
2023, Vol. 70(2) 143–159
© The Author(s) 2022
Article reuse guidelines:
sagepub.com/journals-permissions
DOI: 10.1177/02645505211070084
journals.sagepub.com/home/prb
Introduction
A simple Google search of the word ‘paedophile’returns over 6,950,000 results in
0.39 s (Google, 2021). The top result is a promoted Google warning advising that
‘Child abuse imagery is illegal’(Google, 2021). In its simplest sense, this outlines the
enormity of our interest, curiosity, and aversion to this type of behaviour. Sexual
offences, but especially paedophilia, appear frequently in the political and
popular imagination of crime (Campbell, 2016). Evidence continues to demonstrate
that the criminal justice responses to those convicted of sexual offences against a
child have become increasingly more punitive, evidenced not only by the growth
of rigorous punishments, but also in the refraction of rights through various exclu-
sions (Campbell, 2016; Kemshall and Maguire, 2001; Williams, 2015).
Public preoccupation with sexual offenders is not new, it has been at the forefront
of social and political debate for many years (Frampton, 2021). What is more
recent, with the emergence and prevalence of access to information via online
sources, is the developing phenomena of ‘paedophile hunters’.‘Paedophile
Hunter UK’,‘TRAP’and ‘Dark Justice’are examples of groups of people who dedi-
cate a significant amount of time and energy, focusing on the identification and
sometimes entrapment of sexual offenders. Their objective, which has its basis
firmly within grass roots naming and shaming, is not new. Their tactics, primarily
the use of social media, which is as far reaching as a medium of communication
can be, begins to add an edge to this online activity, which permeates a far
greater audience than has been seen before (Frampton, 2021).
Naming and shaming offenders online allows members of the public to join with
more traditional media sources to challenge perceived inadequate responses by the
criminal justice system (Powell, 2015) and call for offenders to be held to account
(Dunsby and Howes, 2019). One of the most significant issues with this topic is
the vast number of terms that are used interchangeably to describe the same thing
(Frampton, 2021). Paedophile hunters, digital vigilantes, cyberactivists, Online
Child Abuse Activist Group (OCAG) and digilantes are all terms used to refer to
the same type of activity. The term paedophile hunting is problematic ethically
because the conception of paedophile implies that those who commit child sexual
offences are innately predatory, and because hunting implies an activity targeted
at animals, rather than people (Hadjimatheou et al., 2019). Whilst adapting exist-
ing terminology can be important for theoretical development, doing so can also be
limiting. Whilst many of these people are not by definition, paedophiles, this is the
term that is most commonly used by both the media and the public, as well as by
professionals working within the criminal justice system. It was also the term most fre-
quently used within the interviews that took place as part of this research. Therefore,
despite the inaccuracies of the term, ‘paedophile hunter’is used throughout this
article.
This article presents research data which allows for an increased understanding
of practitioner’s perspectives of paedophile hunting activity. The data presented in
this article was collected as part of a larger mixed-methods research design, submit-
ted in fulfilment of a doctoral degree (Frampton, 2021). The article outlines
144 Probation Journal 70(2)
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