Cyber Child Porn-Busting Takes a Toll

Feb. 25, 2004 -- In the course of more than 14 years on the job, Detective Lt. John McLean has been exposed to countless sexually abusive images of children — some of them quite graphic, all of them disturbing — but he still remembers the first time he saw a picture of a young child performing a sexual act circulating on the Internet.

McLean, a police detective from Medford, Mass., who specializes in computer crime investigations, has been cracking down on cyber child pornography since the early days of the Internet.

Along the way, he has seen the technology improve, get cheaper and ultimately more accessible. He has also, unfortunately, seen the content on child porn sites proliferate and get increasingly more disturbing.

But his first exposure to an image exploiting a pre-pubescent child has stuck with him through the years. And though he's not the kind of guy who likes to dwell on these things, he admits it's not pleasant.

"Obviously the exploitation of infants bothers me," he says. "The first time I saw an infant on a child porn site — the child was between 5 to 6 years old — that was very disturbing because I hadn't seen anything like it before. The toddler range, between zero to one, one-and-a-half, is by far the most disturbing. I've even seen a shot of a little baby giving fellatio."

In a world where sexually abusive images of children are available at the click of a mouse, McLean and his comrades in cyber crime units across the country have an uphill — some would say, impossible — mission to accomplish.

But even as law enforcement officials battle to cope with the rising tide of Internet sex crimes against children — from sexually explicit images of minors posted on the Web, to online enticement of kids for sexual acts — for the men and women on the front lines of the fight, cyber-sleuthing can be a disturbing business.

And not surprisingly, a number of special agents, detectives, police officials, and investigators on the job are seeking counseling.

‘Assault on Your Sense of Decency’

"It's an assault on your sense of decency, on your sense of humanity," says Guy Seymour, a psychologist who works with a number of police departments across the country. "Initially, it can be horrendous. It's very distressing. The hardest is the first year [on the job] when it's all new and you have to get your mind to adjust, to realize that this is what happens in life."

By the very nature of the job, law enforcement, like other professions dealing with the darker side of human life, can be often be emotionally traumatic. Even the most experienced criminal investigators can find cyber child porn busting depressing.

"You see images that normal people wouldn't be able to comprehend," says Arnold Bell, unit chief of the FBI's Innocent Images National Initiative. "I've seen people shot, stabbed, dead, and though it's sad, I can detach myself. I've developed mechanisms to cope over the years. But these images stay with me. I carry it with me two, three days later. That's what makes this job stressful.

While much of the job involves sitting sedately behind blinking computer screens far from the screeching sirens and urban violence, cracking down on cyber porn involving children has a unique set of challenges.

For agents on the beat, there are hours spent poring over hard-core child porn sites, which are getting increasingly sophisticated with a growth in high-quality Web video.

Some child rights groups complain that U.S. investigations tend to center solely on "prosecutable" cases. A large number of soft-porn, or "Lolita" sites featuring nude images of young — mostly foreign — children go uninvestigated, they say.

This leaves most investigators with the job of sifting through potentially very disturbing images, including shots of children being raped repeatedly in still pictures and video, sometimes accompanied by the audible cries of the child.

The Seamier Side of the Internet

While the Internet is an invaluable asset for children across the world, experts warn that an increasing number of young people are encountering the seamier side of the Internet in a variety of ways.

A 2000 study by The Crimes Against Children Research Center of more than 1,500 young people aged between 10 and 17 found that approximately one in five of the youngsters had received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet the previous year.

More alarmingly, the study concluded that one in 33 young people received "aggressive" sexual solicitations, such as a solicitor who asked to meet them somewhere or called them on the telephone.

It's the potential dangers that lurk in cyberspace and the ability to nip a problem before it gets too late that motivate officers in task forces and special units working on local, regional, national and international levels.

"The rewarding part of the job is the fact that you're taking these guys out of circulation, that you're protecting the kids and making the Internet a safer environment for kids by taking some of the most egregious criminals out of the streets," says Bell.

The Importance of Distancing

But in order to perform what Seymour calls "the white knight role," there's often a hard slog through some of the most distressing terrains of human behavior, tracing cyber "fingerprints" on hard-core sites, prowling chat-rooms for potential pedophile predators and conducting undercover sting operations.

The effects, says James Shaw, a noted police psychologist, depend on the agents' "ability to distance themselves" from the work.

"The real key is if the investigator does not become emotionally involved," says Shaw. "Some people can work for prolonged periods. Others can do fine for a while, but there can be a case that can give them problems and they can continue to mount."

The problems, says Shaw, can range from investigators distancing themselves from spouses or partners and withdrawing from their significant relationships, to losing trust and turning overprotective of their own kids. They can also suffer physical symptoms such as headaches and backaches.

Many investigators find it hard to maintain distance between their jobs and social lives. "Sometimes some of my guys say, 'Geez, that looks like my own daughter,'" says McLean.

By all accounts, overprotection and hypervigilance of their own children is very common among agents working on cyber crimes against children. "I'm pretty extreme when it comes to Internet safety," says Bell, a father of two teenage daughters, with a laugh. "I tell them, 'I'm reading your e-mails,' and they complain about privacy. And I tell them there is no privacy here. Once they have their own computer, when they move out, they can have their privacy."

‘Everybody Comes Together’

The earliest defense to protect investigators from emotional distress, according to most experts and senior investigators, is a thorough screening process.

"I think it requires a unique personality on the part of the investigator and you need to have an understanding of some of the effects this stuff can have," says McLean. "If there are investigators who are taken aback or horrified or emotionally affected by some of the material, then they're not the ideal candidates for the job."

Rotating investigators onto different beats can also help, says Seymour, although agencies differ over how often investigators should be rotated.

"Law enforcement agencies always have to balance the health of their officers with the effects on the investigation," says Seymour. "There's always a creative tension between myself [as a police psychologist] and law enforcement supervisors."

While some agencies, such as the FBI, have regular evaluations of agents assigned to their cyber child porn investigations, for a number of investigators working in small to medium-sized teams in police departments across the country, regular checks are a luxury.

"Nobody's evaluated me," says McLean. "I'm not saying I need to be evaluated. I think good managers can easily find people who are having trouble on the job. But that," he admits, "is a layman's perspective. I'm no expert."

For law enforcement agents, one of the more heartening aspects of the job is the high conviction rates in child porn cases. A 2003 study by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center found that law enforcement at all levels made an estimated 2,577 arrests for Internet sex crimes against minors the previous year.

The study concluded that for a crime that has only recently emerged as a public policy concern, the conviction rates reflected a high level of law-enforcement activity in the field.

McLean agrees with the conclusions of the study. "In all my experience in organized crime, in child exploitation cases, I have never come across any rivalry between [law enforcement] divisions," he says. "There's always a sense that this is for the children and everybody comes together."

After more than a decade on the job, McLean has his own survival strategy. "If there was to be a coping mechanism, I would say it's the love of children," says the 47-year-old father of two. "It's the love of the job and knowing there's a job to do, to protect children and to do what we have to do to protect children. That keeps us going."