ABSTRACT
This chapter highlights the key factors to consider in formulating relevant interventions for Internet-related sexual offending, notably online child sexual exploitation material offending and offline sexual abuse and violence. Internet-related sexual offending is one of the most rapidly growing offence categories in Western Europe and North America. The Internet has brought many advantages but it has also facilitated different types of sexual offending, which is, as with sexual offending more generally, mainly perpetrated against women and children predominantly by male offenders. Models of sexual homicide highlight the interacting roles of inadequate early social environments, poor self-esteem, and dysfunctional coping by increasing social withdrawal and immersion into sexually violent pornography, which in turn can lower the threshold to acting out these preoccupations. Psychological treatment for Internet-related sex offenders usually incorporates cognitive-behavioural and psycho-educational techniques developed for contact sex offenders based on the established ‘what works’ literature.
