ABSTRACT
This chapter describes research undertaken by the author in his capacity as undercover police officer at the Metropolitan Police High Technology Crime Unit during 2009. The aims of the research were: to advance understanding of the use of Internet Social Networking Sites that sex offenders use to source, groom and sexually abuse children; to assess the link between social networking sites and instant messaging systems; to explore the proactive strategies for policing online Child Sexual Abuse (CSA) with particular reference to the work of the Metropolitan Police High Technological Crime Unit (HTCU); and to identify the link between non-contact offenders and contact offenders through the phenomenon of ‘virtual offending’.
