ABSTRACT
In this chapter we examine ways in which investigators working in sex crime units across Canada manage emotions associated with lurid aspects of investigating forms of internet child exploitation. We examine the “dirty work” associated with investigating sex crimes against children and the emotional effects of such work. We also demonstrate how emotional labour figures in the performance of dirty work associated with police investigations of sex crimes against children. We probe how such labour involves surface and deep acting that can, in turn, affect officer wellbeing. The occupational culture prescribes not only a stoic form of surface acting, but also a form of deep acting where the officer is to privately cope with the emotional disturbing features of their profession. For these reasons, among others, many officers reported their own experiences with PTSD or that their colleagues had received such diagnoses and had, in consequence, taken leave from their occupational duties.
