Paedophilia on the Internet--a study of 33 convicted offenders in the Canton of Lucerne.

BACKGROUND

The connection between the consumption of pornography and "contact-crimes" is unclear. The Internet has facilitated the mass consumption of pornography in general and specifically illegal pornography such as child-pornography. In 1999, the owners of "Landslide Production Inc.", an international provider of child-pornography in the USA were arrested and the credit-card-numbers of their clients were put at the disposal of the law enforcement agencies of the countries concerned.

METHODS

Roughly 1300 Swiss citizens were subsequently arrested in the course of the nationwide action "Genesis". In the canton of Lucerne 33 men were identified. The police-files of these men were screened for psychosocial, criminological and psychosexual data.

RESULTS

Most of these middle-aged men held comparatively elevated professional positions, only ten were married, eleven had never had an intimate relationship to a woman, and only thirteen of them had children. Only one of them had a relevant criminal record. The level of abuse depicted in the illegal material was high, all but one consumed pornography from other fields of sexual deviation. The personal statements of the offenders in general were hardly reliable, in three cases, however, the diagnosis of sexual deviation could be established from the files. The estimated time some of the offenders must have spent online in order to retrieve the material allows the diagnosis of Pathological Internet-Use.

CONCLUSIONS

Deviant sexual fantasies seem to be widespread also among men otherwise not registered for any offences. The consumption of even particularly disgusting material may not be a specific risk factor for "contact" crimes.