• You will want to feel like these 'sacrifices' which you make were worth it and continue to be. If you make a difference it is very rewarding but if you find yourself getting bogged down in management structures and internal change management, which will inevitably happen, you will need to be aware of how you might feel you aren't achieving what you came into this field to achieve.
• You will need to be pretty flexible in terms of your personal life. Be prepared to cancel holidays in extreme circumstances because you are needed at court, they can't do it without you but unfortunately they forgot to warn you. Be prepared to work long hours from time to time, or be called in at a moment's notice for something urgent. The job is one of the most invasive jobs you can have.
I do not post here often so apologies if anyone feels I am jumping in a bit but this is a very interesting and valuable topic for people looking at a DF career so I thought I would add something!
Steve I think your post is excellent but I quoted a couple of points just to add my perspective from working in LE for 5 years but having now moved to something more corporate.
The first point I couldn't agree more with and whilst I cannot speak for all police forces in the UK this was part of my decision to leave the HTCU I worked for. It has got to the point now that the IIOC (Indecent Images of Children) work is so overwhelming in quantity and scale that management are primarily interested in number massaging and backlog decreasing, by any method. This has developed a purely sausage factory esque approach to IIOC cases, where the minimum to achieve a basic prosecution is found and in some cases nothing more. Whilst I understand the need to get backlogs down and speed up the investigation process, this is not something I was comfortable with or was willing to be part of anymore. I am not suggesting that this happens in all cases and I have no doubt that those with solid intelligence involving distribution, contact offences etc are thoroughly investigated. However it is my personal view that many offences are being missed, through no fault of the examiner/investigator, purely because of a desire to make the numbers look better.
The second point I believe is also very valid, however from my experience I never had to cancel leave/holidays due to court commitments. Anything were the DF was integral (i.e. all IIOC cases) I was always involved in the court process from fairly early on so I expected to be needed if a not guilty plea is entered and was warned accordingly. This is not to say that last minute calls to court couldn’t force the cancellation of leave/holidays but I just wanted to point out that in my experience this never happened so should not be a major factor in dissuading someone from a DF career (if it may do that). Obviously I could just have been lucky D
In general I never had issues with investigating IIOC cases but obviously everyone is different. I found the work interesting and often very rewarding. I will say though that I am glad I no longer deal with them, although I would not rule out investigating them in the future but maybe on a more limited scale to what the police have to deal with.
over 8 years doing it and never went once..
Not worth the issues and stigma it will cause with the job.. It is a career ender for sure.
I couldn't tell you if I have any issues related to it beyond the normal mistrusting of people with my kids..
EG we have prosecuted several boy scout leaders so that leads me to never putting my kids in scouts.
Just isn't worth the risk for me or my kids..
By my friend and coworker has his in scouts another co worker was an eagle scout.
I try to put this stuff in its place.
Some cases are tough and can get me emotional. I think looking at over 17k of picks in one case has brought me to tears more than 2 or 3 times. You take the break and walk away..
Someone has to do it, right ?
I know this is an old thread, but some of you may find this helpful.
Before I was a digital forensic investigator, I was a therapist. I specialized in children and adolescents.
I can tell you that seeing the CP is damaging for sure. So is the evidence of violent crime, and even just the "normal" run of the mill cheating/infidelity/divorce stuff.
As has been said, this job is certainly not for everyone.
There are a number of ways therapy can help you deal with the things you see. The most effective (in my opinion as a therapist and as a client) is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT). It focuses on changing your thought patterns and your reactions to the thoughts your having. It makes you more aware of keeping yourself in check. It helps you recognize when you're "doing it again" (distrusting someone who you should trust, creating emotional walls so people can't reach you, shutting yourself off from the world, seeing patterns of behavior that indicate your S.O. is cheating when no such patterns actually exist, etc.)
If you feel you might need to see a therapist, you're probably way past the point of needing to see a therapist. It can be hard, though to try to find someone. You don't want to dump this stuff on some kind stranger, right?
But that's their job. And they all go to therapy, too (at least here in the US, it's almost always a required condition of employment that a therapist working for an agency see a therapist to deal with what they see and hear every day. Makes sense, right?)
Detective Cindy Murphy, who works with a lot of CP cases, sees a psychiatrist who specializes in Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing (EMDR), which has helped her. I have never done this, but I have to think it's effective, given what she has seen (and continues to see) in her job.
My professional and personal recommendation would be to find someone who specializes in CBT. If you don't "click" with one, find another. They're not uncommon.
If you're already at the point where you know this stuff is affecting your life, please reach out for help. Don't go around letting it destroy you. The bad guys win all over again if you let that happen. There are far too few of us, and far fewer who can tolerate the horrors this job entails.
Good luck everyone.
Well I feel it should be more applicable to people who have to deal with cases which might be disturbing in nature, like a obscene content review. Things like these can affect any individual and if the volume of such cases is more then it should atleast one counselling session per month.
PS I'm not an expert, but just a thought.
At my workplace everyone who works with CP-cases and other sexual crimes against children has to see a counselor regularly, but the time period depends on the case load but it ranges from 1 month - 6 months depending on the cases you've been working with.
Also as colleagues we try to have lunch together out of the office at least once every week just so that the other members of the group can keep an eye out for possible signs that the case isn't getting to you in addition to our morning/afternoon meetings which we have every day.
First of all, I am brand new to the forums so I apologize if my first post contains too many questions and if it contains questions that have been answered. I skimmed for a tad bit on this matter and didn't feel like the questions I have below were answered to my liking. I am a student in my third year of University studying Digital Forensics in the United States. My hope is to get involved federally, or with a private contractor hired by the government that deals with CP and other criminal-type cases.
As someone who has not had an field experience, what are some things that you recommend before taking a job that will require viewing CP? Do you recommend getting a therapist before you start work just to get comfortable with how they work, how you feel around them, etc.?
Also, what are you allowed to say to said therapist? I know with some jobs in the field you are limited to what you can say even around fellow team members. Is a therapist an exception to such a rule?
I know such a topic is horrifying but I really want to be involved in this field for such matters. It may be cliche to want to help the world a little bit at a time but that is my mentality. I am worried that it will get under my skin after a few years (maybe even months) of exposure. However, I want to stay mentally healthy to continue this for a long time.
Thank you for your time.
-Hex
My hope is to get involved federally, or with a private contractor hired by the government that deals with CP and other criminal-type cases.
No (JFYI).
Im the US if - as a private - you happen to even have a founded suspect (or anyway at the very first seemingly CP image you see) you STOP and call the Feds (or local police, but the opinion to call the FBI directly is prevailing).
See
https://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=1431/
I doubt that - even if the contractor works for the government - you can have a "special permit", you need to be a sworn LEO, I believe, and then the federal or local authority employing you will have and provide to you established procedures/training/assistance .
Please take also into account that not *all* CP has the *same* effects, the definition engulfes *anything* where a minor is depicted but not necessarily *everything* that you will find (while still being illegal) will be shocking.
And sometimes it is not even easy to determine whether it is CP or not
https://www.forensicfocus.com/Forums/viewtopic/t=6448/
jaclaz
If you do defense work, it's possible you'll encounter CP cases. My understanding is that work on these cases has to be done at a police station or government office. Because of the Adam Walsh act, access to the CP material is limited; they can't just give a copy of a disk image to the defense like they would in a fraud case.
In the past, working in IT, I have dealt with three cases that involved inappropriate pictures of minors. In one, a teenage boy sent a close-up of his own genitals to an adult and the adult reported it to IT and we handed it off to the police. I think the boy had some issues. I wasn't particularly disturbed by the image. Because he took it of himself, I was able to treat it with clinical detachment. I hope he got help/guidance, but he wasn't being abused in that situation. The two other situations involved inappropriate, but non-pornographic pictures taken by adults of a couple of young ladies. I reported the cases. The pictures that I saw were not CP. Even so, they were disturbing and I lost sleep over them.
I would not want to be involved in CP or child abuse cases on a regular basis.
Hex,
You might be able to get some good feedback from a forensic examiner at a local crime lab or one of the FBI's Regional Computer Forensics Labs. The trend in the US seems to be hiring civilians with computer science-related degrees as opposed to using LEOs with computer skills. These examiners may have come from the same situation as you and can provide an idea as to how they learned to cope with the effects of CP.
In my personal experience as a LEO working on a CP task force, I wondered if I too could deal with the images when I first started. Over time, though, I found ways to cope and successfully work investigations. There's no telling if these ways will work for me forever, but for now they do.
Ultimately you may not know how you are affected until to come across such content. Until then, it might make sense to take a wait-and-see approach. (No pun intended.)
In the US, the patient-therapist dynamic is a protected relationship, much like husband-wife, attorney-client, etc. As a result – and in general – the therapist is prohibited by law from revealing what you tell them. There are rare exceptions such as if it is revealed the patient is a threat to themselves or another person. Nevertheless, you should feel confident that your discussions with a therapist are confidential.
Best of luck to you.
Hi,
After the recent article in the news about West Mids Police asking for volunteers to grade child abuse images, I thought there was some more to this discussion.
Anyone taking up a digital forensics role in law enforcement WILL have to view this sort of material. In the past we have seen dedicated 'grading' officers in police forces employed to grade material, so the digital examiner just focusses on the provenance for that material.
Examiners and grading officers have typically been supported by professional psychologists, where police forces paid to have this service available. With cuts this practice has almost completely disappeared and there are now staff receiving no professional support at all but at least they are being paid for this work!
I would be interested to know how police forces would support staff who are grading material free of charge and what kind of risk assessments have been made around the impact this material will have on their mental well-being. What if a volunteer, an outsider to the organisation and where nobody working with them would see them often enough to notice a 'change', were to then commit a criminal offence? Or perhaps 'just' have a breakdown? With permanent staff we would see each other every day. We were mired in it all the time and we would watch out for each other. These volunteers won't have that camaraderie. They certainly won't be able to talk to anyone else about it.
There's one other point I wanted to raise and would be interested in people's thoughts. The layout of the digital units themselves. Again cuts have contributed to this. When I started out and was working in this area, the room was set up in such a way that we couldn't see anyone else's screens, we only had to look at our material. Now each room has twice as many people as before and from one desk you can see at least a handful of other examiners' screens. As an examiner, there are times when you can focus on artefacts and not look at any images in the job(s) you are working on. With the layout of many units now, there never really is a break. An 8 hour day means being exposed to child abuse material for 8 hours. Before you might have to look at it for 2 hours and be working on other artefacts the other 6.
So adding the packing in of more staff and a consequently less sterile working environment, along with the greatly reduced support for staff, is this a ticking time bomb? Organisations like the police keep talking about mental health but those exposed to this material all day and every day must feel this is nothing more than rhetoric.
Steve