Whited Sepulchers: Exploring Explanations for White Overrepresentation in Online Child Sexual Abuse and Exploitation

ABSTRACT

This analysis is concerned with the documented-yet-seldom-examined overrepresentation of whites in the US in online child sexual abuse and exploitation or OCSAE. First, we examine two sources of data which indicate an overrepresentation of whites in online child sexual abuse and exploitation including U.S. federal sentencing data and a rapid evidence review of relevant academic research. Second, this analysis then considers potential explanations for this disparity including both differential enforcement and differential involvement. Differential enforcement explanations include the possibility that the disparity is the result of differing law enforcement, prosecutorial, or sentencing practices or varying reporting practices among racial/ethnic groups. The differential involvement explanations considered include differing structures of opportunity (e.g., access and quality of internet available by race), possible variations in sexual fetishism and pornography consumption between racial groups, and the role of victim race in sexual abuse and exploitation. It is likely impossible to provide a definitive list of potential explanations in a single manuscript. This analysis thus considers those explanations that we consider either to be the most likely or are the most apparent.

KEYWORDS:

• Online child sexual exploitation and abuse
• whiteness
• race
• ethnicity
• child sexual exploitation material
• child sexual abuse

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to thank George Ebo Brown (BJS) and Michael Dineen (NDACAN) for their help in accessing data for this manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1. One study by Shaaf (2022) was omitted from the American figures because, while most of their sample was pulled from US institutions, some of their sample was drawn from an institution located in a Canadian province.

2. As Turner (2016, p. 6) explains, “While only 18% of White households that have home internet connect via mobile only, 28% of Hispanic and Black internet-connected homes connect using only mobile cellular data services” (Turner, 2016, p. 6).

3. The Pew Research Center (2017) indicates that Evangelical Protestants are approximately 76% White, 6% Black, 11% Latino, 2% Asian, and 5% other/mixed.