Internet access and sexual offences against children: an analysis of crime bureau statistics from India Shaik Subahani1, Rajkumar Ravi Philip2,* 1Junior Resident, Department of Psychiatry, 2Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Consultant, Marital and Psychosexual Disorders Clinic, Jawaharlal Institute of Postgraduate Medical Education and Research, Pondicherry – 605006, India *Correspondence: ravi.psych@gmail.com
Online published on 30 July, 2015. Abstract Introduction The association between pornography and sexual crime is controversial, with various researchers finding positive, no, or negative associations. Recent evidence suggests that there may be a specific association between child pornography, which is easily available on the Internet, and sexual offences against children. Methods Using methodology similar to an earlier study from India, we obtained official statistics on sexual offences against children, namely rape and procurement of minor girls, for the period 2000–2012 from the National Crime Records Bureau. We analysed the association between the rates of these crimes and Internet access, measured by the number of users per 1,00,000 people. Results Even after correcting for population growth, we found significant linear associations between Internet availability and the rates of both these offences against children. However, there was no correlation between the growth rate of Internet access and the rate of increase of these crimes. Discussion While the association between pornography and the rape of adults is still under debate, our results provide indirect evidence of a possible association between Internet availability and sexual crimes against children. Regulation of the Internet to suppress access to child pornography may prevent at least some of these crimes. Top Keywords Pornography, Paraphilias, Rape. Top |