The Scientometrics of Child Sexual Exploitation Material Offending: An Analysis of Fifty Years of Academic Research

Child sexual exploitation material (CSEM) research is an increasingly important area of interdisciplinary study. Key research areas include offenders and offending behavior; legal and societal issues; victimology; treatment; investigations; digital forensics; and deterrence. Many publications are multidisciplinary, with fields including law, psychology, criminal justice, sociology, digital forensics, data analytics, and related areas. This study examines the historical body of research on CSEM offending through a scientometric review. The Web of Science Core Collection was searched for relevant research articles with no date restrictions, and 990 responsive papers published between 1979 and the present were identified. The key authors in the field included Michael Seto (n=31, fc=10.87), Ethel Quayle (n=21, fc=7.49), and Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar (n=12, fc=7.17), with the paper “Prevalence and Characteristics of Youth Sexing: A National Study” by Mitchell et al. identified as the most cited. Historiographical analysis identified works by Ethel Quayle and Max Taylor as well as Michael Seto as seminal papers in the field, and the United States (45.7%, n=452), the United Kingdom (29.2%, n=289), and Australia (23.6%, n=234) as the countries with the highest numbers of publications. Keyword analyses found the terms child pornography and indecent images decreasing over time, and the terms CSEM and child sexual abuse images increasing in usage.