Increase in online child pornography creating more work for small Sudbury Police unit

Police in Sudbury are reporting a disturbing trend.

According to reports, the availability of child pornography over the internet is on the rise, and there's no sign that it's slowing down.

Detective Sergeant Blair Ramsay, with Sudbury's internet child exploitation unit, says there's another challenge ahead: with only one dedicated officer, it's getting more difficult to manage the work police sort through on seized computers.

"Law enforcement in Canada are aware of about 25 million known images of child pornography that we can monitor," Ramsay said. 

That's before police tackle the dark web, which traditionally is more difficult for authorities to keep watch of.

But Ramsay said he's confident that local police, working with other law enforcement bodies, can at least react quickly when needed.

"The technology is getting a little bit better on the police side," he said. "We're able to proactively investigate child exploitation cases where we can do our own undercover work."

"We've been able to identify more networks where child pornography has been located and monitor those networks internationally."

In June, Ontario Provincial Police busted a ring of child pornography distributors in Toronto after a seven year investigation. Five men were charged.  

Ramsay said that some of the big social media players like Snapchat and Instagram also carefully monitor the images shared across their own networks, and alert police. 

"We've definitely seen an increase [on social media,]" he said. "Coming internationally, mostly from the States side."

The last part of the puzzle, Ramsay said, is to make sure that police have enough resources to monitor offenders, especially after they've served their sentences. And while there are plenty of resources available to help victims of child exploitation and their families, police still need to keep aware of the people who committed the crime. 

"The offenders need continual management so that they don't re-offend," he said. "If there's one thing that I'd like to see is more resources for offenders because their management is lifetime."