The medical analysis of child sexual abuse images

Analysis of child sexual abuse images, commonly referred to as pornography, requires a familiarity with the sexual maturation rating of children and an understanding of growth and development parameters. This article explains barriers that exist in working in this area of child abuse, the differences between subjective and objective analyses, methods used in working with this form of contraband, and recommendations that analysts document their findings in a format that allows for verbal descriptions of the images so that the content will be reflected in legal proceedings should there exist an aversion to visual review. Child sexual abuse images are a digital crime scene, and analysis requires a careful approach to assure that all victims may be identified.