Full Description
Child pornography and sexual grooming provide case study exemplars of problems that society and law have sought to tackle to avoid both actual and potential harm to children. Yet despite the considerable legal, political and societal concern that these critical phenomena attract, they have not, thus far, been subjected to detailed socio-legal and theoretical scrutiny. How do society and law construct the harms of child pornography and grooming? What impact do constructions of the child have upon legal and societal responses to these phenomena? What has been the impetus behind the expanding criminalisation of behaviour in these areas? Suzanne Ost addresses these and other important questions, exploring the critical tensions within legal and social discourses which must be tackled to discourage moral panic reactions towards child pornography and grooming, and advocating a new, more rational approach towards combating these forms of exploitation.
Contents
Introduction: Constructions, themes and critical tensions; 1. The modern day phenomena of child pornography and sexual grooming; 2. Criminalizing child pornography and behaviour related to sexual grooming; 3. Matters of harm and exploitation; 4. Moral panics and the impact of the construction of childhood innocence; 5. The law elsewhere and questions of individual rights; 6. Conclusions and implications; Appendix A. Details of dates of interviews with police officers.
