DIA Censorship Compliance

The Department of Internal Affairs Censorship Compliance Unit, along with the New Zealand Police and New Zealand Customs Service, has the task of enforcing the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993. Taking action against Internet child pornography is the biggest part of the Department's work.

The Department’s Unit can also take action against other types of ‘objectionable material’ as stated by the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993. This includes material involving sexual violence, necrophilia, bestiality, acts of extreme violence/cruelty or torture, or the use of urine or excrement with degrading or dehumanizing or sexual activity.

New penalties: up to 10 years jail for child sex abuse images

In February 2005 Parliament amended New Zealand’s censorship law, the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993, setting much higher penalties for cases involving objectionable material and giving law enforcement agencies more powers to help detect offenders. To read more about the Films, Videos and Publications Classification Amendment Act 2005 click here.

Penalties for possession of child sex abuse images (and other objectionable material) have increased to a jail term of up to five years or a fine of up to $50,000 (it had been a fine only offence with a maximum fine of up to $2,000).  Penalties for distributing child sex abuse images (and other objectionable material) have increased to a jail term of up to 10 years for an individual and a fine of up to $200,000 for an organisation (it had been a jail term of up to one year on an individual and a fine of up to $50,000 for an organisation).

The Act now allows Courts to issue search warrants in relation to alleged possession offences as well as in relation to alleged distribution.  Previously search warrants could not be issued unless there was evidence of distribution or making.

The amendments also make it easier to extradite New Zealanders back to this country to face trial and have changed some wording to ensure that the Act applies just as easily to offending on the Internet as it does to videos, DVDs, magazines and other media.

Enforcement

The Department of Internal Affairs, along with the Police and Customs, has the task of enforcing the Films Videos and Publications Classification Act 1993. 

In very general terms, the Department focuses on action against Internet offending, the Police deal with physical offending and Customs with importation.  However, one of our strengths in New Zealand is that there is close co-operation between all these agencies and they often work together.

The Department established its Censorship Compliance Unit in 1996.  Since then, its Inspectors have had a covert presence on the Internet.  Their work includes visiting bulletin boards, websites, Internet relay chat channels and peer-to-peer networks.

After detecting New Zealand offenders, Inspectors track them to the computers they are using.  They use search warrants to seize computers and other material, carry out the forensic analysis of the material they have seized and prepare the prosecution files.  If the offenders are overseas, information is given to the appropriate agencies in those countries.

The first convictions for offenses involving child sex abuse images in New Zealand were in 1997.  By March 2005, the Department’s cases had resulted in 162 convictions, all of them men, most in their late 20s or early 30s.

Until 2002, the Department’s cases resulted in, on average, 16-17 convictions a year.  Of those, five in total resulted in jail terms.  In 2003 there were 26 convictions with eight offenders jailed, in 2004 there were 24 convictions with seven jailed, and convictions are now averaging more than two a month.

These jail terms were all imposed before the Act was amended.  The increase in their number is probably Courts’ response to increasingly extreme images and public disgust as understanding of the true nature of this offending spreads.

You can check out the DIA's research into the profile of child pornography offenders by clicking here.

Victims and consequences

The images are of real children and are an appalling record of what has been done to them.  No one seeing the images could have mistaken them for legal, restricted, adult pornography.

Offenders encourage more abuse by demanding more images and more extreme images, and by reinforcing the false view that sex with children is acceptable.

While very few of the images found over the years were of New Zealand children, research into offenders in New Zealand and overseas has shown that,statistically, there is a correlation between offenders’ who collect and distribute child sex abuse images and other offending against children.

Possessing child sex abuse images is a warning about an offender’s sexual attitudes to children. 

Our actions are not about pictures on a computer.  They are part of New Zealand’s commitment to help prevent the abuse of children.

Steve O'Brien, Censorship Compliance

www.censorship.dia.govt.nz