Criminal responsibility of persons accused of using child sexual abuse images

Abstract

The use of child sexual abuse images (colloquially child pornography) and related crimes have gained in importance in recent years. The present paper examines the commonly used forensic psychiatric criteria for assessing the criminal responsibility of people accused of acquiring, possessing or distributing child sexual abuse images under German criminal law. If, from a forensic psychiatric perspective, there is a severe sexual pathology that fulfils the psychiatric criteria for the legal category of so-called severe other mental abnormalities, the forensic psychiatric expert will assess the question of diminished control over behavior. In the case of offences in connection with the use of child sexual abuse images, however, from the authors’ perspective the established criteria for sexual offences are difficult to apply. A further problem in the assessment is that the accused crimes are often spread over a longer period of time and therefore the expert may have to search for persistent psychopathological indications of diminished control. Sexual urgency, motivational controllability and the power of deactualization are helpful concepts for assessing a loss or reduction of control in this context. An enduring forensically relevant reduction in control, which may have persisted for several years, will not usually be present in connection with the use of child sexual abuse images and will more likely represent a special case under German criminal law.