Young people, peer-to-peer grooming and sexual offending: Understanding and responding to harmful sexual behaviour within a social media society

Abstract

There is ample evidence that young people are using social media in grooming and bullying to abuse and exploit others sexually with enough frequency to make those behaviours important concerns for both society and care providers. This article provides a critical overview of the conceptual and theoretical foundations for ‘grooming’ among peers and use of social media within harmful sexual behaviour. It introduces a model for intervention based on the literature on memory bundles, thinking and problem solving and highlights how the suggested model may be applied in practice.