Unlike the physical abusers of children, little is known about downloaders of child pornography. The key questions in this article are: who are the downloaders, what are their backgrounds, why and how they download child pornography, how they behave offline and online and what types of downloaders can be distinguished? A simple answer to these questions is currently impossible to give. There is more, preferably longitudinal, research needed on risk factors for downloading child pornography and the various types of downloaders. Combating the downloaders requires a lot of the police in terms of international cooperation and up to date knowledge and expertise. This also served the treatment practices, which is partly dependent on a properly conducted police investigation.

This article presents a study on Post-Conviction Polygraphy in the Netherlands. Importantly, it exclusively focuses on cybercrime offenders. The study was designed to systematically address the different child sexual behaviours exhibited by 38 subjects who were in treatment for possessing child abuse images. The results gave indications that post-conviction polygraphy can provide additional data to inform the development of theory in this area and contribute to the treatment, supervision and more effective containment of offending behaviour, and the reduction of future victimization.