Child sexual abuse in the UK is soaring, police have said, with 1,000 paedophile suspects being arrested each month and the number of children being rescued from harm rising by 50% in the last five years.

The National Crime Agency said the growth in offending across the UK was driven by technology and linked to the radicalisation of offenders in online forums, encouraging people to view images of child sexual abuse by reassuring them it was normal.

Most contact with children happened on mainstream social media platforms, with algorithms pushing paedophilic material to people who have shown a previous interest in it.

The significant increase in every measure “really worries us”, said Rob Jones, the NCA’s director general of operations.

Leads about people interested in sexually abusing children had risen tenfold in a decade, he said, with 1,200 children a month being safeguarded.

  • tyrant@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I’m honestly shocked there are that many pedophiles out there. What is WRONG with people?

    • rushmonke@ttrpg.network
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      13 hours ago

      People don’t just wear signs saying they’re a pedo.

      Odds are some of the people you know are pedos without you suspecting it.

    • couldhavebeenyou@lemmy.zip
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      18 hours ago

      Police said there was no typical offender and previously it had been estimated that up to 840,000 adults in the UK had a sexual interest in children.

      If you’re easily shocked, don’t compare that to the total number of adults in the UK

    • Nightwatch Admin@feddit.nl
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      1 day ago

      Well, it’s a 1000 suspects, not necessarily 1000 convicted. And sadly, there are false accusations for examplentoo.

      Then again, if only 10% of such a 1000 is a legitimate suspect, then that’s shocking enough.

    • tomiant@piefed.social
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      1 day ago

      I’m questioning the numbers. First off, they are suspects, secondly, what are the determining qualifiers? It wouldn’t shock me that the UK, who is in the process of creating a total surveillance shitopia using the justification of “protecting children” would have incentive to adopt extra broad definitions to scare people like yourself into believing pedos are everywhere around you so you would support their political agenda.