As sex crimes proliferate online, experienced investigators say it's taking them longer and longer to secure charges against child pornography suspects.
In a high profile arrest last week, a 16-year-old boy was accused of sharing photos online of the rape of an underage girl at a party in Pitt Meadows, B.C.
Investigators have said they will recommend child pornography charges, but to date, the case has not been forwarded to Crown counsel for approval.
At a press conference Thursday, reporters asked RCMP Sgt. Peter Thiessen a blunt question: What's the hold up?
"The hold up with charges is that we need to gather the proper evidence and put together a package to forward to the Crown," Thiessen said.
He didn't give a timeline, but recent examples in other jurisdictions prove that evidence could take months to gather.
After a child pornography investigation in Nanaimo snared a handful of suspects earlier in September, Const. Gary O'Brien expressed frustration about the length of time needed to complete the necessary forensic audits of suspects' computers.
"It takes a long time -- it takes upward of 12 to 18 months -- to do a complete audit," he told ctvbc.ca. "That's a bigger issue."
He said he worries about the possibility of suspects re-offending as they wait for the charges to come through.
"How do we, without former charge approval, monitor that they're not accessing computers?"
More memory means longer investigations
Sgt. Bev Csikos of the RCMP's Integrated Child Exploitation unit told ctvbc.ca that there's one major reason the audits take so much time: bigger hard drives with more memory.
"Computers today are so large -- up to a terabyte of computer storage," she said. "With more storage comes more time to be able to analyze."
She agreed that it can sometimes take longer than a year to secure charges against a suspect in an online crime, but the timing fluctuates depending on the case.
"It depends on how much is in there and what we're looking for," Csikos said.
The size of the computer's hard drive is one factor, but the suspect's living situation can also affect the pace.
Csikos gave the example of a PC shared by a family of four -- forensic specialists have to prove beyond a reasonable doubt which member of the family is responsible for the criminal files they might find.
"We look for evidence on there that shows the person who owns the computer is the one who's using the computer," she said.
Mounties are working to speed up the process, Csikos said.
And they'll have to -- she says that internet-related crimes are increasing all the time.
"I don't think there's a crime out there that doesn't involve the internet, in some component," she said. "I think we're going to see policing go in that direction."
