Operation Snapshot Essay

Operation Snapshot

Child pornography is a photographic, film, video or any other visual representation, that shows a person who is or is depicted as being under the age of eighteen years and is engaged in or is depicted as engaged in explicit sexual activity (Criminal Code, 2018). Society does not view this type of offence lightly. People care for the safety of their children and youth. To solve those crimes, police agencies have different units that deal with matters of this sort, but because it is a challenging crime to tackle, a nationwide operation called Operation Snapshot was created. Operation Snapshot involved 30 multi-agency police investigations in 15 different communities in Alberta, Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Nunavut and the Northwest

Territories (National Post, 2012). Operation Snapshot, which began in June had one main priority: identify high-risk offenders that are in possession of and distributing child abuse images across peer- to- peer file sharing networks and to charge these individuals (Government of Canada, 2012).
Involvement of Specialized Units
Considering that Operation Snapshot is an operation that is running nationwide, it has many agencies and units working together to be able to cover more ground and have better results. Policing partners on Operation Snapshot include: Alberta Law Enforcement Response Team (ALERT), northern and southern Internet Child Exploitation (ICE) teams, Saskatchewan ICE unit, Saskatoon Police Service, Regina Police Service, Prince Albert Police Service, F Division Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) (Saskatchewan), Winnipeg Police Service, D Division RCMP (Manitoba), G Division RCMP (Northwest Territories) and V Division RCMP (Nunavut Territory) (Government of Canada, 2012).
A good example of cooperation between the units can be seen in a case that took place in New Brunswick in 2014. This case is a bust of a major child pornography producer and distributor that led to the rescue of New Brunswick girl (Alison Crawford, 2014). It all started when a Toronto police officer who was perusing a file-sharing website and noticed an IP address with a large collection of child pornography images (Alison Crawford, 2014). The officer discovered that the account holder was from the area of Moncton, Bew Brunswick, and passed the information to the RCMP’s ICE unit in New Brunswick (Alison Crawford, 2014). Once the physical address is known, a background check is being done on the owner of the home, and whether the man is known to police and whether the suspect is in regular contact with children (Alison Crawford, 2014). With the help of surveillance, it was discovered that the suspect was in his 30s who appeared to live alone, but in the second week he departed his residence with a young child (Alison Crawford, 2014). A search warrant was prepared, and a team of RCMP officers was put together with the goal of finding child exploitation material at the home (Alison Crawford, 2014). Many cameras were found throughout the house that were recording and collecting videos to the many computers they were plugged to, and in one of the many computers an image listed on the search warrant was found (Alison Crawford, 2014). The evidence was evaluated, and the male was charged with sexually touching someone under the age of 14, invitation to sexual touching and making child pornography (Alison Crawford, 2014).
This example shows the importance of cooperation and teamwork in Operation Snapshot. Even though the event happened in New Brunswick, the information about it came from an officer in Toronto. With his help, the RCMP, was able to establish surveillance and initiate a search warrant, resulting in a successful bust.

Presented Issues
In every case, or operation there are is always at least one obstacle or barrier that officers will encounter. One big issue with investigating child pornography, or child abuse in general is the mental health of the officer/s. The mental health of an officer who works on cases relating to children is a concern (Mitchell, 2018). Emotional stress, including Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, is a reality of the job and there is great importance of becoming aware of it (Mitchell, 2018). Officers who are involved in cases concerning children are of higher risk to develop mental health problems and may experience severe sleep problems, substance abuse, domestic violence, and even suicide (KRQE, 2010). Those problems can influence an officer’s performance at work and personal life outside of work.
Another problem investigators may have to deal with during operations is the evolving modern technology and the criminals who become more adaptable to it. Offenders use technology to prevent their detection (Mitchell, 2018). Offenders may use many different devices to hide and protect themselves from prosecution (Mitchell, 2018). Nowadays, encrypted devices can detect if a device is being tampered with and erase the data on the device, that can greatly influence and harm and investigation (Mitchell, 2018). Offenders often use several computers and devices for storing this data and may use online chats to discuss police techniques and offer suggestions to avoid detection (Mitchell, 2018). In order to keep fighting such crimes and having successful investigations, investigators must stay current, continue to take extensive training, and obtain equipment to keep up with technology (Mitchell, 2018). Those issues will require great amounts of money and time but are necessary to have success in the investigations. If the police will not have the technology or the knowledge, they will not be able to investigate properly.

Tools available for investigators
One of the main tools that Operation Snapshot incorporates is having integrated units. As mentioned before, Operation Snapshot is a multi-agency police investigation operation that runs nation wide (National Post, 2012). Public safety agencies recognize the value of integration and collaboration and units within agencies work together to prevent and investigate crimes (Mitchell, 2018). When working together, information flows better from agency to agency and through team work crime can be stopped with in a much easier matter. It can be seen in the mentioned case before when an officer from Toronto passes information to the RCMP’s internet child exploitation unit in New Brunswick that he noticed an IP address with a large collection of disturbing child pornography images (Alison Crawford, 2014).
Another tool that is used during different operations and specifically Operation Snapshot is surveillance.

In the mentioned previous case, the officers surveilled the house and discovered after about 5 days that the owner of the house has contact with children, which immediately gave them grounds and a reason to prepare a search warrant (Alison Crawford, 2014). Surveillance can be done by sitting stationary and observing a specific place or person, or it can be done through cameras doing it for the investigator. The benefits of surveillance are that it gives the investigators real, visual, usually recorded evidence that can help build grounds, give evidence, and be used in

court.
Another tool that is being used in Operation Snapshot is the use of media to stimulate a conversation. Darren Parisien, a detective who led Operation Snapshot, did say that officers went to file-sharing networks where pornography was traded (Graham, 2012). They also posed as children or other predators (Graham, 2012). This tool is very beneficial to investigators because the offenders will provide the needed information to the officers voluntarily.
Careers Involved in Operation Snapshot
Operation Snapshot is a nationwide operation that involves many different agencies around the country.

One unit that it involved is ICE. ICE units investigate sexual exploitation of children on the Internet (ALERT , 2018). ICE investigates any computer-related offences concerning child sexual abuse, child luring over the Internet, voyeurism involving victims under the age of 18, and child sex trade (ALERT , 2018). The RCMP ICE Unit and the Integrated ICE Unit participated in a child pornography investigation called Operation Snapshot II, with the goal to identify and rescue child victims of sexual exploitation, and identify and charge offenders who possess, distribute or collect child sexual exploitation material online (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2016). Project Snapshot III, involved ICE investigative Units from across Canada (Regina Police Service,

2014).
Another big role in Operation Snapshot is the RCMP’s Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (CPCMEC). The CPCMEC is Canada's national contact point and coordination centre for police investigations involving sexually exploited children, missing children, missing adults and unidentified human remains (The IT Law Wiki, 2013). CPCMEC, holds the national mandate for coordinating investigations like Operation Snapshot (Government of Canada, 2012).
Operation Snapshot III was coordinated by the National Child Exploitation Coordination Centre (NCECC), a division of the Canadian Police Centre for Missing and Exploited Children/Behavioural Sciences Branch (CPCMEC/BSB) in Ottawa (Regina Police Service, 2014). The NCECC functions as the point of contact for investigations related to the sexual exploitation of children on the Internet in Canada (Royal Canadian Mounted Police, 2013).