Reducing Child Sexual Exploitation (CSE)

Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Gye1, Georgia Wearne1

1Victoria Police,  Australia

The Dandenong Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Investigation Team (SOCIT) has established a dedicated Child Sexual Exploitation team, comprised of investigators, a Tactical Intelligence Officer and Youth Resource officers. The role of the team is to prevent CSE, build relationships with children vulnerable to CSE who are in out of home care, as well as disrupting the activities of persons of interest. There is also a significant intelligence gathering function. The team has secured various convictions and results from this new operating model, and has been positively evaluated.

This ‘short shot’ will discuss the development of the CSE team and the challenges of operating in the CSE field. Successes, failures and future development will be discussed.


Biography:

Detective Senior Sergeant Craig Gye is the Officer in Charge of Victoria’s busiest SOCIT. He has worked in the sexual crime theme for many years. He has been instrumental in the development of improved investigation and disruption practice for tackling child sexual exploitation.

Georgia Wearne is a Senior Project Officer within the Sexual Offences and Child Abuse Team in Victoria Police.  Georgia’s currently working on developing a Child Sexual Exploitation Disruption Guide, as well as other projects such as brief authorisation of sexual offences.  Georgia has previously worked within the Family Violence sector and has worked on the implementation of responses to recent Royal Commissions into family violence and child sexual abuse.