
Ted Cross
Senior Research Specialist and Research Professor at the Children and Family Research Center, University of Illinois, specializing in child sexual abuse material (CSAM) research and child maltreatment investigation.
1
APPEARANCES
1
PODCASTS
012
DEC 30
JAN 6
JAN 13
JAN 20
JAN 27
FEB 3
FEB 10
FEB 17
FEB 24
MAR 3
MAR 10
MAR 17
MAR 24
MAR 31
APR 7
APR 14
APR 21
APR 28
MAY 5
MAY 12
MAY 19
MAY 26
JUN 2
JUN 9
JUN 16
JUN 23
JUN 30
JUL 7
JUL 14
JUL 21
JUL 28
AUG 4
AUG 11
AUG 18
AUG 25
SEP 1
SEP 8
SEP 15
SEP 22
SEP 29
OCT 6
OCT 13
OCT 20
OCT 27
NOV 3
NOV 10
NOV 17
NOV 24
DEC 1
DEC 8
DEC 15
DEC 22
DEC 29
JAN 5
JAN 12
JAN 19
JAN 26
FEB 2
FEB 9
FEB 16
FEB 23
MAR 2
MAR 9
MAR 16
MAR 23
MAR 30
APR 6
APR 13
APR 20
APR 27
MAY 4
MAY 11
MAY 18
MAY 25
JUN 1
JUN 8
JUN 15
JUN 22
JUN 29
JUL 6
JUL 13
JUL 20
JUL 27
AUG 3
AUG 10
AUG 17
AUG 24
AUG 31
SEP 7
SEP 14
SEP 21
SEP 28
Jul 9, 2026
How CSAM Fuels Ongoing Abuse
6:02
6:13
6:37
6:50
7:16
14:39

Teresa HuizarHOST
And so can you talk to us a little bit about, first of all, what were the research questions you were particularly interested in, and then how did you design your study to examine those questions?

Ted CrossGUEST
We were interested in The nature of the abuse portrayed in the CSAM material, the severity, and which particular categories of children were involved in the most severe abuse represented in the child sexual abuse material.

Ted CrossGUEST
I mean, uh, actually looking at the CSAM itself would raise enormous ethical questions.

Ted CrossGUEST
So we used a proxy method in which we work with the Child Rescue Coalition, which is intercepting this information continuously, has data on millions of files, millions of postings of this material, and then shares this, that information with law enforcement to, uh, assist with enforcement in actually identifying and prosecuting offenders.

Ted CrossGUEST
The Child Rescue Coalition, along with capturing the files in their database, captured the file names of the files, just the file names.
7 MINS LATER

Teresa HuizarHOST
But if you're a CPS worker, if you're a forensic interviewer in a children's advocacy center, how does it influence your work knowing more, based on this study, about possibly the content of all of the sort of CSAM material that exists related to these cases?