3.1.3. Lack of Resources

With participants identifying such high volumes of CSAM, some of the most common barriers identified by participants were high caseloads, not enough staff, and the lack of financial resources to be able to adequately investigate or address all cases. Some participants outlined that while their caseloads have been increasing, they have actually been losing staff, making the issue of resources even more of a barrier for them. Participants noted that because they have limited trained staff, they are not always able to triage cases as they would wish, but rather will pursue cases with clear evidence. Another participant noted that they are only ever able to address the most imminent threat cases, which can leave victims and families feeling unsupported. Further, one participant outlined that even if they had all the images and all the disclosures, they do not have enough staff to support these investigations, particularly the technological side of investigations. The following quotes describe these sentiments:

*We don't have enough people [to investigate] so we can really only get the low bearing fruit. (II9)*

*We regularly gripe amongst ourselves about how our caseload is di*ff*erent than those who are doing property crimes* . . . *it would be wonderful if there was an acknowledgement about the content we deal with. (FG7, 1)*

*Always [investigating] the ones that were the most imminent. Never get to triage it, but it was most imminent threat to o*ff*end. Those were your priorities, and it may make a lot of folks upset because it might take a while to get to their case, but there were cases coming in every day. (FG10, 3)*

*I am concerned that if we had access to all the images that were out there, had all the disclosures in the world, that we wouldn't be able to tackle that [and] the system would become overwhelmed* . . . *we are fortunate that we have two people dedicated to this work. That's unheard of in this area to have two people dedicated to child pornography investigations. And even these two find themselves constrained by forensic processing and the length of time that it takes. (FG16, 1)*

Some participants talked about having to compete for resources with other departments or investigations. One participant spoke about competing for resources in terms of forensic examiners and people who are able to find information on seized devices, as both the technology and the expertise are very expensive. Another participant noted that big operations or high priority cases will get adequately resourced, but the day-to-day investigations need more resource allocation. It is important to note that not all participants described a lack of resources. Participants noted that smaller jurisdictions or departments are at more of a disadvantage as they have even fewer resources in general, and specifically to deal with in-depth CSAM investigations. The following quotes describe competing for resources and a discrepancy in resources between areas:

*We're competing with every single other law enforcement investigation because you better believe that every gang shooting, they need to know what those texts were on those cell phones* . . . *so we need more resources, more forensically trained examiners for these devices* . . . *Both the hardware and the expertise is incredibly expensive. (FG7, 1)*

*If we have a big operation, [we] will get resources. We can always pull people, but it's the day-to-day investigations that build up* . . . *we need more investigators that are dedicated to this and allocated to this full-time. (FG12, 1)*

*These small departments* . . . *these really strapped departments, have no capacity to do any of this kind of in-depth stu*ff*. (FG1, 1)*

One participant summed up the challenges and the need for more resources and staff in saying:

*not enough investigators, money for training, money for technology* . . . *The bad guys on the internet* . . . *are able to get this high level of technology that law enforcement can't compete with because we're not a multimillionaire business. So that makes it really, really challenging. (FG10, 4)*
