The COPINE scale is a rating system created in Ireland and used in the United Kingdom to categorise the severity of images of child sex abuse. The scale was developed by staff at the COPINE ("Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe") project. The COPINE Project was founded in 1997, and is based in the Department of Applied Psychology,

University College Cork University College Cork – National University of Ireland, Cork (UCC) () is a constituent university of the National University of Ireland, and located in Cork (city), Cork. The university was founded in 1845 as one of three Queen's Universit ...

, Ireland.

Use

Therapeutic

The COPINE scale was originally developed for therapeutic psychological purposes. More specifically, it is used to distinguish between child erotica and

child pornography Child pornography (also abbreviated as CP, also called child porn or kiddie porn, and child sexual abuse material, known by the acronym CSAM (underscoring that children can not be deemed willing participants under law)), is Eroticism, erotic ma ...

. Professor Max Taylor, one of the academics working for the COPINE project, stated: "The significance of this distinction is to emphasise the potential sexual qualities of a whole range of kinds of photographs (and other material as well) not all of which may meet

obscenity An obscenity is any utterance or act that strongly offends the prevalent morality of the time. It is derived from the Latin , , "boding ill; disgusting; indecent", of uncertain etymology. Generally, the term can be used to indicate strong moral ...

criteria."

Judicial

In the late 1990s, the COPINE project at the University College Cork, in cooperation with the Paedophile Unit of the London Metropolitan Police, developed a typology to categorize child abuse images for use in both research and law enforcement. The ten-level typology was based on analysis of images available on websites and internet newsgroups. Other researchers have adopted similar ten-level scales.

The SAP scale

The 2002 case of ''Regina v Oliver'' in the

Court of Appeal of England and Wales The Court of Appeal (formally "His Majesty's Court of Appeal in England", commonly cited as "CA", "EWCA" or "CoA") is the highest court within the Senior Courts of England and Wales, and second in the legal system of England and Wales only to ...

case summary established a scale by which indecent images of children could be "graded". The five point scale, established by the

Sentencing Advisory Panel The Sentencing Council for England and Wales is a non-departmental public body that is responsible for developing sentencing guidelines, monitoring the use of guidelines and assessing and reviewing a wide range of decisions relating to sentenci ...

for England and Wales and adopted in 2002, is known as the SAP scale. It is based on COPINE terminology and is often mistakenly referred to as such. The SAP document gives a detailed explanation of how the COPINE scale was adapted. It also states that the COPINE scale was intended for therapeutic use and not designed for use in court. Examination of the categories will show that categories 2–5 of the SAP scale obviously correspond to categories 7–10 of the COPINE scale. Category 1 of the SAP scale seems to correspond vaguely to categories 4–6 of the COPINE scale. COPINE category 1 (indicative) was left off the SAP scale because "images of this nature would not be classed as indecent." The board found COPINE categories 2 & 3 to be disputable as to whether or not they can be classified as indecent.

Sexual Offences Definitive Guideline

On 1 April 2014, a new scale, replacing the SAP scale, was adopted for sentencing in England and Wales for crimes relating to indecent images of children, put into place by page 75 of the Sentencing Council's Sexual Offences Definitive Guideline.

References

External links

COPINE Project

old link COPINE project (archived)

Sentencing Guidelines (England and Wales)
(This sentencing advice is from 2002 and has been superseded b
Sexual Offenses Sentencing Guidelines
{{Pornography legality, state=collapsed Pornography law Rating systems Child pornography

Use