The NatCen Blog

Here we’ll be talking about our research in the context of the latest news, opinion and
analysis through comments from our team of experts. We’d love to hear from you, so post comments or get in touch with us.

To keep up-to-date with our latest blog posts and reports, subscribe to our monthly newsletter. 

• Posted on 30 October 2012

  What should we really be focussing on in the Savile case?

  I can’t imagine that there’s anyone who hasn’t seen some coverage of the Jimmy Savile case over the last few weeks. The nature and number of the allegations has been shocking. While journalists pore over the BBC’s role in all of this, it’s really important that we don’t become so fixated on how one ...

  Read the rest of this entry

  Tags: European Online Grooming Project, Jimmy Savile, crime and justice

• Posted on 17 November 2011

  Understanding the influence of social media

  We’re all increasingly familiar with the part that Twitter, Facebook and other new social media are playing in our lives. But do we really understand whether they are influencing individual behaviour and attitudes or broader social processes or a separate social space?

  Read the rest of this entry

  Tags: European Online Grooming Project, London riots, research methodology, social media

• Posted on 21 September 2011

  Preventing child sexual abuse though proactive intervention

  Today saw Marina Yannakoudakis, Conservative MEP for London, host a meeting at the European Parliament in Brussels to discuss a Europe-wide initiative to prevent children’s sexual abuse – Stop it Now. We were invited to the meeting as leaders of the European Online Grooming Project, the largest European research study into the behaviour of online groomers and the young people targeted for online and offline sexual abuse. Here Stephen Webster discusses how our findings can inform the Stop it Now campaign in a number of ways.    

  Read the rest of this entry

  Tags: child abuse, crime and justice, European Online Grooming Project, sexual abuse, Stop it Now!

• Posted on 31 May 2011

  Collective responsibility for online safety

  Stephen Webster, our Head of Crime and Justice reports on the release of the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) annual report, which tells us that over the last year 414 children were helped, 513 people arrested and 132 offender networks broken up in the UK. The release of these figures says much for their continuing excellent work, but none of us can be in any doubt about the scale of the challenge facing CEOP and its partners.

  Read the rest of this entry

  Tags: CEOP, Child Exploitation and Online Protection Command, crime and justice, European Online Grooming Project, NSPCC

• Posted on 04 February 2011

  Men who groom young people online - would online authentication help?

  We saw an interesting clash yesterday between Richard Allan (Facebook’s European director of policy) and John Carr (secretary of the Children's Charities' Coalition on Internet Safety), at the launch of our study looking at how men who have been convicted for grooming young people online actually operate. Chief Executive Penny Young discusses the European Online Grooming Project

  Read the rest of this entry

  Tags: European Online Grooming Project, crime and justice