Abstract
Youth produced sexual imagery (YPSI) has, for some time, been of concern to police, schools, and policymakers. There have been various iterations of policy and practice designed to address YPSI over the previous decade, with increasing nuance and awareness about the different forms of YPSI and the distinctions between ‘developmentally normative’ consensual image sharing between similarly aged peers and aggravated or abusive image sharing. This chapter examines the implications of policy and practice in England surrounding YPSI for the prevention, reporting, and response to abusive image sharing among young people. It suggests that ongoing tensions in the aims and nature of the approach, in England but also comparable jurisdictions elsewhere, coupled with sociocultural, structural, and systemic victim-blaming and barriers to reporting and challenging abusive image sharing, means that it is not being sufficiently recognised or addressed in policy and practice. Suggestions are made for an improved systems response that disentangles non-consensual and abusive sharing from consensual sharing; challenges all forms of victim-blaming; and takes a holistic approach to addressing the sociocultural contextual causes of abusive image sharing and the reluctance to report and challenge abuse, including as upheld and perpetuated within the structures of the systems themselves.