“We have to do something”: The lived reality of investigating online child sexual abuse in Sweden

In this article we foreground the occupational experiences of ‘Anna’, an online child sexual abuse investigator in the Swedish police force. We do so for two main reasons: to provide a much-needed insight into the lived realities of this under-researched form of extreme work; and to progress our theoretical understanding of the phenomenon of moral injury. In relation to the former, through Anna we reveal what the work of investigating online child sexual abuse involves, the challenges investigators encounter, and the personal and emotional tolls paid along the way. In relation to the latter, we (re)conceive – and shift the focus of extant analysis – away from moral injury as a purely individualized phenomenon, to understanding the systemic conditions that contribute to, create and amplify it. In doing so what we reveal are the organizational and institutional dimensions of moral injuries, which thus far remain largely overlooked and unexplored.