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SEXTO

SEXTO is a partnership enabling collaboration between school, police and judicial communities to prevent and combat the phenomenon of sexting by teenagers at the high school level.

Taking swift and effective action within a defined framework, with tools and a unique, innovative intervention method in sexting and image sharing situations helps to limit the considerable potential repercussions. The SEXTO intervention method favors an educational approach rather than a legal one.

Background

The initiative was devised by the Service de police de la Ville de Saint-Jérôme in 2016, in concert with the Directeur des poursuites criminelles et pénales (DPCP). Other police forces, including the Sûreté du Québec, subsequently launched SEXTO in their jurisdictions.  In 2023-2024, the SPVM coordinated the implementation of the project on the Island of Montréal, in collaboration with the DPCP and public and private high schools.

Participating schools

High schools of the two Montréal English School Boards and three French School Service Centres are taking part in SEXTO, in conjunction with many private high schools grouped under the Fédération des établissements d’enseignement privés. There are consequently almost 130 participating schools.

Intervention

A procedure has been developed to enable partners to intervene and collaborate in a sexting situation at school. Here are the outlines:

  • School professionals, who have received training and the SEXTO intervention kits, are the first to intervene and inform the authorities.
  • Patrol officers are responsible for collecting a SEXTO kit in a school when a 911 call is made by a complainant, i.e., by the school professional in the relevant school.
  • The SPVM then consults the DPCP with the aim of determining whether the image sharing act by the teenager at fault was impulsive or malicious:

- If it was an impulsive act, the teenager and their parents will meet community relations officers taking an educational approach to prevent a repeat offence. The victim is also met.
- However, if the DPCP determines that it was a malicious act, a criminal investigation will be conducted by the SPVM.

Training

School professionals have received training on how to use a SEXTO kit in preparation for the initial handling of a sexting incident in their school.

In addition to all of the SPVM community relations officers, around 100 patrol officers from neighbourhood police stations have been given training before the implementation of the project.