The impact of crime isn't just on the victim, it can also become a burden to the policing team dealing with the situation. The psychiatric evaluations are required for the team as their work is deemed a high-risk to their mental health.

Victim liaison officer Cindy* said she doesn't let her job impact her or her family outside of work.

"I'm very good at separating the two. I switch off when I go home, because if you don't you burn out way too quickly."

Senior Constable Hamish* said he can do the same.

"I leave work and I just don't think about it until the next day. I think it's a personality trait," he said.

"From time to time you might have a sleepless night, but I'm pretty good at switching off."

Detective Senior Constable Jack* agreed, saying work stays at work.

"I don't compare the children I speak to at work with my own children, I think that would do my head in. I don't speak to my wife about what happens at work or the jobs I do. And then I just make sure I've got good mates at work. I think our team is fantastic, it's probably one of the best team environments I've worked in in my career," he said.

The officers in the SACAT team investigate anything ranging from sexual assaults on adults and children through to child abuse matters.

But more recently there has been an increase in a relatively new area of crime.

There is a growing trend of young people sending explicit images of themselves to each other - known as sexting.

Under the law, it's called child pornography. If that image is sent on to someone else, it's distributing child pornography.

"There are definitely more jobs in relation to child pornography being distributed particularly among young people," Detective Jack* said.

"It's all fun and games until it starts getting spread around the school."

Senior Constable Hamish said he couldn't think of a single job in that area where the victim considered the consequences in the future.

"They all know about it," he said.

"They all know what sexting is and the problems it can lead to, but not one of them thinks it's going to happen to them."

This is an issue that poses a problem for police, because the officers are there to punish people who break the law.

"But how do you punish two kids that have made a bad mistake that has had serious consequences for another person?"

Detective Jack said it was generally young girls whose photos were distributed.

"They're actually committing an offence themselves by sending those photos. We don't prosecute for those matters, because they've made a mistake, but I don't think they realise the seriousness until after it comes to us."

But every day is different.

Child abuse crimes make up the majority of work in the unit, but thankfully, the officers said, most of the reports turned out to be misunderstandings.

"When you're talking about little children, they say things that get taken out of context," Detective Jack said.

He said mandatory reports - often from teachers - can sometimes come in with the barest of detail.

"The child will say, 'daddy hit me', or 'mummy did something', and then they often don't ask any more questions to get context around what they meant about that," he said.

"I think a fairly good example was, 'daddy hit me with his elbow'. Whoever interviewed them from the team sat down and got the context of that, and it turned out to be the child was running through the house and they ran into daddy's elbow."

"The teacher has obviously thought dad's abusing the child and reported that. It's just a misunderstanding. On the flip side, there are those matters that you suspect that something has happened."

Detective Jack said while it takes up a lot of time, it was crucial these cases be reported and investigated.

The team said there were a lot of misconceptions about what the police do during sexual assault investigations.

The most important thing was to report sexual assault as soon as possible, because there are two types of these matters: historical and current.

Historical matters could be as little as three days old.

"If there's no forensic evidence, the person has washed, they haven't been to see the doctor, there's no CCTV… it can come down to someone's word against another," senior constable Hamish said.

But it doesn't stop the police from investigating, and it doesn't necessarily stop them getting prosecutions in court.

"It just makes it more difficult," Detective Jack said.

"Another hard part of our job is explaining to people that we have to prove matters beyond reasonable doubt. Just because we put it before the court and it doesn't get up doesn't mean we don't believe you, it just means we haven't reached that threshold."

He said people should report to police as soon as they can after being sexually assaulted.

"If they just come and speak to us, they don't have to make a statement straight away or go to court or anything like that. But it means we can gather evidence and then if they want to go ahead with it later on, they can."

He said there were misconceptions within the community that it would be too hard to prove, or that police wouldn't believe the victim.

"We can tell you exactly what to expect and you can base your decision on that," Detective Jack said.

Victim liaison officer Cindy said everyone should be held accountable for their actions, but the team's role was to prevent further harm to the victim.

This is particularly true of sexual assault cases.

"They're already victimised and they're already struggling with what's happened," Cindy said.

The team's main aim to ensure the safety of the victims. This means wrapping support around them.

Cindy said her job was to help victims navigate their way through the criminal justice system, ensuring they're in touch with support services in the community.

"At the end of the day, being a victim of crime will be with you forever. You don't choose to be a victim of crime, but it's going to stay with you. We've got to help people negotiate around that and work out how they can use that to benefit themselves and empower themselves later down the track."

*Names have been changed to protect the privacy of the officers and the identity of their families.