5-28-17 National:
Research on whether viewing child pornography leads to sexually abusing children is limited, but several studies and many law enforcement officers and prosecutors support the idea that there is a high correlation.
Consider:
Forty percent of more than 1,700 child pornographers were “dual offenders,” meaning they both possessed child pornography and sexually abused children, according to the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study in 2005. An additional 15 percent attempted a sex crime against a child.
Eighty percent of those who purchase child pornography have sexually molested children, according to the U.S. Postal Service.
Seventy-six percent of offenders convicted of internet crimes admitted to contact sex crimes, with an average of 31 victims each, according to a 2000 study by the Federal Bureau of Prisons. ..Continued..
May 28, 2017
From porn to contact: does viewing child porn lead to assault?
April 18, 2017
Appeals Court Rejects 'Shockingly High' 19-Year Sentence for Child Porn Collection
The 2nd Circuit says the recommended prison term was "substantively unreasonable."
When Joseph Jenkins went on vacation in May 2009, he brought his collection of child pornography with him. That decision led to a prison sentence so severe that a federal appeals court yesterday deemed it "substantively unreasonable" in a decision that shows how mindlessly punitive federal sentencing guidelines for child pornography offfenses have become.
Canadian border agents found Jenkins' child pornography on a laptop and a thumb drive as he was driving from his home in Geneva, New York, to his parents' summer house in Quebec. After Jenkins skipped bail in Canada, he was charged under U.S. law. In 2014 he was convicted of possessing and transporting child pornography, and a federal judge sentenced him to nearly 19 years in prison, followed by 25 years of supervised release. Given the nature of Jenkins' crimes, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 2nd Circuit ruled, the judge "went far overboard."
The 2nd Circuit's decision illustrates the impact of congressional edicts that call for stiff sentencing enhancements based on factors that are routine in child pornography cases. Jenkins' criminal history was limited to a single misdemeanor, he did not produce or distribute child pornography, and his crimes did not involve contact with minors. Yet U.S. District Judge Glenn Suddaby calculated that the recommended sentence was 210 to 262 months, thanks mainly to enhancements for using a computer, for possessing more than 600 images (with each video counting as 75 images), for possessing images of prepubescent children, and for possessing images featuring masochistic, sadomasochistic, or other violent content. "These enhancements," the 2nd Circuit notes, "have caused Jenkins to be treated like an offender who seduced and photographed a child and distributed the photographs and worse than one who raped a child." ..Continued.. by Jacob Sullum|
November 11, 2016
Court says secretly filming nude young girls in bathroom isn’t child porn
Tennessee top court says even if defendant was aroused, the girls weren't having sex.
The Tennessee Supreme Court is vacating the child-porn production conviction of a Knoxville man, named Thomas Whited, who secretly filmed his 12-year-old daughter—and 14-year-old friend—showering, going to the bathroom, and undressing. Although the father recorded the bathroom for two months for sexual reasons, the high court vacated his 22-year sentence because what he filmed did not amount to pornography. The girls were not having sex, the high court reasoned (PDF) Monday, and instead the minors were videotaped in the bathroom performing "everyday activities."
Most states define child pornography to some extent on whether it is intended to sexually arouse the viewer, which was the case in the prosecution of Whited, a US Army National Guardsman. However, under Tennessee's child pornography laws, the intent of the viewer or producer of the recorded images doesn't matter. What does matter, however, is the story the images tell.
Tennessee defines child porn as depicting children having sex, simulated "sexual activity," and "lascivious exhibition" of children's private parts. There was no sexual or simulated sexual activity being filmed in the case of Whitfield, and the term "lascivious" is overbroad, the high court reasoned. Because of that vagueness in "lascivious," the court suggested that filming a baby's first bath could be considered child porn: ..Continued.. by David Kravets
September 4, 2015
Teen Being Charged For Possessing Nude Pictures...Of Himself
Cormega Copening is a 17-year-old from North Carolina who is facing up to 10 years in prison for sexually exploiting a minor--himself. Copening and his 16-year-old girlfriend are legally able to consent to have sex with each other in the state of North Carolina, yet the fact that they sent nude pictures of themselves to each other (or, in Copening's case, kept them on his phone) means that they are now both being charged with a crime.
Robby Soave over at Reason has more:
But first, to recap: Copening and his girlfriend—now identified as Brianna Denson—are like other teenagers in that they have more than a passing interest in sex. Indeed, when they were 16, they exchanged racy sexy photos via text message. Denson sent pictures to Copening, and Copening sent pictures to Denson. It appears that no one else saw the pictures until local authorities searched Copening’s phone and discovered them.What a nightmare.
Why did they search his phone? It’s not clear, but local news reports claimed that it had nothing to do with the sexts themselves. The Cumberland County Sheriff’s Office did not respond to a request for comment. According to fayobserver.com, there is no record of a search warrant being issued for Copening’s phone.
Both teens were charged with sexual exploitation. Denson pleaded guilty to a lesser charge and was given 12 months of probation.
Copening, however, is still facing two counts of second-degree sexual exploitation and three counts of third-degree exploitation. As Ricochet’s Tom Meyer points out, the third-degree charges—which constitute a majority of the total charges—actually stem from the pictures Copening had of himself. The implication is clear: Copening does not own himself, from the standpoint of the law, and is not free to keep sexually-provocative pictures, even if they depict his own body.
But consider this: North Carolina is one of two states in the country (the other is progressive New York) that considers 16 to be the age of adulthood for criminal purposes. This mean, of course, that Copening can be tried as an adult for exploiting a minor—himself.
While it's generally not the best idea to exchange nude photos with someone, it's absolutely absurd that Copening could be facing jail time–and a lifetime on the sex offender registry–for having racy pictures of himself on his cell phone. North Carolina law makes it so that Copening is considered an adult perpetrator yet simultaneously a minor victim. This is insane. A person is either a minor or an adult. They cannot be both. This isn't a "Schrödinger's sext" situation.
Copening's girlfriend was able to plead guilty to lesser charges and avoided a lifetime on the sex offender registry. (Think about that: she faced a lifetime on the sex offender registry, listed among child molesters and rapists, for sending and storing nude pictures of herself.)
Sure, sexting is bad. But consensual, non-shared sexts between a boyfriend and a girlfriend shouldn't be a criminal charge--and neither should taking a racy picture of yourself. This isn't making the community safer from a sexual deviant--it's potentially ruining someone's life for an act that didn't harm anybody. North Carolina's laws need to be examined and updated. These potential penalties are way too harsh for the "crime." ..Source.. by Christine Rousselle
August 22, 2015
Why we understand so little about child sexual abuse
A quick note, are folks aware that missing from this article and many others is, what type of child pornography is involved in a case? There is no known published standard, it can be anything from Grandma's pic of a child in a tub all the way up to most gruesome pics. People hear "child porn" and go off the deep end, a pic of a 17 year old nude is child porn. The problem is likened to folks hearing "sex offender" and they hate the person, well a sex offender can be a 18 year old and a 17 year old in a relationship? Ask What Type of CP (PDF File)," maybe lawmakers can set some standard so the public can judge by. Amen. See U.S. Dep't of Justice Description HERE, note under 18. see also FAQ8-22-15 National:
Reading the news that former Subway pitchman Jared Fogle will plead guilty to possessing hundreds of pornographic images of children and having sex with underage girls, it is hard not to be horrified.
Indeed, the people investigating Fogle’s case could barely contain their outrage.
“This is about using wealth, status and secrecy to illegally exploit children,” U.S. Attorney Josh Minkler said at a press conference announcing the plea deal.
“I cannot think of anything more repugnant than sexually victimizing a child,” Indiana State Police Superintendent Doug Carter later added. “Any and all resources have been and will be committed to seeking out who you are, no matter where you live or who you are.”
A man with fortune, fame and a heartwarming story, who had established a foundation in his own name to help children combat obesity, was seeking out sex with children — “the younger the girl the better,” he wrote, according to court documents.
In front of the federal courthouse in Indianapolis, a large crowd gathered Wednesday to gawk at the former TV personality. They taunted and jeered, hurled insults, voiced their disgust in the bluntest terms.
One person wanted to know, according to the Indianapolis Star, “Why’d you do that?”
It’s nearly impossible to comprehend what would drive Fogle to do what his lawyer acknowledges he did. Human sexuality is already complicated, and the desire to have sex with a child is considered so shocking, so perverse, that we aren’t inclined to try and understand it.
However justified, experts say, the righteous revulsion we feel when we hear about crimes like those alleged against Fogle is making it harder to explain them and prevent them from happening.
Answering why
The science of sexual disorders, termed paraphilias, is far less developed than other areas of psychiatry, and there are few resources for treating potential abusers. There’s almost no way to identify a child abuser before they commit a crime, at which point it’s already too late.
Meanwhile, penalties for sex crimes against children have gotten harsher and harsher — often in response to horrifying stories of violence and abuse. The federal mandatory minimum sentence for a sex offense by an adult involving a child under 16 is 30 years.
“Right now, our society is more equipped to look at it as a moral problem than a medical or scientific problem,” psychiatrist Fred Berlin said. “But there is a biological basis for these cravings … and society is just giving lip service to that side of it.”
He added, “Nobody chooses to be attracted to children.”
Berlin is the director of the Sexual Behaviors Consultation Unit at Johns Hopkins University, where he works with sex offenders, among other patients. He says that there’s a lot we still don’t know about the role that hormones, the brain and environment play in sexual attraction.
Although the federal government began to prosecute far more sex offenders after the advent of the Internet — and subsequent availability of illegal child pornography — made it much easier to track down likely child abusers, research into factors that contribute to child sexual abuse has lagged behind. Scientists are only just beginning to use neuroimaging to identify what parts of the brain are responsible for sexual cravings, and clinical studies of child sex abusers are often hard to come by. Some of the most famous studies in the field — like a 2009 report by psychologists with the Federal Bureau of Prisons that found a connection between child pornography possession and the molestation of minors — are disputed because they focus on small sample sizes of imprisoned offenders.
And because there’s so much stigma associated with the issue, there are not enough pedophiles willing to self-report to figure out how many people feel this attraction but never commit an offense. Many states also have mandatory reporting laws that require therapists to report patients who discuss sexual fantasies or cravings involving children — in California, the law is so strict that hard proof is not required to make a report. The regulations are designed to protect children, who are typically unlikely to report abuse themselves. But critics say that they prevent potential abusers from speaking about their cravings before they commit a crime.
He added that it’s difficult to find researchers who are willing to devote themselves to studying these kinds of sexual disorders, and even harder to find funding for such research.
“We have a society that sometimes finds it difficult to deal with these issues of sex and so on, and that has led to us having less support for the kinds of research that would actually be very helpful,” he told The Washington Post.
What we do know suggests that pedophilia stems largely from the brain. According to psychologist James Cantor, a former editor of the journal Sexual Abuse and an expert on paraphilias, pedophiles have less white matter — the “cables” of cells that transmit signals across the brain — than the general population.
“There doesn’t seem to be a pedophilia center in the brain,” he told Gawker in 2012. “Instead, there’s either not enough of this cabling, not the correct kind of cabling, or it’s wiring the wrong areas together, so instead of the brain evoking protective or parental instincts when these people see children, it’s instead evoking sexual instincts. There’s almost literally a crossed wiring.”
Other studies have suggested that pedophilia is related to problems in the frontal or temporal lobes — areas of the brain involved with impulse control and sex. In one well-known case, a man became addicted to child pornography after undergoing a temporal lobectomy to treat his epilepsy.
Cantor, Berlin and others are quick to point out that not every pedophile becomes a sex offender. Berlin believes that the majority of people who are attracted to children don’t act on their desire. Unlike many European countries, the United States has few voluntary therapeutic programs for people with pedophilia, though support groups like “Virtuous Pedophiles” work to help people resist their attractions.
Likewise, not every sex offender is a pedophile. Berlin said that some child pornography downloaders consider themselves “collectors,” like people who collect stamps. They are not so much turned on by the images as obsessed with them. And some adults who molest children are attracted to the sense of power, or violence, or the ability to instill fear in another, rather than the fact of their victim’s age.
Fogle’s case
We don’t know if Jared Fogle was a pedophile. Prosecutors allege that he fell into the first category of child pornography watcher — online offenders who exploit minors in the real world as well. Prosecutors say he traveled to have sex with two teenagers, and solicited the girls to help him find even younger victims.
As part of his plea deal his lawyer described Wednesday, he will seek treatment for what his attorney termed “his medical problem.” The deal also won him a guarantee from prosecutors that they will seek a sentence of 121⁄2 years or less — much lighter than what is meted out to most offenders, law professor Melissa Hamilton said.
“Federal sentencing guidelines for these offenders are harsh, and often when there is one of these highly publicized cases of abuse, they get harsher,” Hamilton, who teaches at the University of Houston Law Center, told The Post.
She pointed to the 2006 Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, which set up a national registry for sex offenders and allowed for the civil commitment (continued detention after a prison term is over) of sex offenders. The act is named for a Florida 6-year-old who was abducted from a shopping mall and brutally murdered by a serial killer.
Civil commitment — a procedure initially set up to protect inmates with mental illness who are deemed unfit to be released from prison — remains controversial. The policy is predicated on the logic that civil commitment prevents pedophiles from abusing more children. When it was challenged in the Supreme Court in 2010, the court ruled in favor of civil commitment.
“If a federal prisoner is infected with a communicable disease that threatens others,” read the majority decision, “surely it would be ‘necessary and proper’ … to refuse (at least until the threat diminishes) to release that individual among the general public, where he might infect others.”
The largest study of sex offenders conducted by the Bureau of Justice Statistics found that roughly 5.3 percent of those imprisoned for a sex crime are re-arrested.
But many psychologists say that the emphasis on imprisonment rather than rehabilitation doesn’t protect victims.
“All of the attention is on known sex offenders and just heaping on the punishment,” Elizabeth Letourneau, a professor at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who studies child sexual abuse, told Slate in 2012. “This is said to be due to an interest in prevention, but it’s really about retribution. If people are really serious about preventing children from being molested or raped, it may very well necessitate the uncomfortable acknowledgment that some people are born as pedophiles. … All we do is drive it underground.” ..Source.. by Sarah Kaplan
December 5, 2014
Top police officer: many viewing child abuse images should be treated on NHS
12-5-2014 United Kingdom:
Norfolk chief constable Simon Bailey believes thousands on police database ‘pose no threat’ and don’t belong in prison
Thousands who view child abuse images online should be treated as patients by the NHS rather than sent to prison because they pose no threat to children, says one of Britain’s leading police officers.
In an interview with the Guardian, Simon Bailey, chief constable of Norfolk police and the Association of Chief Police Officers’ (Acpo) lead on child protection and abuse investigations, said that while police had a database of 50,000 people who regularly viewed indecent images of children, research suggested not all were an immediate threat.
“What academic research would say is between 16% and 50% of those people who have viewed indecent images of children are then likely to be ‘contact abusers’ [of children]. That can be as high as 25,000 or as low as 8,000. [This group] poses a threat,” he said. However, the remaining group of child sex offenders – who are committing a crime by viewing the material online – are “non-contact abusers” who Bailey says do not “need to come into the criminal justice system in terms of being put forward before a court”.
He added: “We have to think about an alternative solution. [We] need to engage with service providers from mental health and the health service to work with us to say these people need help.”
The new approach provoked a debate among child protection experts and health professionals over whether the police were in effect decriminalising child sex offences at a time when online abuse appears to be increasing.
David Cameron will call next week for further controls over child abuse images. There are thought to be more than 100m of them in circulation on the web, up from 7,000 in 1990.
Admitting the new strategy appeared “a very unpalatable response from a senior police officer,” Bailey said the decision to give priority to active paedophiles rather than browsers of images that include the rape and torture of children was “based on realism ... it is based upon the fact there will be a significant number of those people who will simply not go on to contact abuse.”
This week a doctor, Myles Bradbury, was jailed for 22 years for “grotesque” abuse of 18 vulnerable children in his care. Police in Canada had told their British counterparts he was buying indecent images of children on the internet, but UK investigators failed to act for 14 months, classifying him as low risk. ..Continued.. by Randeep Ramesh, social affairs editor
November 23, 2014
Victim: Viewing child porn isn’t harmless
11-23-2014 Florida:
Ashley Reynolds wants people who think viewing child pornography is harmless to think again.
“I think people who think it’s not a crime to look at child pornography are ignorant because they’re not thinking about what the child had to go through,” Reynolds said. “It’s damaging.”
Reynolds knows only too well. Now 20, the Arizona woman was victimized five years ago, starting when she was 14, by a Florida man who extorted her and hundreds of other girls around the country to send him vulgar pictures of themselves.
Lucas Michael Chansler, 31, was sentenced earlier this month to 105 years in federal prison after pleading guilty to nine counts of producing child pornography.
Chansler told detectives he targeted children because adult women were “too smart” to fall for his scheme. Investigators found thousands of videos and photos on his computers, including recordings of girls crying and pleading with him to stop and one girl holding a handwritten sign with a single word: “rape.”
The Tampa Tribune has a policy against naming victims of sex offenses. But Reynolds wants to be public because she wants to advocate for victims and to educate people about the real children who are damaged by child pornography.
❖ ❖ ❖
Reynolds says she’s not sure how Chansler found her online, but she suspects it has something to do with a video chat program she and her friends used for a while, the now-defunct Stickam, which she says was her only online activity that was publicly viewable. She had a Myspace account that was private.
After she had moved on from Stickam, Reynolds said, “I received a message from a random person on Myspace, and it said something about needing to open the message, ‘I have naked pictures of you.’ ... I didn’t even bother to open it. I didn’t know who the person was. So I ignored it.”
A few weeks later, she says, she received a text message on her AOL instant messaging account.
“It was him. I had no idea who ..Continued.. by Elaine Silvestrini
Local child sex prosecutions at record rate
11-23-2014 Florida:
TAMPA — A defense contractor from Riverview is spending 30 years in prison for forcing a 16-year-old girl to have sex with him and using his computer to record their encounter.
A worship minister from Winter Garden was arrested and charged with receiving and possessing child pornography.
A former American Airlines pilot from St. Petersburg was sentenced to 21 years in prison for producing, distributing and possessing child pornography after he used two minor victims to make sexually explicit videos.
Federal prosecutors in the Middle District of Florida, which includes Tampa, prosecuted more cases involving child exploitation in the past fiscal year than any year before, according to U.S. attorney’s office records.
“It’s our most productive year ever,” U.S. Attorney Lee Bentley said.
Bentley credited a cooperative atmosphere among federal, state and local authorities for the high number of prosecutions.
“I do not believe that the prevalence of child pornography and crimes against children is higher here in Florida than elsewhere in the country,’’ Bentley said. “It’s a national problem. Law enforcement here has been particularly adept at dealing with it. It’s a huge problem nationwide.”
The cases fall under the umbrella of Project Safe Childhood, a Justice Department initiative aimed at preventing and stopping child exploitation.
In Tampa alone, federal prosecutors brought 49 Project Safe Childhood cases last year, up from 29 the previous year and 16 the year before. In the Middle District, prosecutors brought 127 cases, up from 104 the previous year and 82 the year before.
Jim Skuthan, chief assistant public defender for the district, said a substantial majority of the cases prosecuted here involve possessing, receiving or trading child pornography rather than hands-on offenses against children.
“A lot of those defendants will pass polygraph exams confirming they have never, as an adult, had inappropriate sexual contact with a minor,” he said. “Those polygraph examinations are used in risk assessments done by psychologists to determine future dangerousness or risk ..Continued.. By Elaine Silvestrini
August 7, 2014
Microsoft tip leads to child porn arrest in Pennsylvania
A tip-off from Microsoft has led to the arrest of a man in Pennsylvania who has been charged with receiving and sharing child abuse images.
It flagged the matter after discovering that an image involving a young girl had been allegedly saved to the man's OneDrive cloud storage account.
According to court documents, the man was subsequently detected trying to send two illegal pictures via one of Microsoft's live.com email accounts.
Police arrested him on 31 July.
The man, in his twenties, has since been placed in a county correctional facility and has yet to enter a plea. A preliminary court appearance is scheduled for next week.
A copy of the affidavit detailing the case against the defendant has been published online by a news site specialising in leaked law enforcement documents.
It claims that the man acknowledged acquiring the pictures through Kik Messenger, a chat app, as well as "trading and receiving images of child pornography on his mobile cellular device".
The BBC spoke to one of the officers involved, Trooper Christopher Hill from the Pennsylvania State Police, who confirmed the affidavit was genuine and that Microsoft had instigated the investigation.
Illegal images were allegedly found on the man's OneDrive cloud storage account
But he said he could not discuss any of the case's specifics because it was still an "open investigation".
He did, however, add that he was aware of other instances of "internet carriers" passing on similar details in other inquiries.
Automated image scans
The details have emerged a week after it was first reported that Google had handed over the identity of a Texas-based user after detecting suspected child abuse imagery in his Gmail account. The 41-year-old was arrested as a consequence of Google's action.
The cases highlight the fact that commonly-used internet services are not private.
One campaign group said tech firms must be explicit about how they monitor users' accounts.
"Microsoft must do all that it can to inform users about what proactive action it takes to monitor and analyse messages for illegal content, including details of what sorts of illegal activity may be targeted," commented Emma Carr, acting director of the campaign group Big Brother Watch.
"It is also important that all companies who monitor messages in this way are very clear about what procedures and safeguards are in place to ensure that people are not wrongly criminalised, for instance, when potentially illegal content is shared but has been done so legitimately in the context of reporting or research."
Microsoft's terms and conditions for its US users explicitly state that it has the right to deploy "automated technologies to detect child pornography or abusive behaviour that might harm the system, our customers, or others".
Disrupting photo trades
Neither Google nor Microsoft handed over the material directly to the police.
Instead both companies contacted the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children's CyberTipline, which serves as the US's centralised reporting system for suspected child sexual exploitation. ..Continued.. by Leo Kelion
Child porn discovered on Facebook
A Brown County man's illegal child pornography was discovered on Facebook by the social networking company's law enforcement division, officials said.
Marcus Spaulding, of Sardinia, was sentenced to 25 years in prison Wednesday for possessing and sharing child pornography, according to a news release from the Brown County Prosecuting Attorney's Office.
Spaulding pleaded guilty to one count of importuning, one count of endangering children and four counts of pandering obscenity involving a minor, the release states.
"This was one of the most disturbing cases I have encountered," said Zac Corbin, a Brown County assistant prosecuting attorney.
"Brown County is a safer place for children with Marcus Spaulding behind bars for the next two-and-a-half decades."
Spaulding's pornographic activity was initially discovered in the fall of 2013 and further investigated by the Brown County Sheriff's Office. ..Source.. by Keith BieryGolick
August 4, 2014
Google sees alleged child porn in man's email, alerts police
Does Google have the right to tip off police if it sees that you have allegedly illegal content in your email?
This question will concern some after news emerged that a Houston man, John Henry Skillern, was arrested by police for possession of child pornography.
Police told KHOU-TV that Google has spotted three allegedly pornographic images of children in Skillern's email and had tipped off the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"He was trying to get around getting caught, he was trying to keep it inside his email. I can't see that information, I can't see that photo, but Google can," Det. David Nettles told KHOU.
Skillern, 41, who works at Denny's and is a registered sex offender, was arrested after police obtained a warrant. Police say they found more evidence of child pornography on Skillern's devices.
I have contacted Google to ask whether the police's declaration of the company's involvement was accurate. Moreover, I asked whether this was part of standard operating policy.
Google has never made a secret of the fact that it scans email content. Its Terms of Service was updated in April to explain that the company's "automated systems analyze your content (including emails)."
The company made it even clearer by explaining: "This analysis occurs as the content is sent, received, and when it is stored."
These changes came shortly after the company was sued in California over its email scanning being used to deliver ads to college students.
At the same time, an attempt by non-Gmail users to create a class action suit against Google for non-consent of its scanning failed, as the judge ruled that that the parties were too disparate to claim class action status.
While no one could be against protecting children against predators, those who already have concerns about privacy will wonder what other circumstances might cause Google to inform authorities of one kind or another.
I will update should I hear from the company.
Updated 9:13 p.m. PT: A Google spokeswoman told me that the company doesn't comment on individual accounts. However, Google has been open about using technology -- other sites use the technology too -- that tries to identify child pornography throughout the Web.
It co-funds the Internet Watch Foundation, which, as Google Chief Legal Officer David Drummond describes, does "critically important work that few of us could stomach -- proactively identifying child abuse images that Google can then remove from our search engine."
He added: "While computers can detect the color of naked flesh, only humans can effectively differentiate between innocent pictures of children and images of abuse. And even humans don't get it 100 percent right."
In this case, my understanding is that a significant red flag that influenced Google was Skillern's previous history as a registered sex offender.
One of the more difficult questions in this case, as in many others is: What if Google is wrong about images being child porn? A recent case involving Instagram, in which a mom was accused of posting inappropriate images that seemed to many entirely innocent, showed the dangers inherent in using technology plus human oversight to catch the genuinely criminal.
There will always be the vexing question of whether Google should be the policeman at all.
Google's argument is that it doesn't want to reveal too much of what it does because it doesn't want criminals to know how they might be caught. It's a convenient argument, one relying wholly on trusting Google, something that has been proved too often to be not necessarily wise.
For Google, it seems that the public good in attempting to eradicate child pornography takes precedence over what some might consider private communication. It's an argument with inherent dangers. ..Source.. by Chris Matyszczyk
February 15, 2014
Child pornography's legal grey zone
2-15-2014 Germany:
A German ex-parliamentarian is being investigated for possessing child pornography. Prosecutors and other experts are often forced to make difficult distinctions on whether a given image crosses the line into illegality.
When it comes to the legal definition of child pornography in Germany, a large grey area exists. Just by entering relevant terms in a search engine or trying to open a picture on a computer, individuals can face prosecution. That's because searching for and attempting to obtain child pornography are illegal in Germany, just as the possession of such materials is.
Only certain experts or investigators are allowed to search for the images. If private citizens search on their own - even if their intent is to help the police - they are committing a criminal offense.
What is considered to be child pornographic material?
Paragraph 184b of the penal code states: pictures of sexual acts of, on or in front of children under the age of 14 are considered child pornography.
Explicit sexual acts must be recorded on the pictures or the video footage to meet the definition. "That means I have to be able to determine that sexual intercourse happens or at least that action takes place close to the genital area," said Arnd Hüneke, a criminal law expert at the University of Hannover, in an interview with DW.
Pictures that could be classed merely as posing cause particular difficulties for investigators. This represents a gray area in the classification of child pornography where careful distinctions have to be made, says Hüneke.
"Pictures containing only nudity or pictures of a child taken secretly are not punishable," he explains, but adds that if the picture highlights the buttocks or depicts straddled private parts, then it can begin to be classed as child pornography.
How is the seriousness of the offense measured?
German investigators use what's known as the COPINE scale, a system developed in Ireland and used to categorize the severity of the child pornographic pictures and video footage.
The scale starts at one with completely neutral pictures and ends at 10, where children are depicted in situations involving brutal abuse or bestiality. Instances of posing, for example, are classified between a four and a six on the scale.
Investigators also use the COPINE system, which was created within the framework of an EU project to battle child pornography, to detect the perpetrators' inclinations and to judge their risk potential. The pictures found on Sebastian Edathy's computer are allegedly categorized as level two, which would not be punishable provided it's just a case of possession.
When can a home be searched?
An initial suspicion of possessing child pornography is enough to warrant a house search. Legal proceedings are initiated only if incriminating evidence turns up. Hüneke believes that there was an initial suspicion in the Edathy case. Perhaps the investigators assumed that someone who orders pictures like those Edathy had might also be in possession of more explicit and illegal materials.
However, Monika Frommel, an emeritus criminal law professor, denounced the prosecutors' actions in the case of the former parliamentarian Edathy as "unconstitutional and illegal." Not only is it legal, she said, to order or to possess pictures of undressed children, but it's also the exercise of a constitutional right.
What is the punishment for child pornography?
Sentences vary widely depending on what acts were committed. Possessing or procuring child pornographic material can be punished with up to two years in prison depending on the severity of the material. When sexual abuse is committed in order to produce child pornography, the minimum sentence is two years in prison and can be raised to as high as 15 years in prison.
For those involved in media production involving child pornography, the sentence ranges from three months to five years in prison, and the same sentencing guidelines apply when it comes to distributing such materials. But especially severe distribution cases can land the perpetrator in prison for up to 10 years. ..Source.. by DW
January 16, 2014
Utah law professor to make case for child-porn victims
Restitution » Cassell will argue before the Supreme Court on compensation for child-pornography victims.
Paul Cassell has advocated passionately in courtrooms across the country that every person who views or distributes an image of child pornography contributes to what victims have described as "death by a thousand cuts" and thus should be held liable for restitution.
On Wednesday, the University of Utah law professor will make that argument before what will be his most important audience yet: the U.S. Supreme Court. It is the first time a crime victim’s attorney has appeared before the court in a criminal case filed by the government; the outcome may result in a historic decision for crime victims’ rights.
Cassell’s theory is straightforward: Every defendant convicted of child pornography should be held accountable for losses suffered by a victim, until the victim is fully compensated.
"We do need to begin expanding restitution for all kinds of crimes and [finding] ways to make victims whole after they’ve been victimized," Cassell said. "This is an important step along that way to make victims whole."
The case before the U.S. Supreme Court involves a Texas man who viewed images of an 8-year-old girl identified by the pseudonym "Amy Unknown," who was sexually abused by her uncle in 1997.
When Amy was 17, she learned that pornographic images of her abuse, taken by her uncle, were being widely circulated on the Internet, which is where Doyle Randall Paroline came across them.
Paroline was arrested in 2009 after an employee at a computer company found sexually explicit images of minors on his computer. Two images of "Amy" were among the nearly 300 child pornography images that investigators later discovered on the machine. Paroline pleaded guilty and received a 24-month prison sentence.
James Marsh, Amy’s attorney, filed a restitution request for $3.4 million — the sum first awarded to his client in a 2008 case under what turned out to be a little-used 1994 federal law that requires mandatory restitution for child pornography victims.
"I didn’t know it was the first request ever filed for a victim of child pornography," Marsh said of that first case.
But since then, Marsh, who teamed up with Cassell about 4 1/2 years ago, has filed restitution requests on behalf of Amy and other victims of child pornography in hundreds of cases. Amy has received victim notices in more than 1,800 federal child pornography cases. They have wonrestitution for Amy in 180 cases, collecting about 40 percent of the full amount awarded to her.
In all, Marsh estimates that he, Cassell and other attorneys have filed more than 1,000 such requests on behalf of child pornography victims.
One of those cases was in Utah.
Cassell successfully argued in September that Michael Loren Dunn, of Park City, convicted of possession, receipt and distribution of child pornography, should be held liable for the full amount outstanding on a $1.3 million judgment in favor of a victim known as "Vicky."
In the Texas case, Paroline challenged Amy’s claims for damages and the district court judge in Texas refused to award any restitution. That decision was eventually heard by the whole 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. It issued a 10-5 decision in Amy’s favor, requiring Paroline to join other convicted defendants in covering the full $3.4 million in her ongoing lost wages and psychological counseling costs.
Attorneys Stanley G. Schneider and Thomas D. Moran of Houston, Texas, who represent Paroline, then turned to the Supreme Court.
"The challenge before the court is quite simply, ‘How much is each defendant responsible for paying — the full amount or some other amount?’" Marsh said. "Our position is very consistent: the full amount." ..Continued.. by Brooke Adams
June 17, 2013
Google is working on new tech to eliminate all child porn on the web
6-17-2013 Global:
Search and mobile superpower Google is working on new technology that would effectively purge all images of child pornography and abuse from most of the web.
Google disclosed new efforts to fight online child exploitation in a blog post yesterday. The company committed $5 million to “eradicate child abuse imagery online” and started a $2 million Child Protection Technology Fund to encourage the development of better tools to destroy child porn.
While money being allocated to the cause is important, the technology Google is building to combat child porn is even more so. Google is working on a new database of flagged images of child porn and abuse that can be shared with other search engines and child protection organizations. The database will help create systems that automatically eliminate that sort of content.
“Recently, we’ve started working to incorporate encrypted ‘fingerprints’ of child sexual abuse images into a cross-industry database,” Jacquelline Fuller, Director of Google Giving, wrote in the blog post. “This will enable companies, law enforcement, and charities to better collaborate on detecting and removing these images, and to take action against the criminals.”
If the database is used effectively, any flagged image in the database would not be searchable through participating search engines or web hosting providers. And maybe best of all, computers will automatically flag and remove these images without any human needing to see them.
Google hopes the new database is operational in less than a year, according to The Telegraph.
“This announcement is inspiring for those who are at the forefront of tackling child sexual abuse content,” Susie Hargreaves, chief executive officer of the Internet Watch Foundation, told The Telegraph. “We know that the best way to tackle what is some of the most horrific content online is by working with others from all over the world to combat this on a global platform.” ..Source.. by Sean Ludwig
September 7, 2012
The Justice Department’s Child Porn Problem
9-7-2012 Maine, Washington DC:
If “as Maine goes, so goes the nation” is true, America is in big trouble. A former Maine politician has been arrested for his alleged role in running a major prostitution ring that apparently includes an all-star client list of some 170 Maine police, lawyers, clergy and politicians. There is no news yet if children were involved; however, a retired police officer from Maine had recently alerted the Department of Justice (DOJ) about Maine police covering up child sex abuse. Eric Holder, Director of DOJ as America’s Attorney General, has taken no action.
Across America police officers appear to be engaging in the child porn industry in epic numbers. I’ve written about the national crisis of federal employees doing child porn on work computers. There is a related epidemic at the state level. Type into Google “police officer arrested for child porn.” Pages of search results show police arrested for child porn across America. No one appears to be tracking the national data. The Cato Institute does host a National Police Misconduct Reporting Project detailing sex abuse of minors by police. It is disturbing reading.
Half of all child porn now originates in America. The profits are massive. Estimated porn profits in 2006 exceed combined revenues of Microsoft, Google, Amazon, eBay, Yahoo, Apple, Netflix and EarthLink ranging from $3-$20 billion annually. It is unclear what percentage comprises child porn profits. In child porn 69% of the abused children averaged at ten years old with 39% under six. Every 39 minutes a new porn video is created in America. Ten new images of abused children used in child porn are posted daily. The sex abuse of one child in front of a live webcam is estimated to generate revenues of $1,000 dollars a night.
This is the face of child trafficking today.
Police who choose the sexual torture of children for their pleasure and profit often work with corrupt judges and government officials creating alliances that provide pedophile rings protection and tax-free millions. The corruption is protected, not the children. The crime requires a steady supply of children to abuse for profit.
The Vermont Police Academy case exposes this kind of police-judicial cooperation. Child porn was found on the work computer of, among others, Homeland Security’s trainer Dave McMullen at Vermont’s Police Academy. McMullen is alleged to have committed suicide after this discovery. Vermont’s Rutland Herald wanted the police records.
Vermont’s Supreme Court denied this request providing legal cover of total secrecy for police who do child porn in Vermont. How is this in the best interest of Vermont’s children? It is not. It is, however, in the best interest of a pedophile ring.
Corrupt police and judges form powerful barriers no ordinary citizen can breach.
Exposing pedophile rings, much less rescuing trafficked children, becomes impossible when judges and police protect each other. In Maine, the retired police officer reported to the Department of Justice, “I have witnessed actions (or inactions) from Maine’s judiciary that I have not previously witnessed in 34 years of involvement with the court system.” Of Maine’s corruption, the officer said, “I am used to that from criminals but not from police officers.” US Attorney General Eric Holder, Director of the Department of Justice, has taken no action. ...continued... by Lori Handrahan
August 24, 2012
Googler Watched Child Porn And Beheadings Daily For His Job
8-24-2012 Global:
There's a lot of creepy, repulsive, morally abhorrent stuff on the Internet, and that means there are also a lot of people whose job it is to watch it, review it and get it taken down. One guy who reportedly had that job at Google -- and whose identity was not revealed -- describes the "scarring" experience in an interview with Buzzfeed FWD. The former Googler says that the job was made all the worse when the company denied him a full-time position, leaving him to scramble for a new job at the end of his year there.
The ex-Google employee says that he spent his days exploring the ugly underbelly of humanity on all of Google's products, like its search engine, Google Images, the picture-organizer Picasa and the social networking site Orkut (that has its largest fan base in India and Brazil). There were beheadings, he says, and suicides. Grotesque fetishes, mutilations and bestiality. And lots of child porn.
Child porn, in particular, has to be removed within 24 hours of the service provider becoming aware of it and also must be reported to federal authorities. He says that there were perhaps 15,000 of those images a day.
After nine months of it, he thought he was coping fine, "but it was putting me in a really dark place," he says. Google had someone from a federal agency sit down with him, and she asked him to react to a series of photographs. "That's f***ed up!" he exclaimed in response to an ordinary photo that depicted a normal father and his kid. He decided he needed therapy, but Google would only cover one session.
The former Google employee says that he was a contractor, and so was not entitled to the benefits of a full-time employee, or any emotional support, despite the nature of his daily grind. Google contractors can also only ....continued.... by Claire Gordon
February 13, 2012
US judges balk at rigid child porn sentences
See related: Growing alarm over child porn epidemic -and- GOP Seeks Big Changes In Federal Prison Sentences -and- Federal Versus State Child Pornography Charges: What's the Difference?2-13-2012 National:
As law enforcement officers and policy makers toughen prosecutions for the distribution and possession of child pornography, they are encountering increasing resistance from federal judges in what has become a caustic conflict over the appropriate punishment for a heinous crime.
In 2010, federal judges deviated below sentencing guidelines in child pornography cases 43 percent of the time, compared with 18 percent for all other crimes, according to data from the US Sentencing Commission, the agency that Congress established to set the guidelines.
That figure has been steadily increasing since the Supreme Court in 2005 and 2007 affirmed that judges have the right to depart from commission recommendations.
Just last month, a federal court judge in Boston sentenced a Dedham man to 21 months in prison for possession of child pornography - far lower than the 63 months he faced under sentencing guidelines, and even lower than the 30 months prosecutors had recommended as part of a plea deal.
The judge who pronounced the sentence was US District Court Judge Patti B. Saris, who also happens to chair the Sentencing Commission. “As far as I’m concerned, there are some problems with the guidelines,’’ she said in open court in issuing the sentence.
In another example, US District Court Judge Michael A. Ponsor sentenced a man in 2010 in Springfield to four years of probation, though prosecutors asked that he serve the 6-to-8-year sentence called for by the guidelines.
The judges’ persistent departure from the guidelines for child pornography offenses has caused such a stir that the US Sentencing Commission has agreed to examine them again, listing the endeavor as a priority. A public hearing is set for Feb. 15 in Washington.
Judges, including several locally, argue that changes in child pornography sentencing approved by Congress over the past decade, which add extra time for various factors such as the number of images involved, have resulted in sentences that are far too severe.
“Congress sets policy, but Congress doesn’t sentence individuals, judges do,’’ said retired US District Court Judge Nancy Gertner, who served on the bench in Boston until September 2011. “The guidelines don’t make sense, even for one who wants to be tough on pornography. The measure of the guidelines doesn’t match the culpability of the defendant.’’
Prosecutors acknowledge that the guidelines should be reconfigured to better reflect a defendant’s culpability. But they maintain that any changes to how the guidelines are calculated should not affect the actual scale of the sentences.
They say Congress - and society - have called for the toughened penalties for the crime. ..See rest of story bottom of page.. by Milton J. Valencia
October 10, 2011
Sex Offender Registration Requirement Overturned by Massachusetts Court of Appeals
10-10-2011 Massachusetts:
In a recent ruling by the Massachusetts Court of Appeals, the Commonwealth’s Sex Offender Registry Board may not require an individual to register as a Level 2 sex offender based solely on a conviction of possessing child pornography.
Massachusetts has three levels of sex offenders, which are based on a person’s individual risk of reoffending and the perceived danger to the public. Level 1 offenders have a low risk of committing future crimes and pose a minimal public safety risk. The list of Level 1 offenders is not available to the general public. However, law enforcement agencies, parole and probation departments and mental health agencies shall have access to this information.
When the Board determines that offenders pose moderate or high risks of reoffending, there is a substantial public safety risk that justifies publicizing the names of such offenders.
According to a Boston Herald report, the case involved a man who pleaded guilty in 2004 after ordering elicit photos of minors from a Miami-based pornography ring. The Board classified the man as a sex offender, but the Court found the board failed to show a causal link between child pornography possession and the likelihood of reoffending necessary for public registration.
The lawyer for the man praised the ruling, for he argued that the Board must do more than just point to a conviction before deciding someone is a sex offender.
In the meantime, Governor Deval Patrick has introduced a bill to define child pornography as a “sex offense involving a child” so that those convicted of possessing child pornography in Massachusetts can be classified as sex offenders.
The preceding is not intended to be legal advice. If you have been charged or under investigation for a crime that could result in sex offender registration, consult an experienced Massachusetts criminal defense attorney. ..Source.. by LoConto, Burke & Madaio, P.C.
August 12, 2011
Court: Child porn not enough for offender status
8-12-2011 Massachusetts:
The state’s Sex Offender Registry Board can’t force an individual to register as a "Level 2" sex offender based solely on a conviction of possessing child pornography, the Massachusetts Appeals Court ruled Thursday.
The case involved a man who pleaded guilty in 2004 to placing five orders for child pornography from a Miami-based pornography ring at a cost of $528. Investigators said they found two sexually explicit movies involving minors on the man’s computer.
The man, identified only as "John Doe" in court papers, was sentenced to 18 months in prison and three years of supervised probation.
The board classified the man as a sex offender, but the Appeals Court said the board failed to offer evidence linking possession of child pornography to the likelihood the man may pose a threat.
The lawyer for the man said the ruling shows the board must do more than just point to a conviction before deciding someone poses a danger of committing a future sex offense.
"Just because you committed an offense, doesn’t mean you’re dangerous," said the man’s attorney Michael Nam-Krane. "They simply assume that they can find these people dangerous. Hopefully this case will bring some reform to the agency."
Charles McDonald, a spokesman for the Sex Offender Registry Board, said the board "will fully comply with the court’s decision."
In the ruling, the court faulted the sex offender board hearing officer who decided to classify the man as a Level 2 sex offender. Level 2 offenders are considered to pose at least a moderate risk of committing another offense.
The hearing officer said she decided on the Level 2 status because the man had "committed a serious sex offense involving a child," by possessing child pornography and telling investigators that he was attracted to young girls.
The man was 62 at the time of the 2006 hearing.
"Although (the plaintiff’s) crime did not involve a direct assault, such does not minimize the fact that untold numbers of children are degraded and often psychologically destroyed by pornographic profiteers, and often, suffer much worse," the hearing officer wrote.
The court, however, noted that while state law identifies possession of child pornography as a "sex offense" the law goes on to define what constitutes a "sex offense involving a child," as cited by the hearing officer.
That list of sex offenses involving a child doesn’t include possession of child pornography.
"Consequently, as an error of law ... the hearing officer appears to have mischaracterized the plaintiff’s underlying offense," the court ruled.
"The hearing officer’s equation of possession of child pornography (and the victimization of its subjects) with the dangerousness contemplated by the statute ... does not rest upon any specified evidence," the court added. "Without such support it runs the risk of arbitrariness."
Gov. Deval Patrick has filed a bill designed to update the state’s sex offender laws.
The bill would redefine child pornography in part as "sex offense involving a child," a change that would make it easier for the sex offender board to classify those who possess child pornography as sex offenders.
The bill is currently before the Legislature’s Committee on the Judiciary and is scheduled for a public hearing at the end of September
The Appeals Court ruling, which reversed an earlier ruling Superior Court, sends the question back to the board to reconsider their decision to classify the "John Doe" as a Level 2 offender. ..Source.. by Boston Herald.com
July 3, 2011
Inside the mind of the sex offender
7-3-2011 National:
Many factors to account for, experts say, and each case is different
Some people who create or view child pornography know it's wrong and feel shame after they commit the crime.
Others are considered psychopathic and either don't understand child pornography is wrong or don't care.
Some perpetrators were physically or emotionally abused as children. Others weren't.
Sometimes there are physiological factors, and people's baser brain functions override their logical prefrontal cortex functions, making them more likely to want to view child pornography.
With a former Jackman kindergarten teacher pleading guilty recently to federal charges of producing child pornography, and other recent arrests across the state -- sometimes of people in respected positions -- the question becomes: Why?
There is not one answer to why some people make or view child pornography, or why they are aroused by lewd images of children, according to psychologists and research. What is known, however, is that the number of perpetrators is increasing, particularly because the Internet creates easy availability.
A greater number of suspects in child pornography cases are being prosecuted. More are being convicted. And prison sentences are increasing, according to data compiled between 1994 and 2006 by the Bureau of Justice Statistics, which is a component of the Office of Justice Programs within the U.S. Department of Justice.
A large number of convicted offenders are white, educated, middle-aged men.
Eighty-nine percent of people arrested on child pornography charges in 2006 were white; 99 percent were male; and 58 percent had attended some college, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. The median age at arraignment was 42.
The former Jackman kindergarten teacher, Rob Mocarsky, 42, pleaded guilty June 15 in U.S. District Court in Bangor.
Maine State Police found digital photos of his students that Mocarsky took in his classroom of five- and six-year-old girls in costumes, with their genitals exposed, according to court filings. The images were not shared with others, and the children were not assaulted or made to perform sexual acts, according to the documents.
Mocarsky's attorney declined to allow Mocarsky to be interviewed because he awaits sentencing.
Each case is different
Ask a psychologist why some people desire to view or make child pornography and you'll probably get an answer like this: Each case is different and complex.
"There's a whole range of phenomena, from the very innocent to extremely egregious, so we're really talking about a number of different syndromes," said Ronald Feintech, a licensed psychologist and sex therapist at the Couples Center in Portland.
There are patterns, though. Childhood abuse can lead to what Feintech refers to as the "victim triangle" in adulthood.
Depending on the severity and circumstances of the childhood abuse -- whether it was sexual, physical or emotional -- people may try to subconsciously work through their issues in adulthood by being a victim, rescuer or perpetrator.
When people become "professional victims," they put themselves in similar, abusive situations throughout their lives, Feintech said. Those who become rescuers may counsel people with issues they themselves have faced.
People who become perpetrators do to others what was done to them, not necessarily for reasons of revenge, Feintech said, "but mostly a defense mechanism called 'identification with the aggressor.'"
Feintech said, "If you often look in their history, that was done to them, and they're trying to resolve it psychologically, work it through, by developing this exploitative pattern."
Not all sex offenders were abused, and many know that viewing child pornography is wrong, but they are "overcome by the compulsion to do it," Feintech said. "When caught, they're flooded with shame ... Very often prior to getting caught there are elaborate rationalizations."
With others, "They may know it's illegal or that it's wrong in some sense, but they don't care," he said. "There's a blunting of the sense of conscience."
Often there's a biological component as well, Feintech said, where lower parts of the brain hijack the higher, more rational parts. Childhood trauma can alter a person's brain chemistry.
A significant number of offenders suffer from pedophilia, which the American Psychiatric Association defines as a disorder in which an adult's primary sexual attraction is to prepubescent children -- generally younger than 13. Some pedophiles are attracted to children of the same sex, but most are heterosexual.
Climate of hysteria
There are authentic, horrendous examples of child exploitation, but Feintech cautioned people against over-reacting to more innocent actions, such as parents taking pictures of their children in the bathtub.
"I think we live in a climate of almost hysteria about child pornography, and I think as a society we sometimes do more damage than what it is we're trying to protect against," he said.
It's also important to match appropriate therapies to different offenders, he said.
Some respond to counseling, while others require a more structured system involving tracking or surveillance systems, regular polygraph tests, psychotherapy or random home visits from probation officers.
Sgt. Glenn Lang with the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit said he's often surprised by who is caught with child pornography.
"I think it's a crime where people know it's wrong. It's not an educational thing. These people are just wired differently than the rest of us," he said.
There are more child pornography cases in Maine than law enforcement can realistically handle, he said. Though he didn't know a precise yearly number, he estimated the caseload to be "hundreds and hundreds."
The computer crimes unit has four full-time officers who deal with all types of computer crimes. Lang said he could keep 10 detectives busy year-round just with child pornography cases.
There is a misconception, he said, that mainly misguided teenagers view child pornography and that it's a victimless crime because there's no interaction.
It's not true.
"It's a symptom of a much greater problem. If you're interested in seeing a six-month-old child being raped, you're a danger to children. It's as simple as that," he said.
Seeing such graphic images desensitizes people, he said. And the impact on child victims can be profound.
Children who were exploited to produce pornography can show a number of symptoms, such as physical illnesses, withdrawal, anti-social behavior, depression, fear, anxiety and moodiness, according to a theme paper prepared for the World Congress against Commercial Sexual Exploitation of Children.
One challenge for law enforcement, Lang said, is showing that children in the images are real human beings and not digitally altered.
"A lot of the child pornography that we encounter -- they're of children that have not been identified yet," he said, so some defense attorneys argue that the images were electronically manufactured.
"The truth is these people are thirsty for the real thing. They're not after morphed images," Lang said. He said he's been with the agency 10 years, and arresting people with fake images has not been an issue.
It's difficult to pinpoint how many sex offenders released from jail are likely to commit a new sex offense, as different studies focus on different sex offenses over varying time periods and don't include unreported offenses.
Victim advocacy groups report higher recidivism rates.
The Bureau of Justice Statistics states about 5.3 percent of sex offenders released from prison in 1994 were re-arrested for an additional sex offense over the following three years, and 24 percent were re-convicted for a new offense involving all types of crimes.
Those numbers include violent sex offenders such as those who committed molestation or rape.
Sex offenses involving children account for a relatively small number of the total crime load in the U.S. Just 2.5 percent of the more-than 83,000 suspects prosecuted in federal courts in 2006 had committed child sex offenses, according to the federal statistics bureau.
Sex offenses are, however, among the fastest-growing crimes handled by the federal justice system. Just 431 suspects were arrested by the U.S. Marshals Service in 1994 for a sex offense. In 2006, the number was 2,191.
About 60 percent of child sex crime suspects were prosecuted in 2006, up from about 40 percent in 1994. About 90 percent of defendants were convicted and sentenced to prison, up from 80 percent in 1994. The median prison sentence also increased, from 36 months to 63 months, according to the bureau.
Ninety-five percent of child pornography defendants were sentenced for materials depicting a minor younger than 12, and 97 percent were sentenced for the use of a computer in the offense. ..Source.. by Erin Rhoda
