People arrested for possessing child pornography typically have committed serious offenses and receive serious sentences, according to a study completed recently under the auspices of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. The study found the majority of people arrested for child porn possession had downloaded from the Internet sexually explicit images of very young children and images that graphically depict sexual penetration. More than half had molested a child or attempted to do so.
Allaying concerns that law enforcement has been unresponsive to the problem, the study also found substantial numbers of arrests and high rates of conviction and incarceration.
The report, “ Child-Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings From the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study,” was authored by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research Center with funding from NCMEC and the U.S. Department of Justice. The study involved surveys and interviews with a national sample of more than 2,500 law-enforcement agencies.
"This study highlights some of the reasons why the advent of Internet child pornography has been so pernicious," says Ernie Allen, president of NCMEC. "Though some child victims have been identified and removed from harm, the images of their victimization can remain online as permanent records of their exploitation."
The study found that a broad spectrum of individuals, public awareness groups, and law-enforcement agencies are involved in bringing child-pornography possession cases to light. Key recommendations call for increased efforts to encourage individuals to report pornographic images of children and more resources for law enforcement in the handling of child-porn cases.
Created in 1984, NCMEC works to combat possession, manufacture, and distribution of pornographic images of children, online enticement of children for sexual acts, the victimization of children through prostitution, the victimization of children through sexual tourism, extrafamilial sexual molestation of children, unsolicited obscene material sent to children, and misleading domain names. To date NCMEC has handled more than 325,000 reports of offenses from the public through its congressionally mandated CyberTipline.
