Child Pornography: - Center for Problem-Oriented Policing

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Child sexual exploitation can take several forms including prostitution of children, child sex tourism, or the use of children in pornography. As awareness and reporting of such crimes increase, law-enforcement agencies nationwide are struggling to identify, investigate, and prosecute individuals involved in child sexual exploitation—from producers, distributors, and collectors of child pornography to sexual offenders who entice and engage young children in sexual activity. Often law enforcement must also identify and locate the child victims themselves. Over the past decade countries and international organizations around the world have also focused substantial attention on child pornography especially since the advent of computer-based production, distribution, and storage capabilities. In recent years the growth of the Internet 1 has created a new series of challenges to law-enforcement agencies targeting child sexual exploitation by allowing perpetrators greater, easier, and much faster access to child pornography and child victims. This monograph focuses on the criminal-justice system's responses to child pornography production, distribution, and possession within the United States and in other countries. The first section describes the nature and scope of the problem of child pornography including the effects on the child victims. The next section describes state and federal statutes, investigative approaches, and selected law-enforcement initiatives combating this form of child sexual exploitation. Finally the monograph highlights policy and best-practice issues surrounding legal and law-enforcement responses to child victims. The Scope and Nature of Child Pornography Understanding the scope of sexual exploitation through child pornography—its incidence, dynamics, and consequences for children—is vital to establishing an effective response. What actually constitutes child pornography varies by statute or other usage. 2 For instance the United Nations (UN) defines child pornography as "any representation, by whatever means, of a child engaged in real or simulated explicit sexual activities or any representation of the sexual parts of a child, the dominant characteristic of which is depiction for a sexual purpose." 3 United States federal law defines child pornography as "any visual depiction, including any photograph, film, video, picture[,] or computer or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or produced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct" when a minor was used in its production; the visual depiction is or appears to be of a minor; the visual depiction is made to appear to be an identifiable minor; or the material is advertised or promoted as depicting a minor. 4 Individual states also have their own statutory definitions. Child pornography can take various forms including print media; videotape; film; compact disc, read-only memory (CD-ROM); or digital video technology (DVD) 5 and can be transmitted through computer bulletin-board systems (BBS), USENET Newsgroups, Internet Relay Chat channels, Internet clubs, and an array of constantly changing world-wide-web sites. New computer technology allows for manipulation (or "morphing") of real photographs, as well as creation of "virtual child pornography" through digital images in which no human CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-SYSTEM RESPONSE - 1
eing is the subject. With the help of relatively inexpensive graphics software, child pornographers can now superimpose a known child's face on a sexually explicit image or wholly create a pornographic image of a "virtual" child who does not actually exist. The technology has become sophisticated enough that in the future "virtual" child pornography could conceivably become indistinguishable from "real" child pornography. A high level of technology, however, is required to create either manipulated or entirely "virtual" images, and experts can currently distinguish between virtual and real child pornography. Nonetheless, this development presents important legal issues, including how child pornography is defined by statute, which are addressed in the legal analysis section of this monograph. The production, distribution, and possession of child pornography can be divided into several categories. One category includes child sex offenders who memorialize their molestation of children for later personal use and sexual gratification. They may collect vast amounts of child pornography documenting personal "conquests." In addition to collecting their own pornography, many offenders trade or swap pornography with other offenders or distribute it on a more organized basis. Another category involves commercial child pornography which can include • possession of child pornography by an adult who was not found to be abusing the children depicted in the materials • distribution, sale, or production of child pornography • allowing a child to participate in pornography or • viewing or producing live pornographic performances involving children 6 Despite toughened laws, increased crackdowns by law enforcement and community efforts at awareness, child pornography continues to be an area of substantial concern for criminal-justice professionals. With the emergence of the Internet, "child pornography is more readily available in the United States now than it has been since the late 1970s." 7 Yet the production, distribution, and possession of child pornography are largely hidden crimes. While self-reports by convicted offenders, testimony of child victims, and the volume of child pornography seizures help measure the amount of child pornography available, such measurement is an inexact science. 8 Use of the mail system to traffic child pornography continues to be a significant problem because child pornographers believe the mail is a secure and anonymous means of transmitting videotapes, photographs, computer disks, and other media. Furthermore there is an increase in the number of unlawful computer transmissions and ads for child pornography on the Internet. The US Postal Inspection Service, the federal law-enforcement arm of the US Postal Service, investigates crimes involving the US Mail including offenses of child pornography and child sexual exploitation. 9 During 1999, 81 percent of child-exploitation cases investigated by postal inspectors involved computers compared to 43 percent in 1998 and 33 percent in 1997. 10 The increasing availability of and access to child pornography over the Internet makes measurement of its production and distribution more difficult. One study has estimated that as 2 - CHILD PORNOGRAPHY: THE CRIMINAL-JUSTICE-SYSTEM RESPONSE
Page 1 and 2: Child Pornography: The Criminal-Jus
Page 3 and 4: Acknowledgments This publication wo
Page 5: Investigating Child Pornography Cas
Page 9 and 10: The Child Pornographer: Consumer, C
Page 11 and 12: professions and social classes. Des
Page 13 and 14: victims are being recruited, seduce
Page 15 and 16: coupled with extortion, can make re
Page 17 and 18: Legal Analysis How does the legal s
Page 19 and 20: the court ruled that the requiremen
Page 21 and 22: such as paintings, drawings, and sc
Page 23 and 24: Another area of legislative action
Page 25 and 26: For instance Section 2251 may apply
Page 27 and 28: Other Applicable Federal Statutes C
Page 29 and 30: For example federal sentencing guid
Page 31 and 32: State Law Every state and the Distr
Page 33 and 34: As demonstrated by Alaska's statute
Page 35 and 36: may only be prosecuted for a single
Page 37 and 38: Affirmative Defenses A number of st
Page 39 and 40: the state Court of Appeals has foun
Page 41 and 42: • member states must encourage us
Page 43 and 44: First World Congress Against Commer
Page 45 and 46: Seized child pornography may help g
Page 47 and 48: When the warrant is based on the su
Page 49 and 50: United States Customs Service Unite
Page 51 and 52: Federal Bureau of Investigation: Cr
Page 53 and 54: Sexual Assault Felony Enforcement T
Page 55 and 56: Child Sexual Exploitation Strike Fo
Page 57 and 58:
Benefits of Law-Enforcement Network
Page 59 and 60:
it seeks new ways to control the fl
Page 61 and 62:
ecuting child-sexual-exploitation c
Page 63 and 64:
Conduct Additional Research While a
Page 127 and 128:
Endnotes 1. The Internet isaglobal
Page 129 and 130:
48. Lanning, CHILD MOLESTERS, supra
Page 131 and 132:
99. Belanger, Albert J. et al., Typ
Page 133 and 134:
139. RONALD B. FLOWERS, CHILDREN AN
Page 135 and 136:
207. See 18U.S.C. § 2252(a)(4) (19
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117, or under the laws of any State
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(a) Whoever knowingly persuades, in
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267. Id. 268. U.S.S.G. § 2G2.2 (b)
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pornography via Internet did not vi
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376. Sexual Abuse of Children, Chil
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424. INVESTIGATION AND PROSECUTION
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473. Id. at 31. 474. Id. 475. Id. 4
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541. Whitcomb & Eastin, supra note
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Fergusson, David M., L. John Horwoo
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McLeer, Susan V., et al., Psychopat
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Resources on the Topic of Child Por
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Enough is Enough (888) 2Enough (1.8
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Maryland Maryland State Police Atte
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National Center for Missing & Explo
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Child Pornography: - Center for Problem-Oriented Policing

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