413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Recent studies (Merdian et al. 2013a; Seto, Reeves, and Jung 2010; Surjadi et al. 2010; Winder and
Gough 2010) attempted to determine the applicability of these discourses, and other motives, to explain
offender behavior. Surjadi and colleagues (2010) found the most important function of child pornography
was for offenders to avoid real life and that the function of facilitating social relationships was nonexistent
in their sample of 43 Internet offenders. However, other research suggests that social networks and
virtual communities play an important role in fostering Internet child pornography offenses (Durkin and
Bryant 1999; Holt, Blevins, and Burkert 2010; Jenkins 2001; O’Hallaron and Quayle 2010; Quayle and
Taylor 2002).
Law enforcement and researchers are aware of a multitude of ways to access and distribute child
pornography through the Internet (United States Sentencing Commission 2012; Wortley and Smallbone
2006), which include websites, newsgroups, bulletin boards, chat rooms, peer-to-peer networks, and the
deep web. Studies have analyzed posts in web forums to understand how these subcultures operate
(Jenkins 2001) and identify the rationalizations that offenders use to justify their actions (Durkin and
Bryant 1999; O’Halloran and Quayle 2010).
Findings
Offender Background and Demographic Information
Thirty-three incarcerated male offenders, identified through stakeholder interviews and media searches,
participated in semi-structured interviews. The interviews focused on the use of technology and social
networking to acquire child pornography and did not ask about the content of pornographic material nor
any arousal and pleasure derived from the material. Respondents lived across the eight cities examined in
this study, though location did not change offender behavior, as the bulk of child pornography activity was
conducted online. The majority (31) of individuals were housed in federal facilities, with the remainder (2)
in state prisons.
Three offenders contended that family or friends were responsible for downloading child pornography on
their computer, two were reticent to discuss their case, and seven offenders described situations, such as
possession of cell phone images taken by a minor and never shared, which are distinct from the focus of
this report: Internet child pornography offenses. Therefore, these twelve interviews are not included in
the next four sections of this chapter, as we focus on findings from 21 interviews with offenders who
engaged in online activity to download and share child pornography as well as findings from interviews
with 35 local and federal investigators and prosecutors. In the final section of the chapter, we briefly
discuss the accounts of the seven offenders who admitted to possessing child pornography, but did not
engage in any Internet activity.
Offenders in the sample were convicted for both contact and non-contact sexual offenses. When asked
their main offense for which they were serving time, six (29 percent) named production of child
pornography, ten (48 percent) reported possession or distribution of child pornography, and four (19
percent) cited contact sexual offenses such as sexual assault on a child, sexual exploitation of a child, lewd
and lascivious conduct, and enticing a minor. One respondent declined to provide his main charge.
Gender
Our offender sample was entirely male, which parallels findings from the National Juvenile Online
Victimization Study, which found that in 2006, 99 percent of arrested child pornography possessors were
male, and in 2000, 100 percent were male (Wolak et al. 2011). However, studies of self-reported online
child pornography behavior have found that women are accessing child pornography at equal rates to
men (Seigfried, Lovely, and Rogers 2008; Seigfried-Spellar and Rogers 2013). A paper presented at a 2011
INTERPOL conference recommended further studies into the gender disparity of child pornography
offenders (Aiken, Moran, and Berry 2011).
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