413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

One offender acknowledged that purchasing images could ensure quality and remove the time-intensive
process of searching for images. When asked if he had ever been approached to pay for child pornography,
he responded:
There are certain things that pop up offering to charge, but this was ridiculous and
everyone laughed at it because everything else was free. The people that pay are looking
for whole sets at one time—easy, instant gratification. The website offers to download a
whole series for a certain price … instead of hunting down images yourself. (B1)
Two of the respondents (10 percent) had sold child pornography. One auctioned off his research services
on eBay, charging $200 per disc. Another offender charged between $300 to $400 per disc, each of which
held approximately 500 images, which he would mail to customers’ post office boxes. This respondent
described his customers as individuals who were nervous to go online: “Most of the hustle was guys [who]
were afraid to go on sites and use their credit cards. They are scared to download it of course” (I1).
Additionally, this offender charged $75 to watch a family member live on a webcam, where viewers could
make requests, such as dressing the victim in specific outfits. Stakeholders reported that using video chat
to make requests and direct live child pornography has become a recent trend.
Finding Child Pornography
All offenders cited how easy it was to find child pornography, though they had varying levels of
technological expertise. As previously mentioned, almost half the offenders reported not initially looking
for child pornography. Rather, they came across images through file sharing networks that they were
already using to download pirated software, music, and other types of pornography. One offender, with an
IT background, claimed that programmers were likely to engage in file sharing in order to stay up to date
with new programs:
The same places you find pirated software are the same places you find that stuff. And it
corrupts you … Being a programmer, you trade software. You trade because you must stay
current. (A11)
Bourke and Hernandez (2009) found that some Internet child pornography offenders alleged that they
had inadvertently received child pornography materials through unsolicited emails or Internet pop-up
windows. While almost half our sample claimed to “stumble across” child pornography, the majority
admitted to already using the Internet for illegal downloading.
In a 2003 Congressional hearing, a State Representative on the Committee on Government Reform
reported that peer-to-peer network searches for Britney Spears, the Olsen twins, and Pokémon frequently
resulted in pornography, including child pornography (Waxman 2003). Prichard, Watters, and Spiranovic
(2011) discuss the prevalence of child pornography search terms on a popular P2P network, isoHunt,
which featured the 300 top searches on its main webpage. Though certain materials may be easy to find, it
may take far longer to uncover better-hidden sources. For example, Jenkins (2001) quotes users who
reported months, or even a year, of searching before finding a particular child pornography bulletin
board.
One offender used basic Google searches to find child pornography. A common keyword was “teen
model.” Other search terms in chat rooms, newsgroups, bulletin boards, and P2P networks, included
“child TV stars,” “child movie stars,” “preteen,” “Lola,” “Lolita,” “all for bois,” “PT cruiser” (PT = preteen),
or ages such as “15yo” and “16yo.” A study of the P2P network isoHunt (Prichard et al. 2011) identified
three commonly used search terms: pthc (preteen hard core), teen, and Lolita. One offender, who used file
sharing software to amass a collection of all types of pornography, did not use any special search terms to
find child pornography:
I got the software first and then used search terms. No certain terms—just about anything
you could use. It was really diverse in that there were a lot of corrupted files and
mislabeled [files]—anything and everything. You could put in something unrelated to
child pornography and get child pornography. You could put in something like “team”
and get child pornography. (F5)
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