413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

sometimes [there would be] a stand-off, and neither [of us] would want to send first.
(A12)
As Jenkins (2001) documents, many posts on child pornography bulletin boards share strategies to evade
law enforcement detection. As he suggests, the fear of law enforcement and discussion of sophisticated
techniques to acquire and share child pornography can strengthen the subculture by reinforcing their
sense of community.
Trends
Availability
Let’s say the government allowed every street corner to have a barrel of drugs to grab
and try. That’s how it is. It’s all available. (A11)
The rise of the Internet, coupled with other technological advances, has increased the availability of child
pornography, making it both more available and more accessible. The ease of production also fuels
increased availability. Digital photos do not need to developed; they can be easily uploaded and shared
from a personal phone or computer. Cell phones with cameras are ubiquitous, enabling photography at
any moment:
Respondent: Just about everybody has a video camera or a camera now and there’s a
lot of websites out there that have candid shots. Little girl playing in the park and she
turns upside down on the bars and she’s not wearing any panties. No one knows her
picture has been taken.
Interviewer: What kind of camera
Respondent: Cell phone. Just about everyone has a digital camera on them at all times
now. (B1)
All of the stakeholders reported a level of being overwhelmed by the number of child pornography
offenders in their jurisdictions and in the general national and worldwide population. One federal official
reflected this sentiment in discussing both child pornography and light child pornography (i.e., child
erotica), noting that the latter is rarely investigated and prosecuted:
I am dipping a teaspoon in the lake, and trying to empty it. There’s no way out of this.
And when you start considering light child porn, the lake is now an ocean—and you are
trying to empty the teaspoon of people that are in that category. (Federal Law
Enforcement Official)
As one offender noted, with child pornography easier to produce, the market is likely to grow:
It’s more readily available—and easy to produce—and will continue to grow like a
snowball rolling down the hill. (A10)
Ease of production is not limited to child pornographers, but also minors who photograph or videotape
themselves. Law enforcement stakeholders attested to the increase of self-produced child pornography,
often through sexting. The Internet Watch Foundation found 12,224 self-generated images and videos of
individuals aged 13 to 20, with 88 percent taken from the original location onto other websites (Internet
Watch Foundation 2012).
Two of the offenders (10 percent) participated in chat rooms as teenagers, taking photos of themselves
and chatting with men:
I noticed that a lot of people, when they think of child pornography, think that it’s all
other people creating the images and videos. The cell phones and web cameras. The vast
majority of kids are doing it themselves. I used to do it too when I was young, 14 and 15.
I’d do it myself, take pictures of myself and chat with men and share with them. (D23)
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