413047-Underground-Commercial-Sex-Economy

Finding 6: For offenders, the prevalence of online child pornography
communities reinforces and normalizes child pornography offenses.
Over half of the offenders interviewed were members of online child pornography communities. These
communities allow offenders to be around like-minded individuals, share child pornography content, and
discuss fantasies, which may involve first-hand contact with children. Online child pornography
communities also allow individuals to communicate with one another under a cloak of anonymity. Both
law enforcement officials and offenders agreed that these communities help to reinforce and normalize
the trading and downloading of child pornography, and in some cases, even pressured individuals to
produce their own content in order to be more accepted by the community.
According to law enforcement officers and offenders, online child pornography communities are typically
very structured and are often run by a moderator. Moderators are tasked with screening individuals
interested in joining the community and frequently have final say as to who is welcomed into the group.
They also monitor the content shared and are responsible for taking down the host site or community
board and moving it elsewhere if there is a fear of law enforcement detection. In some cases, the site that
hosts the online child pornography message board or groups might also host other types of content and
claim ignorance if questioned by law enforcement about the child pornography content. Stakeholders
stated that it was rare for them to go after these website owners since it was difficult to prove that they
knowingly hosted illegal content.
Policy Implications
Law enforcement should prioritize investigations of individuals or businesses that host and/or support
online communities. Informing an individual they are blocked from their website due to a pending child
pornography investigation (as one offender described in chapter nine) should be stopped since it could
provide that person with enough time to delete evidence and ultimately dismantle the investigation. In
addition to being held criminally responsible, facilitators should also be ordered to pay restitution to the
victims of the child pornography, especially since some are profiting from online child pornography
communities.
Finding 7: Due to resource limitations, the least technologically savvy
offenders are most likely to be detected.
Both stakeholders and inmates described a variation in collecting behavior and networking levels across
Internet child pornography offenders. While some offenders are technologically sophisticated, sharing
strategies to evade law enforcement within structured trading networks, other offenders described
themselves as “point and click,” using rudimentary methods to download, store, and share child
pornography.
Stakeholders shared frustration that they are unable to devote the time and resources necessary to
investigate technologically advanced offenders, who law enforcement reported are often responsible for
producing child pornography. Instead, law enforcement frequently focuses on offenders with the least
technological expertise. As Jenkins (2001, 143) notes, “The vast bulk of arrests still involve low-level or
plainly careless perpetrators, and this is likely to remain the case for the foreseeable future.” Offenders
were aware of law enforcements’ lack of capacity and they felt a sense of security that advanced techniques
would help offenders evade detection.
Policy Implications
Due to constantly evolving technology, more resources should be invested in law enforcement to stay up
to date on new methods. Additionally, the criminal justice system should properly distinguish between
low-level and serious child pornography offenders. As a 2012 United States Sentencing Commissions
report (ii) notes, the “existing sentencing scheme in non-production cases no longer adequately
distinguishes among offenders based on their degrees of culpability.” Sentencing enhancements routinely
apply to most offenders, largely because they were developed when child pornography was acquired
through the mail (United States Sentencing Commission 2012, iii). Adopting the Sentencing
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