Child pornography

SIGNIFICANCE: Although adult pornography has been a tolerated, if not fully accepted, part of human culture throughout recorded history, child pornography is another matter—one that evokes nearly universal disgust across all social boundaries. However, Internet technology has added a new dimension to child pornography that presents unprecedented challenges to the efforts of the criminal justice system to combat the spread of child pornography and its associated exploitation of children.

The roots of child pornography date back to ancient Greece, and it flourished in England during the nineteenth century. However, the true birth of child pornography occurred during the mid-1960’s, with an explosion in the production of sexually graphic photographs of children in Europe, Asia, Australia, and North Africa. By the late 1960s and early 1970s, child pornography was the basis of a major worldwide market. This development was partly the result of relaxation of laws against magazines containing child pornography in many countries.

The U.S. government began to take action against the widespread availability of child pornography with the Supreme Court’s 1982 ruling in New York v. Ferber. That case came to the Supreme Court in a challenge to a New York anti-child pornography law, which the Court upheld. The case brought child pornography to the attention of the American public. In response to a subsequent public outcry, a series of campaigns was waged against this burgeoning problem. By the mid-1980s, child pornography was virtually abolished in the United States. Its production was laborious and costly, and purchasing it was difficult and subject to severe criminal penalties.

Since then, however, technological advances, particularly regarding the Internet, have altered the situation by making pornographic materials convenient and inexpensive to distribute in volume. This has allowed for the almost instantaneous and anonymous dissemination of child pornography through sites on the Web, email, instant messaging, bulletin boards, chat rooms, peer-to-peer file sharing networks, and social media sites. Indeed, the advent of the Internet has acted as the impetus for the resurgence of a nearly extinct subculture that has become part of a global network devoid of boundaries.

While the trafficking of child pornography literature was once limited by geography, the Internet has served as a hunting ground for sexual predators. The fact that child pornography has now found an electronic safe haven has made it one of the most controversial issues of modern law enforcement and has provoked enormous social concern.

Defining Child Pornography

Because of conflicting laws in various countries, there is considerable disagreement over definitions of child pornography. Most laws prohibit depictions of sexual activities involving children below specified ages, but the ages vary from country to country. Some countries disallow all illustrations of nude minors, some forbid written works describing sexual activities of minors, and others even prohibit simulated pornography—cartoons, paintings, drawings, and computer-generated images.

The United States Criminal Code now defines child pornography to include all photographs, films, videos, and other visual representations, regardless of how they are made, showing persons who are, or who are depicted as, being under the age of eighteen years, engaged in explicit sexual activity. The second part of the code’s definition includes written materials and visual representations that promote sexual activity with persons under the age of eighteen.

The advent of sexting—the sharing of sexually explicit or suggestive, nude or seminude photographs, videos, or textual messages, primarily via text-messaging or social media—has shaken up the definition of child pornography in the United States. An increasing number of children have access to or ownership of cellphones, and studies have found that while still relatively uncommon, as many as 15 to 20 percent of adolescents and young adults have sexted at some point. Such images, when distributed beyond their intended audience (most often a romantic partner or a would-be partner), can cause shame and ostracism; however, more importantly, the creation and sharing of that content, if it depicts the nudity or sexual activity of persons under eighteen, constitutes the creation and dissemination of child pornography while the receipt of it, whether desired or solicited or not, is considered receipt of child pornography. In many states, those caught engaging in sexting can be convicted on child pornography charges, face juvenile detention, and be required to register as a sex offender. Moreover, these situations can also quickly escalate to felonies, with images being shared across state lines.

Prevalence of Child Pornography

The incidence and prevalence rates of child pornography are difficult to ascertain given the plethora of unsubstantiated statistics and the dearth of available resources that have been allocated to measure the problem. Child pornography is an industry of high profitability that, in 2009, was estimated to generate as much as $20 billion in annual revenue globally. More than 100,000 sites offer child pornography on the Web. Moreover, it appears that more than 25 percent of youths receive sexual propositions from adults over the Internet every year.

Another Internet feature through which pornography is disseminated is the virtual chat room. The spread of Internet chat rooms created a virtually dangerous playing field for child pornography offenders and pedophiles because of the anonymity they permit. Sex offenders often encounter their child victims in chat rooms. When children enter Internet chat rooms, they have an extremely high chance of coming into contact with sexual predators. Children are especially vulnerable because of their capacity for trust and may freely release sensitive personal information, such as their home addresses. Teenagers are also particularly susceptible to persuasion or coercion by their partners or online predators, who convince them to send sexual images or videos of themselves either via the Internet or their phones.

As these problems have become better known, parents have taken greater initiative in monitoring their children's online activities and educating them on safe, responsible Internet use. The Pew Research Center conducted a survey in 2015 revealing that 48 percent of parents had knowledge of their children’s e-mail passwords and about one-third had access to one of their child's social media account logins. According to the Pew Research Center in 2020, 71 percent of parents surveyed believe that giving young children access to a smartphone is more likely to result in harm than benefits.

Prosecution and Punishment

The possible prison terms for violating federal laws against child pornography and related crimes laws are severe:

•possession of child pornography: 10–20 years

•distribution or receipt of child pornography: 5–20 years

•producing child pornography: 15–30 years

Factors such as the age of the child or children depicted, any prior sexual misconduct offenses, whether other types of violence are shown, and the number of images involved can all affect sentencing. However, the US Sentencing Commission reported in 2018 that nearly 70 percent of offenders convicted on child pornography charges receive sentences less severe than these guidelines recommend. Often, criteria such as psychological assessment of the defendant, their level of risk for contact sexual offenses, their likelihood of reoffending, the relative ages of victim and defendant, and the content itself are taken into consideration during sentencing.

Several initiatives aimed at reducing the problem were launched in 1998 in response to the public demand to end child pornography. U.S. Congress enacted the Child Online Protection Act to require online commercial pornographers to verify ages of Internet users before allowing them to view pornography. During that same year, Congress also passed the Sexual Predators Act, which required Internet service providers to notify law enforcement when they discover child pornography on their Web spaces.

Cyber Tipline was also established in 1998 by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This is a congressionally mandated system for reporting child sexual exploitation and is a joint venture with federal agencies, including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, US Immigration and Customs, the US Secret Service, the US Postal Inspection Service, and state and local law-enforcement agencies.

The EARN IT Act of 2023 bill was introduced to revise the federal framework to better prevent the online sexual exploitation of children.

Bibliography

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Giacobbe, Alyssa. “Can Sexting Get You Arrested?” Teen Vogue. Condé Nast, 22 May 2011. Web. 6 June 2016.

Jenkins, P. Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography Online. New York: New York University Press, 2001.

Steel, Chad M.S. et al. "Public Perceptions of Child Pornographic and Child Pornography Consumers." Archives of Sexual Behavior, vol. 51, no. 2, Jan. 2022, pp. 1173-1185, doi.org/10.1007%2Fs10508-021-02196-1. Accessed 9 July 2024.

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