Pornography has always aroused passions, but the debate over pornography is particularly active today because pornography is so widely available. People can buy books or magazines at a local store, rent a movie at the video store, tune into a certain channel on cable or satellite TV, or view images on the Internet. Throw in arguments from free — speech advocates, antiporn (and anti-antiporn) feminists, religious groups, presidential commissions, the American Civil Liberties Union, and a powerful pornography industry, and you can begin to see the extent of the fights that have developed over this issue.
Question: I’ve heard that men and women who are looking for child pornography often use the Internet. What kind of images do they look for? How often do they get caught?
Although the distribution of child pornography is illegal and banned by federal law in all 50 states, the crimes still occur. Research has found that from 2000 to 2001 an estimated 1,713 nationwide arrests were made for Internet-related crimes involving the possession of child pornography (Wolak et al., 2005). Those who were arrested all had access to minor children, either by living with them, through a job, or in organized youth activities. The majority were Caucasian (91%), older than 25 (86%), and unmarried (Wolak et al., 2005). When law officials reviewed the child pornography that offenders had in their possession, they found 83% had images of 6- to 12-year-olds; 39% had images of 3- to 5-year-olds; and 19% had images of children under the age of 3. These images contained children involved in a range of sexual behaviors including oral sex, genital touching, and penetration (Wolak et al., 2005).