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Press
Release
STUDY: POSSESSING INTERNET CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
IS A SERIOUS CRIME WITH SERIOUS CONSEQUENCES
ALEXANDRIA, VA – June 7, 2005 – People arrested
for possessing Internet child pornography have typically committed serious
offenses and receive serious sentences, according to the first national
study of the problem. The study found the majority of child-pornography
possessors caught by the justice system had downloaded sexually explicit
images of very young children and images that graphically depicted sexual
penetration. More than half had molested a child or attempted to do so.
Allaying concerns that law enforcement has been unresponsive to the problem,
the study also found substantial numbers of arrests and high rates of
conviction and incarceration. According to the authors of the report,
this success is due in part to the incontrovertible evidence that child-pornography
investigations typically find.
The report, Child-Pornography
Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings From the National
Juvenile Online Victimization Study, was authored by the University
of New Hampshire’s Crimes against Children Research Center and researchers
Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, and Kimberly Mitchell, with funding from
the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and U.S.
Department of Justice. The study involved surveys and interviews with
a national sample of more than 2,500 law-enforcement agencies.
“This study highlights some of the reasons why the advent of Internet
child pornography has been so pernicious,” said Ernie Allen, president
of NCMEC. “Though some child victims have been identified and removed
from harm, the images of their victimization can remain online as permanent
records of their exploitation.” NCMEC has been central in providing
training and other technical assistance to law-enforcement personnel,
encouraging reporting of these pornographic images of children to our
CyberTipline, and helping to identify child victims of pornography.
The study found a broad spectrum of individuals and law-enforcement agencies
around the country were involved in bringing child-pornography-possession
cases to light. Key recommendations call for increased efforts to encourage
individuals to report pornographic images of children and more resources
for law enforcement in the handling of these cases.
The full report is available on NCMEC’s web site at www.missingkids.com
under “Featured Publications” or by calling the toll-free
Hotline at 1-800 THE LOST (1-800-843-5678).
About the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a
501(c)(3) nonprofit organization, which works in cooperation with the
U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency
Prevention. Created in 1984, NCMEC has aided law-enforcement officials
in the search for more than 106,000 missing children. More than 92,000
of those children have been recovered. NCMEC works to combat possession,
manufacture, and distribution of pornographic images of children; online
enticement of children for sexual acts; the victimization of children
through prostitution; the victimization of children through sexual tourism;
extra-familial sexual molestation of children; unsolicited obscene material
sent to children; and misleading domain names. To date NCMEC has handled
more than 325,000 reports of these offenses from the public through its
congressionally mandated CyberTipline (www.cybertipline.com)
CONTACTS:
NCMEC Media Line
703.837.6111
Janis Wolak, UNH
603.862.4691
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