At the National Strategy Conference on Combating Child Exploitation in San Jose, California on May 19, 2011, Attorney General Eric Holder Jr. said:
“Unfortunately, we´ve also seen a historic rise in the distribution of child pornography, in the number of images being shared online, and in the level of violence associated with child exploitation and sexual abuse crimes. Tragically, the only place we´ve seen a decrease is in the age of victims.”
Because politicians and elected government officials often target child pornography crimes as a way to secure public support by appearing to come down harsh on these offenses, it can be difficult to determine if the rates of child porn downloads in America are actually on the rise or if these officials merely have an ax to grind.
So let’s consider the numbers:
- An estimated 25 million images are reviewed by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children That’s 480,769 images per week.
- The annual number of persons prosecuted for commercial sexual exploitation of children (CSEC) cases filed in U.S. district court nearly doubled between 2004 and 2013, increasing from 1,405 to 2,776 cases. (source)
- Child pornography offences have exploded by more than 200% in the last decade, a trend that advocates say is fueled by the easy spread of illicit material over the internet. Incidents of child pornography climbed for the eighth year in a row in 2016. (source)
- 92% of all child sexual abuse URLs we identified globally in 2016 were hosted in these five countries: Netherlands, UNITED STATES, Canada, France & Russia. (source)
- There are over 747,408 registered sex offenders in the United States, and over 100,000 are lost in the system (source: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 2012)
- There has been a 774% increase in the number of child pornography images and videos reviewed through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children’s Child Victim Identification Program
While the data clearly shows a rise in pornagraphic images being viewed and downloaded, believed in part to be caused by easier accessibility, what the statistics fail to reveal is whether the increase in child porn charges is caused by a rise in offenses or due to the growing national effort to target these crimes in recent years.
What’s obvious, however, is that child porn arrests are indeed on the rise.
“Rarely a week goes by in the United States that a child pornographer is not charged or sentenced for federal crimes related to the sexual exploitation of children.”
In fact, in states like Texas that are notorious for cracking down hard on alleged child porn offenders, especially in major cities like Houston and Dallas/Ft. Worth, serious child porn charges are a fairly common occurrence.
People who have been charged with a child porn crime are strongly advised to consult a criminal defense attorney who specializes in such cases to ensure their legal rights are not violated by overzealous investigators or public figures with a motive.
