Prosecutions Toughen Up

NEWSPAPER INVESTIGATION

"Prosecutions toughen up"
CHILD PORN CASES Law enforcement authorities are using more aggressive tools
Written by: Mark Morris
Date: Dec 26, 2006
Published In: Kansas City Star

Prosecutions here have mushroomed in the last five in child exploitation prosecutions. Charges include child pornography counts, enticing minors for illegal sex, distributing obscenity to minors and sexual abuse of children. Also fueling prosecution interest is a growing body of academic research finding links between child porn and pedophilia. One disturbing study of federal inmates suggests they “acted out” their sexual fantasies on far more children than authorities first imagined.

Note the unpublished FBI study and the suggestion by three Canadian researchers that was published in the Journal of Abnormal Psychology that child porn offenses are a valid diagnostic indicator of pedophilia, defined as “a persistent sexual interest in prepubescent children.”