What Can We Do To Decrease the Rate of Child Pornography?

By: Ashley DeLaurentis

Child pornography is a vast industry, that is growing each day. Child pornography is
having an individual under eighteen performing a sexual act or explicit view of them in pictures,
videos, or any visual(End Child Pornography). Pornography started during the 19th century
when the camera was invented. Quickly after, the images involving children arose. It is illegal to
produce, send, or receive and keep the image(s). If you were to break these laws, you could be
sent to prison for up to 15 years, depending on the nature of your crime(Wortley). Most of the
child pornography findings involve children between six and twelve years of age(Child
Pornography). Child pornography has been around for decades, and increased dramatically
when the internet came about. Child pornograpy is becoming a major problem in the world.
Although, we cannot completely stop child pornography from being distributed or produced, we
can do certain things to prevent or decrease child pornography rates. One way would be to filter
what goes onto the internet. In addition to having filters, we could come up with hotlines for
reporting these problems. Law enforcement should try to catch the major offenders or
distributors of child pornography. Lastly, we can start groups or classes that raise awareness
against child pornography(Wortley).
Child pornography is an increasing problem. Child porn is easily distributed online and
about 10 million IP addresses shared child pornography in 2009 (Child Pornography and The
Internet). The internet allows for images and videos to be seen all around the world. People who
view child pornography are actually more likely to sexually abuse a child and 40% of people
who view it have actually sexually assaulted a child. The internet has also allows for livestreaming of children being assaulted(Wortley). The internet is like heaven for pedophiles. It

allows for pedophiles to satisfy their nasty habits. This could also makes them more likely to go
out and actually harm a child(Child Pornography and the Internet). It is also a problem that
computers can be accessed almost anywhere. This allows for people to be able to activate child
pornography where and when they want. Child pornography can even be accessed on work
computers. Child pornography isnt just an industry for people who look at these explicit visuals.
There are also people in this industry just for a profit. There are child pornography websites that
were produced by an individual and one was said to have over a million hits on it in just one
month(What is..).
One solution to the growing rates of child pornography would be to regulate what goes
onto the internet. There should be certain rules in order to upload something onto the internet.
Although, there are some filters on some websites that go through a scanning process first, and
then they can be uploaded if there are no obscene images. We should take this process even
farther and have a filtering process on every website that is created; this would have to be
required in order to set up a website. We should even require that employers make sure that all
their work-computers have these filters and that their employees are following these rules. This
will make sure that no one on the job is looking at explicit content. If they do so, they should be
immediately fired and a file should be reported to law enforcement (Akdeniz). Parents also have
issues with their child accessing sexual content on the internet. This is why every parent should
have a parental control filter on their computers; which blocks inappropriate sites. This wont
allow their children to access child pornography. Parents should also use the rating system on the
parental control filter. This will allow the parent to choose the extent of what their children can
see(J.D). This will also prevent predators from getting in touch with their children. If a predator
were to contract a child, they could lure the child away from home. This could allow the predator

to use the child in explicit content(Child Pornography on the Internet). By having these parental
controls on, this dramatically decreases the rates of this happening. Which could decrease child
pornography rates majorly. There are many ups and downs to having so many filtering
techniques on the internet. Filters allow for avoiding predators or unnecessary situations that you
don't want to see or you dont want your children to see. This does not prevent you from
producing or sharing your invention, it just helps keep it away from people who would rather not
see it. Filters can also be seen in a negative way. This is because some filtering can block sites
that are actually helpful but they block them because of keywords, that may seem inappropriate
such as chicken breast recipes (To Filter..). New websites come up everyday and sometimes
the scanning for filtering these websites wont catch the inappropriate site; especially if the
person used an appropriate word to cover up the inappropriate content. Some people argue that
filtering is wrong because it goes against their rights to information(To Filter..).
The community could decrease child pornography rates by creating hotlines for reporting
these problems. Having hotlines to receive complaints, leads, and tips about child pornography
could decrease the rates. This would allow you to call anonymously and allow for the receiver of
the call to investigate about the website you are calling about. There are few hotlines for
reporting child pornography on the internet and many more should be provided for an effective
decrease in child pornography rates. You could also make the hotlines known by spreading the
word on many sites. The hotline should mention this in newspapers and also on bulletin boards
in major businesses. Also, they should make their number known, maybe by advertising on
commercials. CyberTypline is one hotline that has had more than 4.3 million of suspected child
sexual exploitation in 2015 (Hotlines Models). Think about how many more reports would
be made if there were more hotlines available(CyberTipline). Hotlines have many great uses

but they also have some downfalls to them. Hotlines make sure that they overview any report
made to them. They make sure that any kid that is in harm gets their attention immediately. Also,
these people who run these hotlines have access to certain tools that could help them find
information that would be relevant to the report information. They would be able to see who
created the website and the location of where it was created. Hotlines can then get all the
information together and send it to law enforcement; This could help them with their
investigation dramatically. Hotlines also has some problems with their creation. Hotlines are
sometimes only provided for a specific town or location. Which means you would have to find
somewhere else to report the problem. Some hotlines may also be getting hundreds of reports at
a time and they might not be able to get to all of them. Hotlines get many false cases that dont
pertain to that subject. Yet, the main disadvantage of hotlines is the cost of running one or
many(Hotline Pros..; "Hotlines Models).
If we were to catch the major offenders, producer, or distribution of child pornography
the rates would decrease at a rapid speed. If they were to find the major offenders, they could
take all the sites they have created down. They could also force the offender to tell law
enforcement of any other major sites or offenders they know of. So, when they get the major
offenders, they also get a majority of the minor offenders with this(Child Pornography on the
Internet). They need to involve themselves in the predators who actually harm the children or
produce the images. If they were to find these large sites and shut them down, they will be able
to see all the users that look or watch this explicit content. They could easily take the names the
predator gave them and cross reference lists of internet pornography users with sex offender
registries to increase the rate of targeting hands-off offenders (Child Pornography on the
Internet). They should also have harsher consequences for major and minor offenders. This

should be a requirement, because offenders are likely to break the law again. Most child
pornography offenders get short sentences, which dont allow offenders to learn their lesson.
Providing longer sentences for these offenders, could prevent the offender from risking their life
by simply looking at an image. If law enforcement was to have access to the guidelines for child
pornography offenses, they could choose a sentence for the offender that makes a
statement(Improving the Guidelines). There are more pros to catching these predators then
there are cons. Catching the predator would mean less children being abused or advertised by
that person. It would also mean that the predator caught could never harm a child again. The only
downfall to catching a predator is that each time a predator is caught, more come about(Child
Pornography on the Internet).
Finally, each community could set up groups or committees that raise awareness against
child pornography. These groups would work with law enforcement, in order to pass on any
information they learn while being on these committees. These individuals of these groups would
be public speakers. They would talk to parents, teachers, and families to raise awareness for chlid
pornography. They could inform through websites, online classes, and face to face classes. These
committees will consist of volunteers who search the internet, or hotlines where people can
report internet child pornography (Child Pornography on the Internet). These volunteers should
be very careful when searching for predators, because they may accidently save an explicit
image, and this would be illegal. Committees to help raise awareness about child pornography
would be a great thing to have in each town. Everyone would be aware of why child
pornography is a problem and how to prevent or help the cause. The downfall to tyring to get
groups together is finding volunteers that would be willing to take this very seriously. They

would have to be dedicated to this cause and take a lot of time out of their day to raise
awareness.(Child Pornography on the Internet).
In order to decrease child pornography dramatically, we should use all of these solutions
around the world. I think child pornography is a subject that needs to be addressed sooner than
later. We should not wait for these rates to grow even more dramatically, especially with new
technology coming out daily. If we were to regulate all inappropriate content that goes onto the
internet, it would be very hard for these offenders to put their supply of child pornography out
into the world. Which will also decrease the rate of the people who observe child pornography.
Having hotlines for reporting these problems would also be very helpful. If you were to come
across an inappropriate site, that has many viewers, you could call in this website anonymously.
This could make a huge impact and the people answering the call could investigate the problem.
This could lead to many sites being taken down, and many predators being locked up. I think law
enforcement should also put all their focus into catching major predators, or producers of child
pornography. By doing so, observers would have less of a chance of being able to view child
pornography. Also, these predators should have longer jail time. This will cause them to think
before they commit a crime again. Finally, I highly recommend that towns set up committees for
raising awareness. They could set up websites, with a twenty-four hour question page. This will
inform parents of the danger their children can be in. Enforcing all of these could change the
world for the better. My solution best addresses my problem because it hits every aspect that
increases child pornography rates. This will cause child pornography rates to decrease and can
save children from being sexually abused.

Works Cited
Akdeniz, Yaman "Governance of Pornography and Child Pornography on the Global
Internet: A Multi-Layered Approach," in Edwards, L and Waelde, C eds, Law and the
Internet: Regulating Cyberspace, Hart Publishing, 1997, pp 223-241.
Child Pornography and Child Abuse Facts wearethorn.org. Thorn, 2015. Web. 24 Sep. 2015.
Child Pornography and the Internet. sumall.org. 2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
Child Pornography. enough.org. Enough is Enough, 2014. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
Child Pornography on the Internet. Center for Problem-Oriented Policing, 2006. Web. 24 Sep.
2015.

CyberTipline. missingkids.com. National Center for Missing & Exploited Children,

2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
End Child Pornography. ecpat.org. ecpat, 2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
Hotlines Models: A Quick Comparison of Pros and Cons. Isntap.org. LSC, Web. 10
Oct. 2015.
Hotline pros and cons. hcpro.com. HCPRO, 19 May 2003.Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
Improving the Guidelines for Child Pornography Offenses Famm.org. Families against
mandatory minimums, 2014. Web. 30 Sep. 2015.
J.D, Crystal. copacommission.org. Family Research Council, Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
To Filter or Not: The Pros and Cons of Using Parental Control Software. ala.org.
American Library Association, 2015. Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
What Is Child Pornography? mail.protect.org. national association, Web. 10 Oct. 2015.
Wortley, Richard. Smallbone, Stephen. Child Pornography on the Internet. Center for ProblemOriented Policing, 2006. Web. 24 Sep. 2015.