The Child Pornography - Child Molestation Link

The New York Times has an interesting article on the subject today:

Experts have often wondered what proportion of men who download explicit sexual images of children also molest them. A new government study of convicted Internet offenders suggests that the number may be startlingly high: 85 percent of the offenders said they had committed acts of sexual abuse against minors, from inappropriate touching to rape.

The study, which has not yet been published, is stirring a vehement debate among psychologists, law enforcement officers and prison officials, who cannot agree on how the findings should be presented or interpreted.

The research, carried out by psychologists at the Federal Bureau of Prisons, is the first in-depth survey of such online offenders’ sexual behavior done by prison therapists who were actively performing treatment. Its findings have circulated privately among experts, who say they could have enormous implications for public safety and law enforcement.

Traffic in online child pornography has exploded in recent years, and the new study, some experts say, should be made public as soon as possible, to identify men who claim to be “just looking at pictures” but could, in fact, be predators.

Yet others say that the results, while significant, risk tarring some men unfairly. The findings, based on offenders serving prison time who volunteered for the study, do not necessarily apply to the large and diverse group of adults who have at some point downloaded child pornography, and whose behavior is far too variable to be captured by a single survey.

These results are not very surprising.  I am interested in seeing the final study, though.  My initial concern is that any study of just those imprisoned for child pornography crimes and who have sought treatment is a potentially small, but probably not random sample of viewers of child pornography.   According to the article, the study was largely focused on 155 inmates in North Carolina.  Drawing generalizations from this group is very dangerous if the study is going to be used to inform meaningful policy reform.

Comments

[Jim]

Then if you apply the findings of the 1995 Kent State Study where 33% of males exhibited sexual arousal to pictures of naked girls under 12 that equaled or exceeded their arousal to pictures of naked adult women, Alberto Gonzales could arrest 1/3 of all American males - taking care of virtually all Democrats, of course.

See a summary of the Kent State Study here:
http://www.mhamic.org/sources/halletal.htm

You mean Democrats like Foley? Oh, there is a long, long list that could go on and on about these kinds of "Democrats."

http://www.taylormarsh.com/archives_view.php?id=2304

http://www.armchairsubversive.org/

[lawdoc]

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children release a report saying about 20-30% of people who possessed child pornography also committed a contact offense. This is a significant number, and people who download or view child pornography should be investigated. However, using these numbers, the overwhelming majority of people who have possessed child pornography will not have committed a contact offense.

The study design is the same problem that plagued Prentky's report which showed the high rate of recidivism. He was studying a very select group of sex offenders released from a civil commitment center. It was definitely not the heterogenous and growning group of people now labeled "sex offender".