Political CV

In the past decade, public concern about child pornography and other forms of child sexual abuse has greatly intensified. The fact that numerous survivors of child sexual abuse were finally motivated to accuse the priests and other officials in the Catholic Church who had sexually abused them -- sometimes for years -- has contributed to this concern. The widespread cover-up of these crimes by Catholic Bishops and other prominent churchmen has also magnified the public scandal -- that is far from over today (June, 16, 2003).

Although child pornography is not a prominent feature of the public's horrified reaction to this scandal, the use by some priests of child pornography in their arsenal of seductive strategies has also come to light. In addition, because pedophiles -- most of whom are obsessed with looking at and collecting child pornography (ref) -- are the major perpetrators of the child sexual abuse in the Catholic Church, the twin issues of child porn and child sexual abuse have even caught the attention of President Bush, John Ashcroft, and other prominent government officials to an unprecedented degree. Furthermore, many legislators have been working for years to draft legislation to provide law enforcement officers with the means to combat child porn on the Internet more effectively.

Whereas adult porn is often falsely conceptualized as harmless "fantasy" -- as if it were a victimless pursuit -- child pornography is widely recognized as victimizing children in the very process of producing it. It is the recognition that children are unable to consent to being used in pornography, as well as the awareness of the damaging consequences of child porn-related sexual abuse, that has prevented freedom of speech from being used as an obstacle to the criminalization of child porn.

Legislation to criminalize the production, distribution, and consumption of child porn has always been based on the fact that its production requires the sexual exploitation of a child/ren. Therefore, it is not that surprising that the majority opinion of the Supreme Court justices struck down the government's legislation criminalizing computer-generated child pornography (which does not use actual children in production) in 2002 on the grounds that it "is not intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of children" (p. A1/A16).

Friel points out that in order for the government to prove that a ban on virtual child pornography would protect children from child sexual abuse, they will have to show "a clear connection between virtual child pornography and child sexual exploitation" (p. fn 235; emphasis added). Although Friel maintains that this will be very difficult to prove (p. 235), the major goal of Stolen Innocence is to do just this, i.e., to show a causal relationship between the exposure to both computer-generated and traditional child porn and the occurrence of child sexual victimization.

Aside from the scientific importance of these issues, there are crucial policy implications. I hope this book will succeed in providing the necessary data, reasoning, and theory to make a convincing case for the need to criminalize computer-generated child porn so that this material can remain illegal.

In the area of sexual violence against women and children, feminists have typically played a groundbreaking role in bringing the various manifestations of this widespread problem to public attention. Florence Rush, one of the feminist pioneers in the areas of child porn and child sexual abuse, wrote her first article on child porn in 1978 [Child pornography. Unpublished paper, presented at the Pittsburgh Conference on Pornography: A Feminist Perspective, May 17, 1980]. She also wrote about child porn in her ground breaking book, The Best Kept Secret: Sexual Abuse of Children, [New Jersey: Prentice Hall Inc.] in 1980.

Although a few other feminists have also written about child porn (for example, Linnea Smith, Elizabeth Matz, Liz Kelly, Anne Mayne), they have been the exceptions. The organized feminist anti-porn movement has focused almost exclusively on adult porn. As Liz Kelly notes, "in feminist analyses of, and campaigning against, pornography relatively little attention has been paid to child pornography." (p. 113, In Itzen (ed. (1992). Pornography: Women, Violence, and Civil Liberties). Kelly suggests that child pornography has not been a central concern of feminists because, "Many feminists simplistically elide children's interests with those of adult women" (p. 113). In addition, she argues that, "Failure to recognize that children's oppression has an independent structure can result in feminists not challenging the general resistance to seeing and knowing what adults do to children" (p. 113).

Feminist writer Susan Cole's (1995) reason for ignoring child porn (quoted below) is the same as mine was until fairly recently. "I'm always struck," she said,

"by how easy it is for people to see the children in pornography as victims and how difficult it is for them to see force and coercion in pornography that features women. And this is why I don't focus too much on child pornography. It's easy to upset people with it.... What is it about the circumstances of a female's presence in pornography that changes when she turns eighteen?" [Power Surge: Sex, Violence and Pornography. Toronto, Ontario: Second Story Press, p. 103]

I believe Cole's reasons for deliberately neglecting child porn are shared by many other feminists. Despite my sympathy for Cole's argument, I no longer consider it justifiable for feminists to ignore the devastating effects of child pornography on children.

Relatively few books have been published on child pornography especially when compared with the numerous books on other forms of child sexual abuse. Several of those that are available have focused on offering advice to parents regarding how they can protect their children from deliberately or inadvertently accessing child pornography on the Internet. For example, in the case of Herbert Lin's Youth, Pornography, and the Internet (National Academy Press, 2002), a 21-person committee was chosen "to study the tools and strategies for protecting kids from pornography." This anthology provides several different approaches to protecting youth from exposure to pornography on the Internet.

There are a few other books written with a mind to protecting children from exposure to pornography. Internet Pornography: Awareness and Prevention by Michael McBain, is a very short volume (89 pages) described as "a parent/teacher guide to protecting minors from the dark side of the Internet." The author shows parents and teachers how to audit their home and school computers so they can control minors' access to pornographic material. Other books that focus on child protection include Jens Waltermann and Marcel Machill's, Protecting Our Children on the Internet (Bertelsmann Foundation Publishers, 2000), and Frank York and Jan LaRue's book, Protecting Your Child in an X‑rated World (Wheaton, IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001). A Report of the Joint Hearing before the Subcommittee on Technology of the Committee on Science, U.S. House of Representatives, titled Cyberporn: Protecting Our Children From the Back Alleys of the Internet (U.S. Government Printing Office, 1995) constitutes another example of the protecting-children theme.

There are a few existing books that specifically discuss child pornography. Unfortunately, many of these where written in the pre-Internet era and thus do not examine today's major arena of child pornography. Books on child pornography published in the pre-Internet era include Shirley O'Brien's Child Pornography (1983), Ann Wolbert Burgess' groundbreaking scholarly anthology, Child Pornography and Sex Rings (1984), and British journalist Tim Tate's excellent volume, Child Pornography: An Investigation (1990).

For those audiences interested in more scholarly reports, Splintered Lives: Sexual Exploitation of Children in the Context of Children's Rights and Child Protection (1995) is a first rate self-published report on child pornography by a team of British feminist researchers -- Liz Kelly, Rachel Wingfield, and Linda Regan. This report offers many new and thought-provoking theories, ideas, and concepts several of which will be discussed in Stolen Innocence. Kenneth Lanning, a retired Director of the child pornography section of the FBI -- a position which he held for many years, has written four editions of an influential report entitled Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis -- the most recent edition of which was published in 2001. Despite the specificity of this title, Lanning's report provides a relatively comprehensive analysis of child pornography -- including child pornography on the Internet -- from a law enforcement perspective.

Philip Jenkins' brilliant and groundbreaking volume, Beyond Tolerance: Child Pornography on the Internet (2001), is the first and only book, to my knowledge, to focus on child pornography on the Internet. This volume has proved to be my most indispensable resource in writing Stolen Innocence. (Although an edited anthology by Carlos Arnaldo, titled Child Abuse on the Internet: Breaking the Silence (2000), also focuses on the Internet, only some of the contributors write about child pornography.)

Books and reports form only a portion of the literature; there are also many articles by scholars, journalists, and others, many of which are located on the Internet. In examining these articles, however, we again find that there is far more concern about the dangers of the Internet for children than about child pornography. For example, Jenkins (2001) notes that most of the material focuses on "children being seduced or stalked by predatory adults [males] whom they encounter online" (p. 10). Child pornography is only relevant in these cases when predators use it in their seduction strategy. "Cyberstalking," Jenkins observes, "has next to nothing to do with the underworld that supplies and consumes KX and hel-lo [two examples of very hardcore child pornography]" (p. 11). Jenkins (2001) concludes that there is a "stunning lack of available information on the current realities of child porn" (emphasis added, p. 10). "(I)n the United States," he explains,

"The ferocious legal prohibitions on viewing child porn images have had the effect of virtually banning research. The existing literature thus ... ignores the computer revolution that transformed this particular deviant subculture in the mid-1980s." (p. 10)

James Kincaid also observes that, "If we look for studies of the actual material, the kiddie porn* itself, we find nothing, since it is against the law to look at what may exist, much less own it" (cited by Jenkins, p. 19). [*Footnote: This term minimizes the seriousness of child pornography.]

Similarly, Harmon, Denna, and Boeringer, Scot B. (2002, January 20), who undertook an extensive review of the literature on accessible depictions of child pornography on the Internet, found that there are "very few systematic research projects" on this subject (p. 2). However, they considered it understandable that "little experimental research has ever been done" because of "the ethical problems of exposing subjects to such materials and the possible permanent effects that subjects might suffer" (p. 2). In addition, Harmon et al., noted

The extreme violence and brutality sometimes present in postings on the internet cannot be over-emphasized when discussing the potential effects upon viewers -- especially young viewers. The PI (Principal Investigator) of this study found it necessary to seek professional debriefing through the counseling services offered at the university after conducting this analysis." (p. 2)

The paucity of research on child pornography on the Internet is exceedingly unfortunate since it is a problem of such momentous concern to millions of individuals and organizations throughout the world.

Nonetheless, this state of affairs is not very surprising given the obstacles faced by researchers. Jenkins makes a sobering point regarding how easy it is to break the current child pornography laws. "Contrary to popular impression, he writes,

"'Downloading' does not refer to the act of deliberately saving an image but merely to pressing on a link that causes an image to appear on the screen. The offense is in the accessing, not the saving. Almost certainly, too, it is not necessary for a prosecutor to show that an accused individual knew that pressing that link would produce a suspect image." (p. 18)

Furthermore, Jenkins notes, "It is no excuse to say that one was consulting the images for purposes of academic research or journalistic investigation, nor can one claim to be collecting materials to expose and combat the evils of child pornography" (Jenkins, p. 19). Simply "viewing child porn material is a criminal offense" (p. 19).

Hence, freelance reporter Lawrence Matthews, 55, who claimed that he was trading child pornography photographs "as part of a major investigation into the child porn world," was found guilty of a serious criminal offence. He was fined $4,000 and sentenced to 18 months in prison (Jenkins, p. 19; Kirtley, 1999, p. 86).

While it is of great concern to me and presumably others that genuine research on child pornography has been criminalized, Matthews' claim that he was only conducting research for a magazine article "on the subject of online child pornography and law enforcement sting operations" is wholly unconvincing since "he could produce no notes, drafts, contracts or even so much as a query letter to a publisher to back up his assertion" (Kirtley, p. 86). Meanwhile he had spent almost two years on doing his "research."

Pete Townshend, the 57-year-old guitarist and co-founder of the Who rock band, was arrested at his home near London, England, in January 2003, "on suspicion of possessing child pornography." Townsend declared his innocence on the grounds that he "happened upon" the images "by accident," and that "he was only researching child pornography sites for an autobiography" (SFC, January 16, 2003, p. A2). He maintained that child pornography was relevant to his autobiography because he might have been molested as a child (SFC, p. A2). This unlikely story was rendered even less credible by the inconsistency in his claiming both accidental access (he later admitted using his credit card*) to the site and a desire to conduct research (*Footnote: Warren Hoge, New York Times, May 8, p. A7).

By May 8, 2003, he changed his story by maintaining that "his motive was research to help his 'campaign to counter damage done by all kinds of pornography on the Internet,'" (Warren Hoge, New York Times, p. A7). Incredibly, Scotland Yard found Townshend's various explanations plausible, and cleared him "of the more serious charge of being in possession of indecent pictures downloaded from the Internet" (Hoge, p. A7). Apparently the United States is not the only country where celebrity plays a vital role in being declared innocent of nasty charges.

Apparently, the British police did not share my response. He was merely "given a formal police caution and placed on an official register of sex offenders" for five years but "cleared of the more serious charge of being in possession of indecent pictures downloaded from the Internet" (Warren Hoge, British rock star receives lesser punishment in Internet case, New York Times, May 8, 2003. Internet version, p. 1). A child sexual abuse victim group "had harsh words for the police decision," as did Scotland Yard.

Be this as it may, since I planned to include in this book descriptions of a sample of child pornography on the Internet, I was shocked when I learned that I had no more right to access child pornography -- as legally defined -- than the most brutal child pornography offender had. Only police officers and attorneys who prosecute or defend child pornography offenders are permitted to access, study and collect the offenders' child pornography collections.

Despite Jenkins' claim that it is impossible to do research on child pornography on the Internet, he himself noted that researchers can "access freely what we might call the collateral manifestations of the child pornography world, namely, newsgroups, bulletin boards, and message boards" (p. 19). Jenkins based the research for his book on these "collateral manifestations," including the "verbal, textual material collected from newsgroups and message boards" over a period of two years (p. 20). However, he acknowledged that:

"I do not know from firsthand observation exactly what the material is that I am supposed to be handling, whether what is advertised as child pornography in fact features subjects aged five or thirty-five. Virtually all the so-called lolita sites that are easily discovered on the Internet do, in fact, involve much older women [females]." (p. 20)

Nevertheless, Jenkins maintains that he was able to circumvent this problem by studying many websites on which several independent users' provided detailed descriptions, analyses and criticism of the content" (p. 20).* [*Footnote: As will become clear in the discussion of the legal history of child pornography in Chapter 3, there was a long period when no distinction was made between child and adult pornography, and when the laws about pornography were poorly implemented. Even after a law criminalizing child pornography was passed in 1978, and law enforcement officers were admonished to radically increase their efforts to combat child pornography on the Internet, strategies had not yet been devised to handle the new and challenging problems posed by the Internet.]

Researchers cannot be prosecuted for the child pornography they downloaded for research in the past, although they can be prosecuted if they have kept the child pornography pictures they collected. Additionally, it is still possible to review and analyze the findings of a few studies undertaken during a less restrictive time.

British child pornography and child sexual abuse researchers Liz Kelly and her colleagues Rachel Wingfield and Linda Regan (1995) suggest quite a different reason from those mentioned above for the lack of research on child pornography: "sexual exploitation" (the term used to refer to child pornography, child prostitution, and trafficking in child sex slaves), they note, "is not a recognised 'type' of child abuse...." (p. 28).

Five years later Kelly, Regan and Sheila Burton (2000) (in Itzin), make a similar point about the neglect of research on "sexual exploitation":

"detailed knowledge about sexual exploitation of children is still rare.... Most prevalence research does not ask the kind of questions which would reveal sexual exploitation, either as a factor in ongoing sexual abuse or as separate from it. Official statistics also fail to record sexual exploitation as a category." (p. 74)

Kelly et al., also note that the frequent connections between criminal networks and the child pornography industry add to the difficulty of doing research (p. 74).

In addition to the lack of research on the prevalence of children victimized by child pornography, several researchers point out the paucity of research on the effects of child pornography on the victims. For example, Ulla Carlsson (in Carlos A. Arnaldo. (Ed.). (2000)) observed that

"We have seen remarkably few studies of the effects of pornography on those who view it, and we know even less about the effects on young, and very young, viewers. Studies of sadistic pornography are even rarer." (p. 62)

"empirical research is limited on the effects of these materials [child pornography] on victims. [Endnote: Tate also notes that: "There are virtually no empirical research studies into the effects of child pornography on children themselves." Child Porn, 1990, p. 180] Most often, the primary sources of information of victim effects come from clinicians who have treated victims. Few studies employing other methods exist on the effects of these materials on adult viewers." (p. 79)

Harmon, Denna, and Boeringer, Scot B. (2002, January 20) also note that "to date there has been no published analysis of written pornography on the Internet" (p. 3).

Conclusion: It is abundantly clear that there is a serious lack of research on child pornography. Rod Nordland and Jeffrey Bartholet (2001, March 19) note that the general ignorance about child pornography "serves the child pornographers well" (web, p. 46). To rectify this situation, funding must be allocated to undertake research on child pornography and its effects. And in order to be able to conduct such research without restrictions, researchers need to be given

"a First Amendment-based academic research privilege that would provide scholars with the ability to study child pornography by examining the topic firsthand, including the opportunity to analyze and critique this form of image-based content, free from fear of state and federal government prosecution." (Calvert, 2002, p. 257)

Calvert, a professor of Communications and Law, provides several reasons for extending an academic research privilege to authentic researchers, as well as providing "the constitutional, judicial, and statutory foundations upon which this privilege could be constructed" (2002, p. 259). He points out that

"if scholars are not allowed to view child pornography for legitimate research purposes, then society is left largely to rely on two sources for its data about the quantity and content of child pornography that circulates on the World Wide Web: the government and pedophiles. Both sources may be viewed as dubious, each constituting its own somewhat suspect class." (p. 260).

Law Enforcement officials should be included as a third source. Calvert notes that "many people do not trust the government or law enforcement agents" as sources of information, and very few, if any, individuals would trust information given by pedophiles. Well-executed research by reputable scholars is likely to be the best source for obtaining credible information about the prevalence, content, and effects of child pornography.

However, of the large number of pedophiles in the United States, it is reasonable to assume that a number of scholars are amongst them. Methods must be developed to distinguish between researchers who are genuine and those whose "research" is merely a cover for their desire to download child pornography and build up their child pornography collections -- as was the case with Matthews, for example (described above). Calvert makes several proposals for limiting the conditions under which researchers can exercise their research privilege (see pages X-x). His suggestions discriminate against independent researchers like myself who, as an emerita professor, is no longer connected with an institution of higher learning. In my view it would be preferable if a national committee of qualified academics would be required to evaluate the merits of research proposals about child pornography as well as the motivation of the researchers involved.

This chapter will conclude with a brief article about a shocking miscarriage of justice involving an extremely lenient punishment given to a perpetrator of appallingly sadistic pornography-related child sexual abuse. This case indicates how much work needs to done to combat this pernicious industry.

... Even when laws against pornography are enforced, some in our legal system still appear more sympathetic towards the perpetrators than the victims, even when the victims are children.

"I enjoyed what I was doing. I didn't want to stop. I didn't want help," said former New York Law School professor Edward Samuels, according to an article written by Andrea Peyser.

[Footnote: <http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/350809771.html?did3D350809771&FMT3D BS&FMTS3DFT&PMID3D42522&desc3DSICKENING+LOGIC+OF+%27VICTIMLESS%27+BAB Y+RAPE> and published in the June 24, 2003, edition of the New York Post.]

Samuels made these comments after being caught with what has been widely reported as one of the most vile and extensive collections of child pornography ever encountered by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. According to Peyser, during the trial, prosecutor Maxine Rosenthal provided details of the roughly "150,000 shots, from stills of naked, undeveloped girls to videos of rape, whippings and even bestiality, committed upon children as young as 3."

In the same edition of the New York Post, Laura Italiano also reported on Rosenthal's description of the materials. In addition to the "nauseating images involving babies and dogs," Rosenthal described horrific scenes in which little girls were "crying and grimacing in pain." Samuels, a married father of two children, also possessed an assortment of whips and restraints. In her prosecution of this man, Rosenthal asked for the woefully inadequate maximum sentence possible within the plea bargain arrangement that Samuels's defense attorney, Avraham Moskowitz, successfully brokered.

[Footnote:<http://pqasb.pqarchiver.com/nypost/350809611.html?did3D350809611&FMT3D ABS&FMTS3DFT&PMID3D42522&desc3DPERV+PROF+FUROR+‑+WRIST‑SLAP+FOR+150,00 0+KID+PIX>]

However, despite the reportedly shocking depravity of his collection of images depicting the unspeakable suffering of innocents, Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Brenda Soloff found the four years in prison that Rosenthal asked for to be far too harsh. In fact, according to Italiano, "the judge admitted she struggled over whether to send Samuels to jail at all." And, out of her great inner struggle came the sentence ‑ six months in jail and 10 years probation.

On June 24, 2003, New York Newsday staff writer Karen Freifeld quoted the judge as saying that Samuels presented "a strong case [that] he has suffered enough."

Footnote:[http://216.239.53.104/search?q3Dcache:XRmnhBIHqr8J:www.nynewsday.com/news/local/crime/nyc‑nyporn3344580jun24,0,5169419.story+edward+samuels+and+child+porn+sentence&hl3Den&ie3DUTF‑8>]

Judge Soloff was not alone in her concerns about Samuels. In the June 23, 2003, edition of New York Magazine, Elisabeth Franck reported that the dean of New York Law School, Richard Matasar, wrote in an e‑mail to colleagues that "the Law School has placed Professor Samuels on paid administrative leave so that he may attend to his defense... Our hearts go out to Ed and his family as they face the difficult time ahead." Matasar acknowledged that he wrestled with the subject. "When there's no purchase or sale of these materials, I don't know...As a lawyer, I am ambivalent on these issues," he said, according to Franck.

[Footnote: <http://www.newyorkmetro.com/nymetro/news/crimelaw/features/n_8815/>]

Randolf Jonakait, one of many of the school's professors who were unhappy with the dean's decision to go to the district attorney with the information, reportedly said, "The notion of going to the police and not talking to Ed seems to me incorrect; it was wrong from a workplace point of view and wrong from an academic freedom point of view. Anyone who's concerned with issues of academic freedom should be concerned about this." Franck indicated that Jonakait was also one of several professors that "challenged the validity of the law Samuels was accused of breaking." "This is close to a victimless crime," Jonakait reportedly said.

"Like so many other parents, I gratefully spend each day in the intimate, loving care of my tiny girls. And, as I struggle to understand these people, these well‑educated and successful people, I look at my almost‑four‑year‑old daughter, all sunshine and innocence. She shines with the knowledge that she is loved, that her world and the people in it are good.

"As I think about all of this, the depravity of those images fills my mind. The dog. Tiny girls tied up. Babies. Beatings. Red welts. For a fraction of a horrible moment I am able to envision how my own daughter's face would look, innocence extinguished, fear and pain deadening the sunlight of her eyes. I taste my tears, my heartaches for those children, and no, I can't say that I concern myself greatly about the possibility of Samuels suffering too much.

"Perhaps, therein lies part of the answer. I (and most others) live in the real world. We don't look down upon such situations from the ivory tower of academia or from a courtroom bench. To expect that they would shun an alleged child‑pornography addict would be to underestimate the propensity to agonize in academia. Especially legal academia. And especially when you factor in the deep ambivalence among legal scholars about pornography."...