Published by Central Florida News 13
Central Florida News 13 legal analyst Mark NeJame discuss with Kristin Kane the issue of child pornography in Central Florida.
Child Pornography In Central Florida
It seems to be a growing problem and one that is very disturbing. More and more people are getting busted with child porn. News 13 legal analyst Mark NeJame discusses the issue.
How big of an issue is child porn here in central Florida?
I think child pornography is a tremendous issue, a giant issue, and it’s growing and I think that is more people use the internet, we’re going to find that this is going to get even further as far as the numbers of people who are going to be arrested and the number of images that are going to be found. It’s really reaching epidemic proportions.
Let’s talk about those images and video of child porn. I know it’s hard to even imagine, it’s hard to talk about. How is that video and those pictures even accessible to people?
Well, they’re not hard to find. We find out with many people that they become truly sex addicts and so, it’s taking a higher and higher amount of product of material to sexually stimulate them. So, people who arguably would have never crossed the line in this regard. We find now that because they’re online looking at pornography and they need more and more to get themselves stimulated. Then they cross the line and get intochild pornography and then they become somewhat obsessed with it. What we do find, though, is we’ve had many psychiatric reports done on people and that because some people are looking at child porn, does not mean that they’re going to go out and physically offend. Although, of course, we all know that the images are those children that are victims. In fact it perpetuates this sic industry by anybody downloading. But, as far as the actual people who are caught viewing it, we’re finding that many have a really never crossed the line beyond the viewing. Which is bad enough in itself, but it’s not necessarily a connection between acting out. We’re finding out many people are being arrested and there is a very intense investigation that goes on statewide and locally
But as far as those images in that video, we know law enforcement officers and authorities have a way of tracking these images and things like that online. But, then how do they actually move forward with finding these people and making that arrest?
Well we find there’s a lot of undercover sting operation going on. What happens is that law enforcement poses as a pornographer, where they pose as an underage person and then they commence chatting. Then information is shared back and forth. Also, there is a lot of, shareware, limeware and others are shared where people can go on. You know people might be more familiar sharing music content. Well here there is an under world, an underground aspect of shareware as it relates to child pornography. So they begin with those groups, often monitored by law enforcement. So I would tell anybody that if in fact the find themselves being interested in this, they need to get to a psychiatrist or therapist and fix this issue. It is a growing addiction issue because sooner or later they will get caught. The penalties are incredibly, so they are not necessarily inappropriately. You’re going to be forever, even if you escape with minimum amount of jail time, which is infrequent, usually it is a substantial amount of prison time. You’re forever going to be classified as a sex offender and that will carry on with you forever.
