Possession of child pornography needs to be madea felony in Maryland, police and advocates trying to stop child sexual abuse told a state Senate committee late Wednesday.
Maryland is one of six states where possessing child pornography is a misdemeanor, said Sen. Nancy Jacobs, R-Harford, sponsor of the bill, which would make it a felony and double the penalties for those convicted.
“It a serious crime that deserves a serious punishment,” said Stacie Rumenap, executive director of Stop Child Predators. “Users of child pornography act on what they see.”
The National Juvenile Online Victimization Study found that 55 percent of those viewing depictions of sexual acts with children had committed crimes against children. Other studies place the number even higher, said Detective Rick Lyne of the Harford County Sheriff?s Department.
Sex abuse of children and child pornography “go hand and hand,” Lyne said. Those who are “abusing kids are going to be possessing child pornography.”
Police and advocates point out that someone who produces a photo or video of someone under 16 engaging in sexual acts has already committed a crime.
“It?s somebody?s child in that image,” Lyne said. “It victimizes that child over and over again.”
One reason for increasing the severity of the crime is that the felony offense would have no statute of limitations, Lyne said. A misdemeanor must be discovered within a year and a day to be prosecuted.
Some recent examples of child pornography depict children as young as 3 or 4 “having sex with grown men,” said Detective Adam Streight of the Cecil County Sheriff?s Office, and “their cries and whimpering are sometimes heard.”
“To a pedophile, these sights and sounds are a powerful aphrodisiac that only increases their desire for more graphic and hard-core images and they are prepared to pay any price to get them,” Streight said. Suppliers are happy to keep production rollingin what is estimated to be a $3 billion industry.
“If we could discourage a significant portion” of the possession, Streight said, “the supply would not be as much.”
“The child victims we are seeing are becoming younger and younger,” said Carolyn Atwell-Davis of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. “Offenders often need images of increasingly younger children in order to achieve sexual gratification.”
No one testified against the bill.
