Feeding a Desire That Only Gets Worse

It seems common sense to me that child pornography is linked to child molesting.

A startling high percentage -85%- of men who download explicit sexual images of children go on to molest them according to a recent in-depth survey by the Federal Bureau of Prisons, as reported in the New York Times.

The study has yet to be published because of the vehement debate that's sprung up about how the findings should be presented or interpreted.

Debate on Child Pornography's Link to Child Molesting

Its findings have circulated privately among experts, who say they could have enormous implications for public safety and law enforcement.

Ernie Allen, who leads the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which is mandated to coordinate the nation’s efforts to combat child pornography, said he was surprised that the full study had not been released. “This is the kind of research the public needs to know about,” Mr. Allen said. Others agreed that the report should be published but were more cautious about the findings. “The results could have tremendous implications for community safety and for individual liberties,” said Dr. Fred Berlin, founder of the Johns Hopkins Sexual Disorders Clinic. “If people we thought were not dangerous are more so, then we need to know that and we should treat them that way. But if we’re wrong, then their liberties aren’t going to be fairly addressed.”

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Everyone agrees that researchers need to learn more about online consumers of illegal child images. The volume of material seized from computers appears to be doubling each year — the National Center collected more than eight million images of explicit child pornography in the last five years — and Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales made child protection a national priority in 2006.

Previous studies estimated that 30-40% of men arrested for possessing child pornography had molested children.  Those arrested for possessing child pornography get lighter sentences than those who actually molest children which seems just to me.