During April and May of 2016, the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force launched “Operation Broken Heart III,” with the mission of cracking down on child sex predators, as reported by ABC News. As a result of the work of this national task force, police arrested 238 people in the Los Angeles area during a two-month sting operation.
On a national level, the national crackdown on internet sex predators resulted in 1,368 arrests, just during the months of April and May, an LAPD spokesperson told ABC News. “The perpetrators in these cases include entertainers, community leaders, white collar professionals and even members of the clergy,” said a member of Homeland Security.
Here at Fight the New Drug, one of our missions is to shine a light on the unpleasant fact that child pornography has become more prevalent in our society than we would ever like to imagine. And the people who actually get caught for the crime, like in the recent LA arrests, are just the tip of the iceberg. Child pornography is a business that has been expanding virally on the web for years and the material is only getting worse. In 2008, the Internet Watch Foundation found 1,536 individual child abuse domains. Every week there are over 20,000 images of child pornography posted on the web (National Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 2003). Furthermore, U.S Customs Services estimates that illegal child pornography is offered by approximately 100,000 websites.
Related: Australia Calls For Ban of Disturbing Japanese Child Sex Dolls
Just like “regular” pornography but even worse, child pornography is not only illegal but it desensitizes and blurs the lines for the viewer to what is and is not appropriate concerning sexuality. Studies show that a child porn viewer who constantly sees certain behaviors eventually becomes accepting of it. There is no room for any sort of child pornography or sexual abuse in our society.
To report an incident involving the possession, distribution, receipt, or production of child pornography, file a report on the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)’s website at www.cybertipline.com , or call 1-800-843-5678.
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Most kids today are exposed to porn by the age of 12. By the time they’re teenagers, 75% of boys and 70% of girls have already viewed itRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy —often before they’ve had a single healthy conversation about it.
Even more concerning: over half of boys and nearly 40% of girls believe porn is a realistic depiction of sexMartellozzo, E., Monaghan, A., Adler, J. R., Davidson, J., Leyva, R., & Horvath, M. A. H. (2016). “I wasn’t sure it was normal to watch it”: A quantitative and qualitative examination of the impact of online pornography on the values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours of children and young people. Middlesex University, NSPCC, & Office of the Children’s Commissioner.Copy . And among teens who have seen porn, more than 79% of teens use it to learn how to have sexRobb, M.B., & Mann, S. (2023). Teens and pornography. San Francisco, CA: Common Sense.Copy . That means millions of young people are getting sex ed from violent, degrading content, which becomes their baseline understanding of intimacy. Out of the most popular porn, 33%-88% of videos contain physical aggression and nonconsensual violence-related themesFritz, N., Malic, V., Paul, B., & Zhou, Y. (2020). A descriptive analysis of the types, targets, and relative frequency of aggression in mainstream pornography. Archives of Sexual Behavior, 49(8), 3041-3053. doi:10.1007/s10508-020-01773-0Copy Bridges et al., 2010, “Aggression and Sexual Behavior in Best-Selling Pornography Videos: A Content Analysis,” Violence Against Women.Copy .
From increasing rates of loneliness, depression, and self-doubt, to distorted views of sex, reduced relationship satisfaction, and riskier sexual behavior among teens, porn is impacting individuals, relationships, and society worldwideFight the New Drug. (2024, May). Get the Facts (Series of web articles). Fight the New Drug.Copy .
This is why Fight the New Drug exists—but we can’t do it without you.
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