So the "fight against drugs" complete with the mandatory minimums that bloated the entire prisons system morphs into mandatory minimums for SO's / CP with a simple shift of focus? 'Upon receipt' also avoids questions about FBI running Porn Play pens and "shipping out" CP to "receivers." No mandatory minimum for distributers (even if they didn't actually pose and film the children?) virtual sex trafficking split into categories? Like manufacturing, distributing/ dealing and ....why aren't they following the $$$ trail here? Because the $$$ trail should lead to keeping the prison industrial complex solvent, not back to the actual cartels? The end user is the easiest and safest target for LE. Just shift the focus onto another profitable war on crime?

First time here, I have been reading the discussions for some time as I too have a loved one on the registry.
Some of the most disheartening stories are those of the children of registrants and the breakdown of families.

If the Brooklyn U.S. attorney’s office and the pretrial services office are so concerned for the children of those convicted of a sexual offense who have shown no offenses against their children, why do they not mandate a sex abuse prevention program for the family? Though I realize that the youngest of this family is two but this class done in the Netherlands shows great promise for those as young as four.

The case for starting sex education in kindergarten

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/updates/spring-fever/#.Vq550SwNL2c.facebook

This country would be better served to take some of the money used to prosecute and imprison some young kid with a few naughty pictures on his computer and use that money for programs to help prevent these offenses.

But you know how it is in America. Just as in the War on Drugs, when we foolishly tried to arrest our way out of the problem, we are doing the same thing with minor sex offenses, including CP and these borderline entrapment cases of solicitation over the internet.

The only thing the War on Drugs achieved was to put tens of thousands of low level offenders in prison, costing this nation trillions of dollars. These low level offenders' families were ruined, the prisons---both federal and state---became nothing but overstuffed warehouses and the drug problem remained. Drugs are as much a problem---or more---than they ever were.

We are making the same mistakes with the War on Child Pornography. Locking up a bunch of guys for just possessing a few pictures is doing nothing but filling up our federal prisons. This War on Child Porn has not made a dent in CP traffic. And the cost in dollars and the toll on the families is horrendous.

A person from another country might ask why we continue down the road to ruin with our ill-fated policies. One word---politics. When issues such as the War on Drugs or the War on CP are politicized, all common sense and critical thinking is lost.

If the hypocrisy of it all was not so tragic, it would be funny. We allow entertainers such as Miley Cyrus to strut on stage half naked or with her butt about to fall out of her britches, yet if someone looks at an image of a naked child, we have a conniption.

The ignorance in this country is amazing.

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Mingato: Thank you for providing a great link; "Everyone has the right to set their own limits and no one should ever cross those limits,” Hasselaar says...and later in the article, "We want everyone to know about the positive, fun side of CARING for someone."

I think that education in sexuality (Not American sex-ed which defines any and all sex as sinful and dangerous and teaches kids all of whom have "urges' that they (not the 'urges' but they themselves) have something sinful and dangerous inside, something that must be exorcised or else) but real education in sexuality as defined by this article, is also education in expressing empathy and caring not only for yourself but for "the person of your affection" a person in their own right with the right to say "No" and who shouldn't be forced or tricked into submitting to "Yes" A sexuality education that teaches no one should cross those/ someone else's limits

I have a small problem with dismissing all CP as simply looking/ not hands on and therefore NOT crossing the limits of the object/ the child in CP and since it's virtual it's therefor OK? Because the child "looked at" had no right to say "No" before during or after the "viewing.Because someone else crossed the limits 'first' and posed and photographed the child?
The other real problem here as I see it is that while some CP is sort of beguine because the child doesn't seem to be being obviously harmed (just posed and photographed and sold and 'distributed' (and their picture circulated forever and ever....(something guys with their faces on the Registry forever should appreciate as, at minimum, a real invasive...like stamping passports with a big red "S"?) but the other side of the CP 'story' is the filming of a child as the child is being systematically, and often sadistically debased -in some way. (penus- in-the -mouth, pee-in-the-mouth for example may not be a CP snuff film but it is the killing of a child's inner person and as such takes years for the grown-up child to survive.)
And whether you are a survivor of CP or "just" survived old fashioned 'hands-on' in-home incest day after day it seems to me that the adult (CP end-user included) is the taking advantage of their own power to leverage/force/trick/ watch/ cause a a child to be debased and that is what is wrong about CP (virtual- /hands-on / by-proxie) even if we prefer to categorize from the abusers standpoint. It is not "Well I only " when experienced by a child whose body is being invaded and filmed and....
The addition of Sadism ( the degree to which empathy is absent or lacking) adds to the degree of pleasure in debasing another and adds to the obsession.
The purpose of giving adults power over children is so their power can be used to protect the vulnerable and when that power is used to betray and debase, to invade, it is a self betrayal by the abuser as well as the betrayal of the child/ person who was denied the dignity/ the right to say "NO' (and having had our own houses and computers and persons 'invaded' by LE, all of us on Families of Sex offenders, all of us who have ever heard the knock on the door and experienced the chaos of "invasion" should know how that feels and empathize with a child whose boundaries have been invaded by power gone mad.)

Sex-ed that only spreads fear and talks about the dangers of STD's and hell-fire and sin does nothing to help children understand the 'butterflies' in their stomach and make empathetic decisions about love, caring and growing up to protect the most vulnerable among us. (including the young kids sexting, and the mere 'watchers' of CP). Warehousing/ imprisoning/ shaming and blaming and brutalizing people who most need a chance to understand what they did, to grow their own empathy and caring, to understand their sexuality, and free themselves from looking/ harming others, such sex-ed with draconian punishment and self-hatred, only makes people more defensive about the "OK-ness" of what they did. (Well I only watched...the FBI is committing crimes too) American Justice revels in body count (low level drug users / a few CP pictures/ # of convictions ) just keeps a corrupt system going.
What we all need is not only education is sexuality but we need restorative justice. In this society as presently constructed 'sex offender'/ 'rape' /pedophile' /CP/ child molester are words simply used to crush lives and hurt children, families and communities and to worsen already painful situations on "both sides'
Discussion of "sex-crime and punishment" ceases to be useful for talking about transformation and healing and restoration of empathy and the ability to love on another, or the goal of "Do unto others as you would be done unto."

The viewing of porn leads to cp as well as other things. If people deep down inside themselves find out what is "lacking" emotionally maybe things will change. If people would treat and protect children as the precious beings they are, again things would change.

Isn't that why 2 years old's say "No!" all the time. They are trying to form boundaries between themselves and the undifferentiated stew of acquiescence they were born into. Yes means nothing without the power to say "No!" The danger is that some adults who should be helping them to form strong boundaries and healthy personalities, are invading those boundaries, sexually invading them as persons in their own right, leaving them without the power of Yes or NO. I think some people look at CP to see, second hand, what happened to
them in childhood. Others physically re-enact the power to invade, hoping to possess the power to say "Yes" in spite of someone else's "No." How can anyone feel enough compassion/ empathy for someone else? If they don't feel like person's their own right, how can they sympathize/ empathize, reach out to someone else? Find strength to deny themselves in favor of NOT harming another?
Just as women, brought up to be "self-less" have learn to stop saying "Yes" when "No" is necessary for their own survival.
If we value ourselves, feel secure in our own power to say both "Yes" and "NO" then maybe do we respect and value others enough not to invade their personal space? Maybe we respect and even encourage the child who says "No!" ?