Children Fighting Porn, A New Solution

As seen in lecture # 31, the government is doing a lot to try and combat child porn and child molesters. It seems to be a very hard job to try and track down child predators on the Internet. It seems that law enforcement would not be as successful as it is in fighting child porn on the Internet with out the help of the public. It is seen in the lecture that neighborhood watch groups such as CyberAngels and pedowatch.com are very efficient in helping law enforcement to catch these child molesters.

My opinion is that one very efficient way to fight child molestation and pedophilia over the Internet is to educate children on the subject. In school, kids take health class to educate them concerning sex, etc. This class is a very successful one, and I believe that a class at a young age concerning child predators would help educate kids on the dangers of these people, and help keep children away from these people. The class could also teach children how to identify child predators on the Internet and how to report these people to the right authorities.

One more way I think we could minimize child predators over the Internet is to slap perpetrators with very harsh sentences in order to discourage them from ever violating children again. Also, harsh jail sentences will make Internet predators think twice before committing the act in the first place. Though this won't stop all Internet child pedophilia, I think it will help a little bit! For example, in the "hotseattle" case, the perpetrator got no jail time at all. I think if there is a mandatory minimum sentence, as there is in some states for drug offenses, more perpetrators will get jail time, which will discourage them from ever doing this act again. The mandatory minimum sentence would definitely prove to be an effective tactic in combating Internet child pornography!

I think that molesting children is a worse crime than smoking Marijuana, but the sentence for an Internet predator is less than for someone caught with marijuana. Isn't this a little bit ass-backwards? We need to get our priorities straight!!