NCJ Number
214405
Journal
Judicial Officers' Bulletin Volume: 18 Issue: 4 Dated: May 2006 Pages: 25-28
Date Published
May 2006
Length
4 pages
Annotation
This article examines legislative responses to online child pornography in New South Wales (Australia) and considers the issues judges will face in sentencing those convicted of related offenses.
Abstract
The author advises that as digital technologies advance, simple measures of the quantity of images may become less significant in measuring offense severity. This will require case-by-case consideration of the level of engagement of each offender with the images possessed. New South Wales legislation that became active on March 1, 2005, criminalizes the use of a telecommunications carriage service to access, transmit, cause to be transmitted, make available, or distribute child pornography, or to possess or produce child pornography with the intention of committing such an offense using a carriage service. There are similar offenses in relation to material that depicts the physical abuse of children. The maximum penalty is 10 years imprisonment. New offenses of grooming children for sexual purposes were also enacted. The child pornography legislation defines a child as a person who is or is depicted as being under 18 years old. For grooming offenses, the age is 16 years. The nature and number of images involved in an offense constitute aggravating factors that increase a sentence for the possession of child pornography. Issues in sentencing offenders under child pornography laws pertain to factors in the offense that pertain to the severity of the sentence imposed. Some of the factors discussed in this article that should be considered in determining sentence severity are the proximity of the offender to the child abuse depicted in the images possessed/disseminated, whether the offending was premeditated or opportunistic, and whether the child pornography was a prelude to or a stimulus for a contact sexual offense against a child. 1 table and 31 notes