Child Porn Dominates Military Court Cases
You wouldn’t think child pornography would be a big problem in the military–or would you? But there’s more to the story.
There are a number of factors involved in that raw two-thirds statistic. First, a dominant demographic for both military personnel and child porn consumers is 18- to 45-year-old men. (For those thinking, “What about an 18 year old sexting his 15 year old girlfriend?” be aware that military prosecutorial discretion falls to one’s commanding officer, so it is less likely for cases to represent prosecutorial overreach.)
Second, unlike civilians who must consider lawyer fees, there is no financial barrier to appeal for military members since they are represented by judge advocates. But most compellingly: there are many questions that are still unsettled by courts and legislators regarding what should be criminalized, and surrounding the search and seizure of computer or Internet material. This contributes strongly to the likelihood that there is grounds to bring appeal.
Unlike civilian child pornography law, military law does not require that the prosecution identify a real child victim. In the military, illegality of child pornography hinges on the good order and discipline of the military rather than victim-based harm, so there is no need to identify a victim before concluding that harm has occurred. This alternate conception provides an interesting foil to think about First Amendment concerns: in civilian law, the Supreme Court has held that to criminalize anything less than an image of a known child victim (whose identity can be verified), would not survive a balancing of the strong free speech interest.
