Federal and state laws make it a crime to produce, possess, distribute, or sell pornographic materials that exploit or portray a minor. Increasingly, child pornography laws are being utilized to punish use of computer technology and the Internet to obtain, share, and distribute pornographic material involving children, including images and films. Under federal law (18 U.S.C. §2256), child pornography is defined…
Numerous states have undertaken a revision of their rape and sexual assault laws, creating a broad set of sexually related crimes. These crimes are frequently referred to collectively as sexual assault, criminal sexual conduct or sexual abuse. The chief characteristic of these laws is that they prohibit doing any kind of sexual act with an additional person against that person’s…
