It is often said that youth is beauty, but there are some instances in which admiring the beauty of youth isn't appropriate. One of those instances is when the youth being admired are under the age of majority. Federal and state laws make it illegal to partake in certain admiration techniques.
While there is nothing wrong with adults enjoying admiring other adults, it isn't appropriate for adults to admire children under the age of 18 in a sexual way. For this reason, there are a host of laws that are aimed at protecting children from certain situations.
Laws pertaining to the producing child pornography, distributing child pornography, possessing child pornography, selling or buying children and other activities are all on the books. While these laws have historically used for physical items like books, videos and pictures, the access to the Internet is starting to have an effect on that as the laws are being used more often for electronic child pornography.
With the increase of ease of access on the Internet, making sure that everything sexual that is viewed is legal can be difficult. In some cases, people who wouldn't normally look at child pornography might find themselves drawn to it through inappropriate advertisements. Even in those cases, the person viewing the images might find themselves facing the criminal justice system.
When you consider that child pornography charges can be a 15- to 20-year prison sentence, it is easy to see why having a solid defense is vital in these cases. It is important to start getting your case together as soon as possible.
Source: FindLaw, "Child Pornography" Oct. 04, 2014