This report is the result of a multi-year process in which the United States Sentencing Commission (“the Commission”) examined cases of offenders sentenced under the federal sentencing guidelines and corresponding penal statutes concerning child pornography offenses.
The primary focus of this report is USSG §2G2.2 (Trafficking in Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor; Receiving, Transporting, Shipping, Soliciting, or Advertising Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor; Possessing Material Involving the Sexual
Exploitation of a Minor with Intent to Traffic; Possessing Material Involving the Sexual Exploitation of a Minor), the current guideline for non-production offenses such as possession, receipt, transportation, and distribution of child pornography, the four primary offense types.
One chapter of this report also analyzes cases of offenders sentenced under the guideline for production of child pornography, USSG §2G2.1 (Sexually Exploiting a Minor by Production of Sexually Explicit Visual or Printed Material; Custodian Permitting Minor to Engage in Sexually
Explicit Conduct; Advertisement for Minors to Engage in Production). The purpose of this report is to contribute to the ongoing assessment by Congress and the various stakeholders in the federal criminal justice system regarding how federal child pornography offenders are
prosecuted, sentenced, incarcerated, and supervised following their reentry into the community.
This report complements and expands upon the Commission’s 2009 report, History of the Child Pornography Guidelines. The 2009 report chronicled the federal non-production child pornography guidelines (§2G2.2 and the former §2G2.4 (Possession of Materials Depicting a
Minor Engaged in Sexually Explicit Conduct)) from their inception through 2009. In particular, it tracked all substantive amendments made to those guidelines, several of which resulted from congressional directives to the Commission or other legislation. The most significant
amendments to the guidelines resulted from the PROTECT Act of 2003, which also created new statutory mandatory minimum statutory penalties for most child pornography offenses.