Child porn cases soar due to smartphones, police say

Child porn cases soar due to peodophiles not smartphones I'd say !

Would be nice if they blamed the source instead of blaming a tool. If we returned to the feather and ink would the people who commit these crimes be reduced? DO YOUR JOB!

Yes, that's like saying murders are up do to guns.

@SmithinJapan&StormR

I think you got the wrong end of the stick from my post. My point wasn't "OMG, Cellphones are like all evil and stuff".

My point was that the law was idiotic. It makes no allowances for kids to be kids. If there weren't cameras on cellphones they'd be doing other stuff.

Not to mention that the current laws also make no allowances for parents snapping photos of their kids. I was at the local children's center a few weeks ago with my kids. Being summer there were dozens of kids swimming in the fountain, and most of them did not have swimming costumes. Parents were snapping pictures or taking video of their kids (and probably getting other kids in the background). Does that make these parents all pedos? No.

The problem isn't "pedophiles", the problem is a law so badly written that I'm pretty sure that a sufficiently close examination of ANYONE'S computer, cellphones, etc. would turn up something that would justify your arrest and conviction (even if its just a pop-up advertisement stored in your system cache).

Child porn isn't black and white in Japan. There seems to be this LARGE grey area where we may have child porn manga no problem, for sale as tankobans at manga shops. Then you have maid cafes. Young high school girls who's job is to 'please' the customer by making him feel like god. Then ALSO you have those peep show girls who dress as though they are 14. Does anyone else see why people think the line is obscured?

Eiji: "Possessing child porn wasn't even illegal until recently."

As far as I know, possessing it still isn't illegal. Nor is maintaining a kiddy-porn site. Only uploading it is.

"Maybe they're talking about high schoolers sending nude photos or something like that."

Nah, they'd never go after that kind of thing, especially given the number of articles about police taking up-the-skirt photos of late. The police need to shut down all kiddy-porn sites now, and push for a ban on soaplands and what not that advertise that the women will wear costumes of 11-year old school girls.

Hey let's remember that this is japan where it is acceptable for GROWN men to GAWK at pre-teenyboppers and even grown women dressed up in Lolita costumes!! I sadly don't think japan will ever get tough on child porn especially with the mindset of many japanese males,I was disappointed when i found out that some prefectures have laws making it legal for 13 yo girls to get married.....................

Would be nice if they blamed the source instead of blaming a tool.

They didn't "blame a tool"...they merely said in 27% of these cases, a smartphone was used. Only the headline made the inference that the rise in cases was "due to" smartphones.

DO YOUR JOB!

I guess seeing as they investigated a record number of 763 cases in 6 months, they are doing their job.

As far as I know, possessing it still isn't illegal. Nor is maintaining a kiddy-porn site.

You don't know too much then, do you?

What's interesting is that despite 'sma-fo' (smart phone) entering the vernacular here most people don't actually know what it means. They think, for example, iPhones and smart phones are separate things, as though 'smart phone' were the name of a commercial product instead of a type of phone.

CrazyJoe: "Feel sorry for the cops who have to see these pictures. It's obscene."

Indeed. It's beyond obscene, really. Of course, given that they don't shut down porn sites and just chase people who upload to said sites, is it really a surprise? The police here could EASILY get the ISDN numbers of people who have kiddy porn sites and shut them down, but they don't. So now it's the fault of smart phones.

Frungy: "Is it good? No. But give a teenager a cellphone with a camera and within a couple of months it'll happen."

So what are you going to do? protest the new iPhone coming out next week? How would that eliminate the problem? Enjou kousai (how many nations have that in their dictionary, by the way?) has been around long before smart phones; it's only 'due to smart phones' that the problem is becoming more transparent. Before smart phones it was all blamed on the internet. And what tools, pres tel, would the police use to track down the people who upload kiddy-porn, if the bothered?

StormR: "The cops should get smart and use their smart phones to collar the kiddie porn peddlars."

Can't believe I agree with you, but then 'smart' just means slim and attractive here -- has nothing to do with actual intelligence.

Feel sorry for the cops who have to see these pictures. It's obscene.

This brings up a good point... I'm sure there are more than a few pedophile japanese cops.

Richard bHardSep. 15, 2013 - 07:41PM JST Hey let's remember that this is japan where it is acceptable for GROWN men to GAWK at pre-teenyboppers and even grown women dressed up in Lolita costumes!! I sadly don't think japan will ever get tough on child porn especially with the mindset of many japanese males,I was disappointed when i found out that some prefectures have laws making it legal for 13 yo girls to get married.....................

Woah, woah, rein in that high horse for a second. In some places in the U.S. the age of consent is as young as 14, although mostly it is 16 (but NOT the 18 years of age that most people think it is). Technically there's no lower limit on the age of marriage in some states in the U.S., and the only safeguard is that you normally need a judge's permission below the age of 16. New Hampshire law explicitly states that (with parental and judicial approval) as young as 13 is okay.

I'm not having a go at the U.S. specifically, Europe is just as bad, and in many cases worse. In several places in Europe it is 14, although most settle on 16. In fact the global consensus seems to be that 16 is a reasonable age for informed sexual consent, I really don't know where the "magic number" of 18 came from for child porn.

The youngest victims were six pre-school children,

absolutely sickening.

too many sick people in the world.

Feel sorry for the cops who have to see these pictures. It's obscene.

Possessing child porn wasn't even illegal until recently.

Maybe they're talking about high schoolers sending nude photos or something like that.

Yeah lets ban the iphone to stop child porn WTF.

The cops should get smart and use their smart phones to collar the kiddie porn peddlars.

Kiddie porn is what Japan likes it has just become obvious? The smart phone made it obvious so the police will suddenly crack down but love looking at the pictures. I do not know what it is with Japanese men that love sex with Children, but we will not have that sex but just infatuate about it. Japanese men need to grow up and recognize that the wife they have was once the girl they met. This is insanity in it's simplest form. Wake up and actually protect your children parents.

What a bunch of perverts! I respect Japan, but then, they talk about foreigners!

Just wait until the Google Glasses become available to the public. I can imagine a bigger increase in cases when that happens.

thats gross...japan has a lot of weirdos

Jessica Marie SatoSep. 15, 2013 - 07:21PM JST Having manga with drawn pictures of girls categorized as child porn is a ridiculous law anyway. Following that logic owning Rambo 4 on dvd would be possession of snuff imagery, a Breaking Bad dvd box would be conspiration to manufacture drugs and playing Command & Conquer would be genocide and use of chemical weapons.

I also think you are mixing up maid cafes with hostess clubs (which generally don't allow under 18 employees), if you've ever been to a maid cafe you'd know it's the most embarassing 20min you can go through while eating overpriced curry. There is very little sexualisation in that specific concept.

And as if Western adult entertainment does not exploit young looking adult women? I could mention trademarks like Club 17, Barely Legal, and so on, all trying to give the impression of displaying young girls without breaking a random US law requiring models "not to attempt to look younger than 18".

Actually smartphones make it easier to engage in this type of behaviour, so they do play a part. murders do go up because of guns. smartphiones are not all sunshine and lollipops

Zero tolerance penalties are the only way for these maggots!

"Child porn refers to children under the age of 18."

There's two kinds of child porn.

Under age child porn.

Under puberty child porn.

It's a thin blue line.

StormRSep. 15, 2013 - 03:57PM JST Child porn cases soar due to peodophiles not smartphones I'd say !

... umm, not really. You see when a 17 year old girl sends a naked picture of herself to her 17 year old boyfriend he's guilty of possession of child porn, she's guilty of making and distributing child porn.

Ridiculous isn't it? Surely no-one in their right mind would be chasing down and arresting children for sending naughty pictures of themselves to each other? I mean its not child porn to them. ... but sadly the law makes no distinction, so you have 15 or 16 year olds being arrested for this sort of nonsense.

Is it good? No. But give a teenager a cellphone with a camera and within a couple of months it'll happen.

So, yes, in a lot of cases it is all about cellphones, and not about pedophiles. The world has gone so mad about pedophiles that (reasonably) innocent kids are getting arrested instead. Its ironic, like a vegetarian killing animals to save them from being eaten.

If only it were legal to tinker with their brains! We could reform all of them... just by turning off a few Chromosomes.

So yesterday's iPhone release upsetted police because there may be a higher amount of child porn lookers?

The NPA said the figure is the highest for a six-month period since it began keeping records in 2000, Sankei Shimbun reported. Child porn refers to children under the age of 18.

I would like to know how the NPA is dealing with this alarming trends against innocent Japanese children. Japan needs to get tough against these criminals like FBI. FBI and local law enforcement are not fooling around with it, period. Hope the NPA know that the smartphone evidence is good enough to issue the arrest warrant. Good luck, Japan.