Counter Pedophilia Investigate Unit

LT. CMDR.: Founded nonprofit camp to treat sexually abused boys.

By JAMES HALPIN
jhalpin@adn.com

An Anchorage social worker who works with children on Elmendorf Air Force Base has been arrested on a charge of possessing child pornography after police say they found in his home thousands of graphic images of child abuse.

Lt. Cmdr. Andrew William Young of the U.S. Public Health Service Commissioned Corps is charged in federal court with possessing images depicting children as young as 5 or 6 years old being molested and abused, Anchorage police said Friday. Police searching the home collected the largest amount of physical evidence of any single child porn case to date, police Lt. Dave Parker said.

Young, 46, is a licensed clinical therapist who specializes in treating children, police said. According to Young’s resume, he has been a senior officer at child and adolescent services for the 3rd Medical Group on Elmendorf since 2008. His job includes managing clinical services for children of active-duty personnel from Elmendorf, Fort Richardson and Kodiak Coast Guard station, his resume says. He supervises staff treating children at the mental health clinic and consults with the chief of pediatrics along with school officials, according to his resume.

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Unámonos en contra de la pornografïa infantil. Un movimiento mundial es la clave para combatir este mal!!

“Turismo sexual infantil, Vendiendo inocencia, Protejamos los niños, ellos son el futuro”

CARTOON: Move to criminalize anime, however, worries some free speech advocates.

By MEGAN HOLLAND
mholland@adn.com

A state prosecutor who handles child pornography cases wants sexually explicit drawings of children — even computer-generated cartoons — to be as illegal as photographs of actual abuse.

The idea is supported by the chair of the House Judiciary Committee and others in the State Legislature.

Laws criminalizing possession of sexually explicit photographs of children have long been an exception to the First Amendment, which protects Americans’ right to think and read whatever they want. Supporters of the existing laws successfully argued that children are hurt in order to produce the photographs.

That argument does not apply to drawings, particularly not to computer-generated cartoons, and the move to extend the law to include them threatens to pit free speech advocates against child protection advocates.

“The fight needs to happen,” said Aaron Sperbeck, the crimes-against-children prosecutor in the Anchorage District Attorney’s Office who is behind the idea. “(The images) are almost as graphic and disturbing as real children. We need to get the conversation going.”

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Officials say images of younger children becoming more pervasive

BARTOW, Fla. – When a single Florida county arrested 45 men and boys from all walks of life last June on charges of downloading child pornography, some people worried the place had become a haven for deviants.

But top law enforcement officials and child welfare experts say the only thing unusual about Polk County is that its sheriff, Grady Judd, happens to pursue child-porn enthusiasts with more fervor and resources than most.

Child porn has grown so pervasive on the Internet, they say, that police agencies all over the country, using the latest file-tracking technology, could easily spend every day finding and arresting offenders

 “Today, it’s truly like shooting fish in a barrel,” said Judd, who has directed four child pornography roundups since 2006, resulting in at least 176 arrests in Polk County, a patchwork of orange groves, phosphate mines, modest towns and a half-million people between Tampa and Orlando. The biggest city is Lakeland, population 90,000.

Mike Phillips, chief of the computer crimes section at the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, said Polk’s sheer number of child pornography arrests in recent years is almost unheard of nationally for a single agency.

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