[Lawtonfogle]

I don't buy it for a second. Instead, I think that those who use but don't physically touch an actual child are so unlikely to get caught, the numbers are horribly biased.

To give some example numbers, say that 5% of those who view the material ever directly harm a child. And say that 100% of those who harm a child view the material. Now, say that 50% of those who harm a child get busted, but only 1% of those who don't get busted for viewing the material. The end result would be that of those caught about 5 of every 7 who viewed material harmed a child directly.

Now, the numbers are made up, but there are many values that lead to a false conclusion if people only look at those caught.

[openasocket]

Those surveys were of people convicted of possession of CP only.

[adrianratnapala]

Yes but how do those convictions happen? If it comes from an interweb honeytrap, then it will give somewhat unbiased data. But I suspect a lot of people caught for possession are people at the fringes of a abuse case where the cops couldn't prove this individual actually abused someone, but could get them on the lesser crime.

[Lawtonfogle]

And how many charged with child molestation will have the police raid their homes and check their computers? How many will end up only being charged with child porn to spare the actual child the trauma of going through a case and how many times is there not enough evidence to convict for child molestation but there is plenty to convict for child porn?

[openasocket]

Admittedly, I don't have the study on me, so I can't confirm this. But I imagine the study would screen out anyone like that, that seems like a pretty obvious thing to do.