[skippy the wonder dog]

The thing about the Internet is, cops say it actually makes these freaks easier to catch. It's so much easier to find them online and set up stings.

On the other hand, it also makes child porn much more available than it otherwise would be.

As a result you have more people to catch, i.e. the number of pedophiles committing offences has probably gone up, or to put it another way, the total number of offences being committed by pedophiles will have risen. So the total load on police resources goes up -- and apparently there's a serious burnout problem with the cops who have to deal with this stuff day to day.

Then you have the question of the effect. There's a good body of research on how porn affects perception and behaviour. I don't think it's far-fetched to suggest that wider availability of child porn makes latent pedophiles into active pedophiles.

And that's my daily dose of thinking about things I'd rather not think about....