News From

State Representative Ron Stephens

For Immediate Release: March 25, 2008

Contact: Rep. Stephens

618-651-0405

Stephens sponsors bills designed to make Internet safer for children

SPRINGFIELD…. Representative Ron Stephens (R-Highland) recently sponsored a group of bills designed to make the Internet safer for children and increase the mandated punishments issued to individuals convicted of child pornography charges.

“These five bills will all play an important role in safeguarding our children from online predators, and give law enforcement personnel the ability to hand down harsher punishments to those who would prey on kids,” Rep. Stephens said.

House Bill 4874 and 4875 both deal with social networking websites, such as MySpace and Facebook.

HB 4874 requires the owners of social networking sites to obtain parental notification and age verification of minors. The bill would require that an owner of a social networking website must maintain a database containing the written permission of the parent or guardian of each minor who is allowed access to the website, and provide each parent or guardian unlimited access to the webpage profile of the minor. All children 17 and under would be required to have parental approval.

HB 4875 works to ban sex offenders from social networking sites. The bill states it will become a Class 4 felony for a person required to register as a sex offender under the Sex Offender Registration Act to access a social networking website during the period for which they are on parole, probation, mandatory supervised release, conditional discharge or supervision.

“Children use these websites more and more as a means of interacting with each other,” Stephens said. “We have to keep the people who would work to harm our children off of these sites, while at the same time bring parents into the equation as well. Children can only be preyed upon when only the ill-intentioned take notice of their activities.”

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The other three bills that Stephens has sponsored, would increase the penalties for people convicted of child pornography charges.

HB 4877 enhances the penalties for possessing child porn films and videos, making owning them a felony one class higher than they currently are. The current law allows a range of possible repercussions from a Class 1 to Class 3 felony. HB 4877 increases that range to a Class X to Class 2 felony range. Along with that, HB 4879 makes the filming of a rape of a child, or the possession of a film or still photograph depicting the act, an automatic enhanced Class X felony, which carries a mandatory sentence of nine to 40 years.

Finally, HB 4578 would require anyone performing repairs on a computer or other electronic device to report any child pornography appearing on the equipment they are servicing to law enforcement personnel.

“The ultimate goal is to make sure that nothing evil can happen to our children,” Stephens said. “But I also want to make sure that if someone is caught relishing in the lost innocence of a child, that they are punished to the fullest extent of the law.”

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