Will the Federal Government mandate the punishment for online child enticement of minors or will each state maintain their own statutes? Congress is busy trying to pass federal legislation but it is left up to each state’s discretion.
The NCMEC has acknowledged, Punishment Of Internet Predators varies greatly by state
While online sexual enticement of minors “… can be a felony in all states, ten states (California, Georgia, Hawaii, Michigan, North Dakota, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Utah and Washington) have statutes that specifically categorize this offense as a “misdemeanor” in some instances.
Five states (Idaho, Maine, Massachusetts, Montana, and Vermont) do not use the terms “felony” or “misdemeanor” in their statutes, but the statute grants the judge discretion to sentence the offender to the equivalent of a misdemeanor penalty (less than a year in prison).
Nineteen states classify online enticement as a felony, but grant judges statutory discretion to sentence offenders to less than a year in prison.
Eleven of these states (Delaware, Florida, Illinois, Iowa, Maryland, Minnesota, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Wisconsin, and Wyoming) classify this offense as a felony and the sentencing statute mandates “no more than X years” in prison. We assume that in some situations the judge might sentence the offender to less than 1 year in prison, thereby falling within our definition of a misdemeanor penalty…”
How will it be enforced? You have already seen how state registries for sexual offenders has resulted in excess of 100,000 offenders remaining unregistered.
An Ounce of Prevention 