by Anne Collier
NetFamilyNews

It’s very difficult to determine how much criminal intent a minor has in cases of possession of child pornography, the Bangor (Me.) Daily News reports. Bangor police confiscated a 15-year-old boy’s home computer on Dec. 20 after finding it contained child porn. They said they collected enough computer evidence to charge him with “felony possession of sexually explicit materials.” Apparently, his possession of the images was reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children’s CyberTipline.com, which is how Bangor police learned of case. As of this report, it’s not known if the boy will be prosecuted. A lot of cases like this don’t get prosecuted for reasons of “lack of criminal intent,” according to a police officer on Maine’s Computer Crimes Task Force policy board. Cases like this that are most likely to be prosecuted are those in which the subject has disseminated the child-porn images, he said. The Daily News also reported that,” on average, police officers in Maine seize a computer every two days.”