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In the United States of America, child pornography is described in the law as a form of sexual abuse and exploitation in which the depiction of children engaging in sexually explicit conducts poses a serious threat to the physical and mental health, safety and well being of children. Real images (as opposed to computer generated images and drawings) of child pornography are seen as a permanent record of the victim's abuse, and its creation and distribution is considered a serious crime in the United States Federal Code. The possibility of such use for grooming purposes is often used as a justification for the criminalization of possession of child pornography as well as for the criminalization of the creation, execution, distribution and possession of computer generated pseudo-photographs. In fact, there has been a great deal of public attention to child pornography offenders in recent years, particularly with the emergence of the Internet and pornographic content that it has made available. A particularly salient question is whether child pornography offenders are likely to commit a sexual offense involving contact with a child. This paper describes the legislative development in the United States and most important current literature on what is known about the risk of individuals using the Internet to commit felonies of sexual abuse or sexual contact with minors. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]