Across the United States, more and more prosecutors are seeking the maximum sentencing on child pornography charges—now called child sexual abuse material in Pennsylvania.

One lawmaker wants to strengthen what defendants can be charged with for the material in these cases.

Currently in Pennsylvania, someone can be charged with creating, distributing, or possessing child sexual abuse material—then get longer sentences based on things like how many images they have or if there’s violence in the content.

There is currently no sentencing enhancement for incest in this material.

“The more we talk to our prosecutors, the more we talk to victims and we hear from them what's going on. And we know what's happening in the digital space, the more we have to be active,” said Rep. Clint Owlett, a Republican from Tioga county.

Owlett has introduced House Bill 1835, which would require Pennsylvania’s sentencing commission to come up with an enhancement for “if the child depicted was… a relative of the defendant.”

Korrin Moon, an attorney who gives global advising on how to prosecute human trafficking, says the language of the law is vague enough to cover many scenarios.

“Most victims of human trafficking and child sexual abuse material here in the United States know their abuser. Whether its the family relationship, someone in the community, sometime of friendship— they generally know their abuser,” Moon said.

“The reason its easier for abusers to know their victims, is that there’s no missing child report,” Moon said. “When the kids are at home, no one is looking for them. No one is identifying them as a victim."

Creating a harsher sentence for incest recognizes the perilous situations that children are in, when the family they depend on for their care are also the ones abusing them.

Additionally, Moon hopes the harsher sentence would apply to people who depict incest in the material, even if the defendant is not themselves related to the child.

“So even if they're just holding themselves out… like we've seen snapchat videos of [child sexual abuse material] where the little caption bar across the bottom, they'll put 'this is my daughter’, 'this is my-' whatever relationship they show.”

Moon wants to also apply the sentencing enhancement to those who view incest material—saying they feed the supply and demand cycles.

“When people are seeking out those images, someone is going to create them to satisfy that. Which means that a child was harmed in the making of these images,” Moon said.

At large, circulating material that depicts incest leads to normalizing it in circles— and can lead to more harm either from material creators or consumers who go on to abuse children in their life.

Moon says sentencing enhancements are not overly effective as crime deterrents.

“A lot of the sentencing enhancements that we have, most criminals don't know about them,” she said.

But, she says that when the crimes are reported in the news, or read on court documents—it shows the public, and most importantly the victims, what standards Pennsylvania holds for its citizens.

"If you have that access, and the legislature has sat down and said these victims deserve this extra added layer of justice, that's what they deserve,” Moon said. “And that's what we should seek out for them. It's the bare minimum we can do.”