It's a disturbing trend that's become increasingly worse with some astounding numbers. 

In the first part of our two part series, we find out why suspects partake in this deviant act.

Chairman of psychiatry at Jersey Shore University Medical Center and Corporate Medical Director for Behavioral Health Services in Hackensack Meridian Health's southern region, Dr. Ramon Solhkhah says people who partake in this type of activity tend to have lower I-Q's and may be reliving a childhood trauma.

"These were often people who were abused sexually as children themselves or people who experienced inappropriate sexual imagery early on...kids who may be saw porn too early or things like that," Solkhah said. "It sort of changes their normal sexual impulses and drives so we typically see that sort of come out in puberty."

Other possible causes for this type of developmental behavior that could lead to a child porn obsession, he says, include, "some sort of neuro-developmental delay that occurs early on in life...things like fetal alcohol syndrome in infants might be linked to some of these sorts of behaviors."

There's also a subset of people, Solkhah explains, who may have anti-social personality disorder or being a sociopath.

As a result of any childhood trauma these kind of people may have suffered as youths, some have gone on to darker things.

"Their brains are functionally processing information in a different way so it often times clouds the judgement and can create a situation where they're not always able to control those impulses...not that that excuses the behavior by any means," Solkhah said.

On the law enforcement side of things as authorities continue to crackdown on these crimes, there are ways of going about it and stiffer penalties that await anyone addicted to this disturbing habit.

To this point there have been 537-investigations over the past five-years in Monmouth County into computer crimes and Endangering the Welfare of a Child, according to numbers provided to WOBM News by Monmouth County Prosecutors Office spokesman Chris Swendeman.

The amount of child porn related arrests in Ocean County in the last four years has increased according to numbers provided to WOBM News by Ocean County Prosecutors Office spokesman Al Della Fave.

In 2014 there were 9-arrests, 2015 there were 8-arrests, in 2016-there were 10 arrests and in 2017 there were 15-arrests.

Monmouth County Prosecutor Chris Gramiccioni says when they look into these matters, they're not just looking for one suspect, but the whole organization.

"If I get a lead on a case that derives out of Monmouth County and it might have statewide or inter-county implications, before we would go out and just make a simple arrest on one person we would naturally try to root out the conspiracy...all of those wrongdoers involved in a distribution network to the furthest extent we could," Gramiccioni said.

Ocean County Prosecutor Joe Coronato echoes a similar approach adding that they're constantly digging through online channels to find where on the web child porn authors are.

So keep your eyes peeled for more arrests.

"We've enhanced our technology and formed these viable partnerships, on the federal level, state level and on the county level and with local law enforcement and you're going to see our numbers (arrests) increase because we're looking for those predators...they are true predators out there," Coronato said.

He says investigators use their own cyber tools to dig much deeper than the surface web to find these sexual predators.

"There's the deep web and the dark web. What we're now able to do is infiltrate both the deep web and the dark web to be able to get these predators that are out there."

"That's not something that's normally done overnight," Coronato said. "If they (anyone who collects that much child porn) accumulate the amount of child porn, it's not done within several days, it's done over years."

Anthony White, 31, faces 6-years in prison when he's sentenced next week.

Law enforcement agencies are staying aggressive in finding and arresting these suspects.

Gramiccioni says the penalties have become stiffer for anyone who possess, create or distribute child porn.

He says many of the endangering statues in New Jersey were updated on February 1, 2018 which now bases things on volume.

"If you have more than 1,000 items of child pornography, then that exposes you to first-degree time which is ten-to-twenty years," Gramiccioni said. "If you have less than 1,000, it's five-to-ten years, a second degree crime."

Gramiccioni says the updated statutes also, "allows us to prosecute what is generally defined as child erotica where children are portrayed in a sexually suggestive manner."

Another updated penalty he says, "modified the expungement statute, so no convictions for any of these types of offenses could ever be expunged."

Another penalty that was updated earlier this year says that one child porn image is equal to one item but one video is equal to ten-items.

If a suspect has ten-videos, that means they really have 100-images in total.

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