Today I will introduce legislation that will help victims of one of the most vicious crimes and one of the most evil crimes in our society: child pornography.

When Congress enacted the Violence Against Women Act more than 20 years ago—and I had a lot to do with that, and then-Senator Biden deserves an awful lot of the credit for that—the law required that the defendant in a child sexual exploitation case must pay restitution "for the full amount of the victim's losses." Those losses can include lost income as well as expenses for medical services, therapy, rehabilitation, transportation, and childcare.

The restitution statute works in a straightforward way for crimes that involve individual defendants who cause specific harm to particular victims. But child pornography is different. Victims not only suffer from the initial abuse, but they continue to suffer as images of that abuse are created, distributed, and possessed. As the Supreme Court recently put it, "Every viewing of child pornography is a repetition of the victim's abuse."

In the Internet age, a child pornography victim's abuse never ends, but identifying everyone who contributes to that ongoing abuse can be difficult, if not impossible. A predator who commits and records the abuse might be readily identified. Those who distribute those images, however, are harder to find, and many who obtain and possess them might never be identified at all. They may get lost in the crowd. They may seek safety in shadows. But the harm they cause to victims is no less devastating.

Our challenge is to craft a restitution statute suited for this unique kind of crime. We are meeting that challenge today by introducing the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act. Amy and Vicky are victims in two of the most widely distributed child pornography series in the world. They know how difficult it is to seek restitution for ongoing harm caused by unknown people.

U.S. Senators Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), a current member and former Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, and Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), current member of the Judiciary Committee, will introduce today the Amy and Vicky Child Pornography Victim Restitution Improvement Act to create an effective, balanced restitution process for victims of child pornography that also responds to the Supreme Court’s decision in Paroline v. United States.

Hatch and Schumer both signed onto a friend of the court brief in the Paroline case.  “Amy” and “Vicky” are the victims in two of the most widely-distributed child pornography series in the world.

The Amy and Vicky Act does three things that reflect the nature of these crimes: (1) it considers the total harm to the victim, including from individuals who may not yet have been identified; (2) it requires real and timely restitution; and, (3) it allows defendants who have contributed to the same victim’s harm to spread the restitution cost among themselves.

The bipartisan legislation is cosponsored by Sens. John Cornyn (R-Tex.), Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), Ed Markey (D-Mass.), John McCain (R-Ariz.), and Rob Portman (R-Ohio).