Gov. Jerry Brown signed Senate Bill 145 by Sen. Fran Pavley on Saturday, raising the maximum penalty for the most serious child pornography offenses.

The bill was sponsored by Ventura County District Attorney Greg Totten and strongly supported by the California District Attorneys Association. SB 145 received the unanimous support of both the Assembly and the Senate because it addresses problems with existing California law.

Prior to SB 145, California had the weakest child pornography sentencing laws in the nation. SB 145 will raise the maximum penalty for the worst offenders: those with huge collections of child pornography, those with images of children forced to endure sexual sadism or masochism, and those who use images to groom children to participate in this crime. The bill will raise the maximum sentence from three years to five years, but reserves discretion for judges to issue shorter sentences for less serious offenders.

“California needs to keep pace with the rest of the nation to protect children from exploitation,” Pavley said. “These images perpetuate the cycle of sexual abuse of children and fuel the market for sex trafficking and other crimes.”

“Internet pornography is one of the fastest growing crimes in America,” Pavley said. “The images of these sexually abused children can be sent around the world in a matter of seconds and ruin children’s lives.”

“This measure will significantly enhance prosecutors’ ability to punish the worst child pornographers and better protect children from this devastating crime that re-victimizes over and over again when their images are sent around the world via the Internet,” Totten said.

Fran Pavley, D-Agoura Hills, represents about half of the Santa Clarita Valley in the state Senate.