James T. Woods Act

The bill would direct the United States Sentencing Commission (USSC) to rewrite sentencing guidelines for child sexual abuse material, create a new federal coercion crime that targets forcing minors to self-harm or commit violence or arson, and criminalize threats to distribute images of minors even when no image exists.

• Children and families: Creates a new coercion offense covering extortion, threats, fraud, deceit, duress, intimidation, harassment, humiliation, degradation, and manipulation of a person under 18. Offenses that cause or attempt to cause a child to die by suicide or to kill a person carry fines and prison up to life, while acts like killing an animal or committing arson carry prison up to 30 years.
• Sentencing and prosecutors: Directs the USSC to revise guidelines for listed child-exploitation statutes and to build offense characteristics for factors like multiple online channels, group involvement, concealment, number of victims, age of the minor, and suicide as a causal factor. The revisions must reflect actual harms and prevent sentence reductions below the existing base offense level in guideline 2G2.2(a).
• Threat actors and sextortion: Criminalizes threats to distribute visual depictions of minors or child pornography made to intimidate, coerce, extort, or cause substantial emotional distress even when no depiction exists, and aligns penalties with the underlying distribution offenses.