INTERNET PREDATORS 101
-Birdy
When children go online, they have direct and immediate access to friends, family, and complete strangers, which can put unsuspecting children at great risk. Children who meet and communicate with strangers online are easy prey for Internet predators. Predators have easy and anonymous access to children online where they can conceal their identity and roam without limit. Often, we have an image of sexual predators lurking around school playgrounds or hiding behind bushes scoping out their potential victims, but the reality is that today’s sexual predators search for victims while hiding behind a computer screen, taking advantage of the anonymity the Internet offers."People who do not believe that their children could ever become victimized online are living in an unrealistic world. Regardless of if your child makes 'As' or not, that child has the potential to become victimized through online technologies. I think it is very important for parents of all socioeconomic status and with all different roles in society to take this problem very seriously."
—Melissa Morrow, Supervisory Special Agent, Child Exploitation Squad, FBI
Child Sexual Abuse: Putting the Problem in Context
Research indicates that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually victimized before adulthood; sadly, 30-40% of these victims are abused by a family member and 50% are abused by someone outside the family whom they know and trust. Although the majority of this child sexual abuse does not occur online, in the Internet age, offline sex abuse is fueled by pedophiles' unprecedented access to child pornography and exacerbated as perpetrators post pictures online of their exploits.1
- Center for Disease Control and Prevention & United States Department of Justice, National Institute of jUSTICE. Youth Prevalence and Implications, 2003
Predators Access to Kids
The anonymity of the Internet provides the perfect camouflage for a seasoned predator to operate. The predator’s knowledge of certain teenage subjects is as accurate as his or her calculated ability to speak teens’ online lingo.
Offline, pedophiles have typically operated in isolation. Never before have pedophiles had the opportunity to communicate so freely and directly with each other as they do online. Their communication on the Internet provides validation—or virtual validation—for their behavior. They share their conquests, real and imagined. They discuss ways to contact and lure children online and exchange tips on seduction techniques, as well as tips on the avoidance of law enforcement detection.
- Easy and anonymous access to children
- Risky online behavior of youth
- Virtual validation
- Law enforcement challenges
- East access to “a la carte” child pornography
The Internet has fueled the deviant sexual behavior of predators due to their easy access to both child pornography and to children. Both ignite the sexual appetite of pedophiles. À la carte child pornography depicting kids of all shapes, sizes, ethnicities, and ages (even toddlers and infants!), is only a mouse click away.
Direct access to unsuspecting children via e-mail, instant messaging, social networking sites, and chat rooms simplifies the sexual predator’s efforts to contact and groom children. Additionally, some teens are placing themselves at risk and willingly talk about sexual matters with online acquaintances.
"Predators are hiding behind the anonymity of the Internet to target kid, to entice kids online–to try to persuade them to meet them in the physical world."—Ernie Allen, President & CEO, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
What is the Profile of a Predator? AND What does an online predator “look like”?
The online predator:
1) Blends into society
2) Is typically clean cut and outwardly law abiding
3) Is usually white, middle-aged or younger, and male
4) Uses position in society to throw off suspicion
5) Can rise to be a pillar of society while actively pursuing children
6) Often engages in activities involving children
7) Appears trusting to both parents and child
"Predators are in all professions. Unfortunately, we have seen doctors, lawyers, law enforcement and clergy. There is really no common trait. In fact, many of them are drawn to those particular professions which give them access to children"—Mary Beth Buchanan, U.S. District Attorney, Western Pennsylvania
How do Predators Groom Kids?
Children put themselves at great risk by communicating online with individuals they do not know in person. Internet predators intentionally access sites that children visit and can even search for potential victims by location or interest.
If a predator is already communicating with a child, he or she can piece together clues from what the child mentions while online, including parents’ names, where the child goes to school, and how far away the child lives from a certain landmark, store, or other location.
Online grooming is a process which can take place in a short time or over an extended period of time. Initial conversations online can appear innocent, but often involve some level of deception. As the predator (usually an adult) attempts to establish a relationship to gain a child’s trust, he may initially lie about his age or may never reveal his real age to the child, even after forming an established online relationship. Often, the groomer will know popular music artists, clothing trends, sports team information, or another activity or hobby the child may be interested in, and will try to relate to the child.
These tactics lead children to believe that no one else can understand them or their situation like the groomer. After the child’s trust develops, the groomer may use sexually explicit conversations to test boundaries and exploit a child’s natural curiosity about sex. Predators often use pornography and child pornography to lower a child’s inhibitions and use their adult status to influence and control a child’s behavior.
They also flatter and compliment the child excessively and manipulate a child’s trust by relating to emotions and insecurities and affirming the child’s feelings and choices.
Remember: The ultimate goal of the “groomer” is to arrange an in-person meeting to engage in sexual relations with the child or teen!
Predators will:
- Prey on teen’s desire for romance, adventure, and sexual information
- Develop trust and secrecy: manipulate child by listening to and sympathizing with child’s problems and insecurities
- Affirm feelings and choices of child
- Exploit natural sexual curiosities of child
- Ease inhibitions by gradually introducing sex into conversations or exposing them to pornography
- Flatter and compliment the child excessively, sends gifts, and invests time, money, and energy to groom child
- Develop an online relationship that is romantic, controlling, and upon which the child becomes dependent
- Drive a wedge between the child and his or her parents and friends
- Make promises of an exciting, stress-free life, tailored to the youth’s desire
- Make threats, and often will use child pornography featuring their victims to blackmail them into silence
Warning Signs
Your child may be in contact with an online predator if he or she:- Becomes secretive about online activities
- Becomes obsessive about being online
- Gets angry when he or she can’t get online
- Receives phone calls from people you do not know or makes calls to numbers that you do not recognize
- Receives gifts, mail, or packages from someone you do not know
- Withdraws from family and friends
- Changes screens or turns off computer when an adult enters a room
- Begins downloading pornography online
"One of the devices that predators use in the interactions with kids is sending them explicit photos of themselves. What they're trying to do is sort of deaden the nerve endings. They're trying to beat down the resistance. It's part of the grooming process to normalize what they're trying to do. And it's pretty insidious."— Ernie Allen, President & CEO, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
Rules of Engagement:
How to Talk to your Kids about Internet Predators
Communication is key in protecting children from online exploitation. One way to keep children safer is to supervise their online activities or limit their access to sites that can facilitate online interaction with people they don’t know and trust in real life. If you allow your children access to these sites, you should discuss Internet safety often. Monitor children’s Internet use: ask them what sites they visit and to show you any profiles they may have posted online.
- Pay attention to what your kids are doing online, and ask your child non-threatening questions.
- Avoid over-reacting if your kids have been talking to people they don’t know online or if they admit that they’ve come across a dangerous or tricky situation online.
- Tried to befriend you? If so, how do you know this person?”
- Talked to you about sex?”
- Asked you for personal information?”
- Asked you for pictures? Sent you pictures?"
- Said anything to make you feel uncomfortable?”
- Offered to send you gifts?”
Risky Online Behavior
A Closer Look:Who’s At Risk?
With the advent of social networking sites and detailed chat profiles, predators don’t need to work very hard to piece together information about a child online. Predators can judge by the appearance of a profile or by the behavior that a child is exhibiting whether he or she might be a prime target for an online relationship.
Teens who don’t use privacy settings on social networking and gaming sites often place their information-including their deepest desires, likes and dislikes, real-time moods, pictures, addresses, and phone numbers-for anyone to see. Teens who post personal information, blog, or journal about sensitive issues may also be easy targets for predators who seek to isolate children from their parents and friends and exploit a child’s emotional vulnerabilities.
Risky Online Behaviors
- Posting personal information (50%*)
- Interacting with online strangers (45%)
- Placing strangers on buddy lists (35%)
- Sending personal information to strangers (26%)
- Visiting X-rated sites (13%)
- Talking about sex with strangers (5%)
("Internet Prevention Messages: Targeting the Right Online Behaviors", 2007.1)
Some teens think it is fun to flirt with online strangers, seek “hookups” with other teens and adults, and discuss and share images of their sexual exploits publicly. Those who use sexually inviting user names, discuss sex online, and arrange to meet for sex place themselves at great risk. Also in danger of becoming targets are teens who are exploring sexual issues online-including sexual orientation-and those interested in meeting strangers online.
Teens who don’t tell their parents when they meet someone or see something that makes them uncomfortable online are also at risk. Some experts suggest that these are vulnerable and at-risk teens to begin with, and are most likely to come from families where the parents are not sufficiently involved with their children.
Additional Resources
A) CyberTipline
The congressionally mandated CyberTipline is a reporting mechanism for cases of child sexual exploitation including child pornography, online enticement of children for sex acts, molestation of children outside the family, sex tourism of children, child victims of prostitution, and unsolicited obscene material sent to a child. Reports may be made 24 hours per day, 7 days per week online at www.cybertipline.com or by calling 1-800-843-5678.
The AMBER Alert program is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement agencies, broadcasters, transportation agencies, and the wireless industry to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and the safe recovery of the child. (www.amberalert.gov)
C) Family Watchdog®
Family Watchdog enables site visitors to use its free service to locate registered sex offenders in their area. Simply enter an address and it will provide a map of any sex offenders within the vicinity. Enough Is Enough recommends that parents check the sex offender registry in their neighborhood, near their child’s school, as well as other areas frequented by the child. (www.familywatchdog.us)Predator Statistics
- There are over 644,865 registered sex offenders in the United States, and over 100,000 are lost in the system.[1]
- Research indicates that 1 in 4 girls and 1 in 6 boys will be sexually abused before adulthood;[2] sadly, 30-40% of these victims are abused by a family member and 50% are abused by someone outside the family whom they know and trust. [3] Although the majority of this child sex abuse does not occur online, in the Internet age, offline sex abuse if fueled by pedophiles’ unprecedented access to child pornography online.
- One in seven kids received a sexual solicitation online.[4]
- Over half (56%) of kids sexually solicited online were asked to send a picture; 27% of the pictures were sexually-oriented in nature.[5]
- 44% of sexual solicitors were under the age of 18.[6]
- Four percent of all youth Internet users received aggressive sexual solicitations, which threatened to spill over into “real life”. These solicitors asked to meet the youth in person, called them on the telephone or sent offline mail, money or gifts. Also, four percent of youth had distressing sexual solicitations that left them feeling upset of extremely afraid.[7]
- Of aggressive sexual solicitations of youth (when the solicitor attempted to establish an offline contact via in-person meeting or phone call), 73% of youth met the solicitor online.[8]
- Sexual solicitations of youth occur:[9]
Chatrooms (37%)
Instant Messaging (40%)
Other, like gaming devices (21%)
- The more risky behaviors kids engage in online, the more likely they will receive an online sexual solicitation. These risky behaviors include[10]:
Posting personal information (50%)
Interacting with online strangers (45%)
Placing strangers on buddy lists (35%)
Sending personal information to strangers (26%)
Visiting X-rated sites (13%)
Talking about sex with strangers (5%)
- 80% of online offenders against youth were eventually explicit with youth about their intentions, and only 5% concealed the fact that they were adults from their victims.[11]
- The majority of victims of Internet-initiated sex crimes were between 13 to 15 years old; 75% were girls and 25% were boys.[12]
- 14 percent of students in 10th-12th grade have accepted an invitation to meet an online stranger in-person and 14 percent of students, who are usually the same individuals, have invited an online stranger to meet them in-person. [13]
- 14 percent 7th-9th grade students reported that they had communicated with someone online about sexual things; 11 percent of students reported that they had been asked to talk about sexual things online; 8 percent have been exposed to nude pictures and 7 percent were also asked for nude pictures of themselves online. [14]
- 59 percent of 7th-9th grade victims said their perpetrators were a friend they know in-person; 36 percent said it was someone else they know; 21 percent said the cyber offender was a classmate; 19 percent indicated the abuser was an online friend; and 16 percent said it was an online stranger.[15]
- Nine percent of children in 7th-9th grade have accepted an online invitation to meet someone in-person and 10 percent have asked someone online to meet them in-person.[16]
- 13 percent of 2nd-3rd grade students report that they used the Internet to talk to people they do not know, 11 percent report having been asked to describe private things about their body and 10 percent have been exposed to private things about someone else's body. [17]
End Notes:
[1] United States Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2008 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
[2] Center for Disease Control and Prevention Prevalence of Individual Adverse Childhood Experiences, 1995-1997.
[3] United States Department of justice National Institute of Justice Youth Victimization: Prevalence and Implications, 2003.
[4-9] Wolak, Michell and Finkelhor. Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later. Alexandria, VA, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 2006.
[10] Indicates percentage of teens that demonstrate indicated behavior. Ybarra, Michele et. Al. “Internet Prevention Messages: Targeting the Right Online Behaviors.” Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine. 2007.
[11-12] Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor. “Internet-initiated sex crimes against minors; implications for prevention based on findings from a national study.” Journal of Adolescent Health. 35.5. 2007.
-Birdy
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