Is the issue of online predators overblown?
So, why do all these pedophiles and online predators think they can have sex with teenagers they meet online…?
Adam Thierer, a senior fellow at the free market technology think tank The Progress and Freedom Foundation, has authored a new paper titled Social Networking and Age Verification: Many Hard Questions; No Easy Solutions.
While the paper does focus on the scope of social networking and dismissing age verification tactics used online, it also contains some interesting information on the presence of online predators.
He believes the media has “overstated the actual number of dangerous incidents happening on [MySpace] and other social networking websites.” In a Forbes.com interview he says, “That issue has been greatly overblown. No doubt there are bad guys lurking online, just like they are lurking on offline venues. The question is: Is it some kind of national epidemic that will be effectively addressed with age verification mandates? I do not think that is the case.”
While I agree with the fact that age verification is useless (that will be another post), I couldn’t disagree more that the issue is “greatly overblown.”
Thierer notes that the problem lies within “at-risk” kids and that they are the “real concerns.” In his paper, he states:
Not only is it a myth that there is a growing epidemic of Internet-facilitated child abductions, but it is also a myth that all children are equally susceptible to falling prey to online predators. In reality, the population of “at-risk” youngsters who are most likely to become the victim of online predators is very small.
A 2004 study by researchers from the University of New Hampshire’s Crimes against Children Research Center surveyed more than 2,500 cases in which juveniles became the victims of sex crimes by people they met through the Internet. The authors found that those children—almost all of whom were teenagers—were not, generally speaking, the victims of the stereotypical scenario that most parents and policy makers fear: “strangers who are pedophiles and who deceive and lure children, frequently over long distances, into situations where they can be forcibly abducted or sexually assaulted.” In fact, the opposite was the case.
The study found that “although they undoubtedly manipulated juveniles in a variety of ways, the offenders in the Internet-initiated crimes did not generally deceive victims about being older adults who were interested in sexual relationships. Victims usually knew this propensity before their first face-to-face encounters with offenders.”
The survey results supporting this finding are startling:
· Only 5% of the adult offenders lied about their age and tried to pass themselves as being minors.
· Only 21% of the adult offenders lied about their sexual desires with the minor.Yet, despite the fact that most offenders did not hide their desires:
· The great majority of victims (83%) who met with offenders face-to-face voluntarily went somewhere with them afterward (a hotel, movie, restaurant, etc.), and many (41%) spent at least one night with the offender.
· Most victims (73%) willingly met with offenders more than once.
· In 89% of the cases, the victims willingly engaged in some sort of sexual activity with the offender; only 5% of the cases involved violence or rape.
This basically states that the majority of teenagers are KNOWINGLY meeting up with these older strangers with the intent of having sex. And what problem does the study and Thierer immediately point too? A bad relationship between parent and child. Thierer does say in his paper “there is no substitute for good parenting and mentoring of our kids. We should not be calling in government to act as surrogate parent when parents already have the tools and the ability to handle much of this problem themselves.”
To this I couldn’t agree more. But going back to my original grievance with his stance, as long as predators still lurk online, and as long as teenagers are -apparently- willingly meeting up with older men/women they meet online with the intent of having sexual relationships – maybe this issue isn’t overblown enough?!
I encourage everyone to read Thierer’s paper and discuss your own opinion of the issue at hand. He makes some great points, but I feel is completely wrong upon thinking the issue of online predators is exaggerated and overblown. The “at-risk” pool should maybe be renamed the “higher-risk,” because really – aren’t all children at risk? These sickos are still out there. So shouldn’t the welfare of all kids, not just a select group, be at hand and not minimized?
I do, however, think he hits the nail on the head with his closing thoughts:
Parents and policy makers should embrace a “3-E” solution: Empowerment, Education and Enforcement. Empowerment refers to the tools and methods available to parents to better monitor and control their children’s online behavior and activities [like our PC Pandora]. Education refers to the need to industry, government and parents to do more to teach our children about online risks and proper online etiquette. And enforcement refers to the need for legislators and law enforcement officials to do more to weed out and adequately prosecute the real bad guys looking to prey on our children.
Discuss…….
