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We’ve written about the Crimes Against Children Research Center’s most recent study Trends in Arrests of Online Predators quite a few times. So have many others.

We have seen several articles citing it and claiming that online predators are a “myth” or that online threats to children are exaggerated, counter to the study’s findings. Because the study suggests that its findings “do not suggest that the Internet is more (emphasis added) dangerous than other environments” many are editorializing that this means that Internet threats have been grossly exaggerated. That is not what the study is suggesting.

With so many outlets talking about this study, we thought it would be helpful to people looking for the truth of the study to publish some key findings and conclusions:

• The study consisted of two waves, the first in 2000-2001, and the second in calendar year 2006, surveying and interviewing more than 2,500 law enforcement agencies throughout the nation
• Characterizes online predators as “a diverse group that can not be accurately characterized with one-dimensional labels.”
• Arrests of online predators rose 402 percent from 2000 to 2006 (21 percent increase of those soliciting actual minors, 381 percent increase of those soliciting undercover officers). The study concludes that law enforcement techniques are working.
• Most offenders were open about their sexual motives.
• 33 percent of solicitations occurred on social-networking sites, compared to zero percent in 2000, before social-networking sites came on the scene. However, this corresponds with a 40 percent drop in solicitations via chat-rooms, which “reflected the shift of online social interaction” according to the study
• 73 percent of victims were age 13-15
• Sexual violence against the victim occurred in five percent of all cases

In conclusion, the authors (Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, and Kimberly Mitchell) of the study state that “This report finds a large increase in arrests for sexual predation online”. That last line seems pretty clear, and makes it incredibly hard to figure how anyone who read the report, and is simply seeking to spread its findings to a larger audience, could declare that online predators are a “myth.”

We of course know, from this report, thousands of cases across the United States and other countries, and the personal stories of children who have mistakenly fallen victim, that online predators and the threat they represent are very real. Of course, you don’t need us to tell you that, when one of them can tell you himself:

“I can’t believe that parents do not monitor their child’s online use, that they don’t know their passwords, that they aren’t standing over their shoulder. Because that’s what I look for: I look for the child that’s online at midnight; I look for that child that’s more open, that’s more vulnerable. And there are so many of them.”
—As told to Peter Brust, FBI, by a convicted predator

Filed under: Internet Safety News, Uncategorized