This comes from LM_NET. I think is really is important.
From: Nancy Willard <nwillard@CSRIU.ORG>
Subject: Real information about sexual predators
This is testimony from Tuesday's hearing on Protecting Children on the
Internet. I am providing it in full because I really want you to read
this!
<http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=3DHearings.Testi
mony&=>
http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=3DHearings.Testim
ony&=
<http://commerce.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=3DHearings.Testi
mony&=Hearing_ID=3D1885&Witness_ID=3D6683>
Hearing_ID=3D1885&Witness_ID=3D6683
Testimony of
Dr. David Finkelhor
Director
Crimes against Children Research Center
University of New Hampshire
Durham, New Hampshire
603 862-2761
david.finkelhor@unh.edu
Online Sex Crimes against Juveniles:
Myth and Reality
Hearing before the U.S. Senate
Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation Washington, DC July
24, 2007. Whenever any new threats appear on the scene, from SARS to
school shooters, it is crucial to characterize them accurately and as
soon as possible, because first impressions are lasting impressions, and
it is hard to change them later. We need such accurate and early
characterizations not only to prevent overreaction, but to get people to
be focused on the right things t= o do to prevent the spread of the
danger.
In the case of Internet sex crimes against children, I'm afraid we may
already be off to a poor start. The public impression of this crime is
not in sync with the reality based on what we now know from the
research.
The public impression about this crime is that we have "Internet
pedophiles", who have moved from the playgrounds into your living room
through the Internet connection, who target young children by pretending
to be other children, who lie about their ages, identities and motives,
who trick the children into providing personal information like their
names and addresses, or who harvest it from MySpace; and then armed with
this information, these criminals stalk the children, abduct them and
rape them or worse.
But our research suggests a different reality. Here's what we have found
at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes against Children Research
Center, based on hundreds of cases retrieved from national surveys of
law enforcement agencies, and two national sample surveys of youth
Internet users themselves, all this research is available now in
articles in high prestige medical and scientific journals.
First, we have found that the predominant online sex crime victims are
not young children, but rather teenagers. And the predominant crime
scenario does not involve violent stranger molesters posing online as
other children in order to set up an abduction and an assault. Only 5%
of the online sex crimes against children involved violence when
meetings occurred, only 3% entailed an abduction.
Nor is deception a major factor. Only 5% of offenders truly concealed
the fact that they were adults from their victims and 80% by contrast
were quite explicit about their sexual intentions towards these kids.
These are not mostly violent sex crimes but criminal seductions that
take advantage of common teenage vulnerabilities. The offenders lure
teens to meet them for sexual encounters after weeks of very often quite
explicit online conversations that play on the teen's desires for
romance, adventure, sexual information and understanding. These teens
are often troubled youth with histories of family turmoil and physical
and sexual abuse.
Jenna was a computer-savvy 13 year old, from a divorced family who
frequented sex-oriented chat rooms under the screen name evil_girl.
There she meets a 45 year old, Dave, who flatters her, gives her gifts,
jewelry, talks about intimate things and drives across several states to
meet her for sex on several occasions in motel rooms. When Dave is
arrested with her, Jenna resists cooperating with police.
Many of the Internet sex crimes have commonalities with this case. In
73% of these crimes, the youth go to meet the offender on multiple
occasions, for multiple sexual encounters. Half the victims were
described by police as being in love with or feeling close friendship
with the offender. In a quarter of the cases the victim ran away from
home to be with the offender.
This has lots of implications for prevention.For one thing, we think it
means that we need to make sure our messages are directed at teens, in
language and format and from sources they relate to. Teens themselves,
not parents. We also have to go beyond bland warnings about not giving
out personal information. Our research with youth suggests that giving
out personal information is not what puts kids at risk. Nor does having
a blog or a personal web site or frequenting My Space. What puts kids in
danger for these crimes is being willing to talk about sex online with
strangers, and having a pattern of multiple risky activities on the web
-- going to sex sites and chat rooms, and interacting with lots of
people there.
To prevent these crimes, we have to take on more awkward and complicated
topics and start with an acceptance of the fact that some teens are
curious about sex and looking for romance and adventure. So we need to
educate them about why hooking up with a 32 year old has major drawbacks
like jail, bad press, public embarrassment ; and why they should be
discouraging, not patronizing, sites and people who are doing offensive
things online, fascinating as they may seem.
We also need to make it easier for them to report the come-ons and the
sexual picture requests, and we need to empower by-standers to take
action that is, friends, online observers in chat rooms, who may see
this happening but today do little to stop it.
We need to task agencies that know about prevention, like CDC and OJJDP
and NCMEC, to help design or at least evaluate scientifically grounded
prevention programs that can then be disseminated to educate youth and
families based on their proven effectiveness.
We need training for law enforcement, so they know how to handle these
cases and the often reluctant kids whom they need as witnesses to
prosecute the offenders.
We also need training for school officials and mental health
professionals, so they, too, can help some of these at risk kids before
they get into trouble.
We need ongoing research to keep tabs on what kids are experiencing and
what law enforcement is encountering, because in this rapidly changing
technological environment the threats and dangers can morph so very
quickly.
We have to stay on top of them. We don't want to be responding to
yesterday's problem, or think that we know what' going on based on a
single, high profile incident. So for example, I think we need an annual
assessment of threats to kids in the Internet environment, something
like the annual Monitoring the Future national survey about drug usage.
The prevention challenges here are not easy. Like discouraging kids from
smoking or drinking, the simple scare tactics often don' work.This
challenge too may require deft maneuvering within the teenage psychology
to get the message to stick. And in the meantime, we need to be cautious
about promoting messages that turn teens off or that betray a completely
unrealistic take on the Internet and which may only make them less
receptive to authoritative sources that we want them ultimately to
trust. We shouldn't allow a sense of crisis to mobilize us into
misguided crusades.
So we have to do our homework. We have to do our research. So much of
what happens online is so hidden. But if we want to stop these internet
crimes, we have to understand the details of what is going on. It is as
simple and as complicated as that.
My book for parents, and the materials that are on my site are grounded
in this same understanding (and the research from this center).
It is really far past time for an improvement in our understanding.
Nancy
Nancy Willard, M.S., J.D.
Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use http://csriu.org
<http://csriu.org/> http://cyberbully.org <http://cyberbully.org/>
http://cyber-safe-kids.com <http://cyber-safe-kids.com/>
nwillard@csriu.org
Cyberbullying and Cyberthreats: Responding to the Challenge of Online
Social Aggression, Threats, and Distress (Research Press)
Cyber-Safe Kids, Cyber-Savvy Teens: Helping Young People Learn to Use
the Internet Safely and Responsibly (Jossey-Bass)
___________________________
Diane Culbertson
Danville Schools
DTC/CIO
Phone: (859) 936-8460
Fax: (859) 936-8464
diane.culbertson@danville.kyschools.us
<mailto:diane.culbertson@danville.kyschools.us>
www.danville.k12.ky.us/blog/dculbertson/
<http://www.danville.k12.ky.us/blog/dculbertson/>
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