The stereotype of a pedophile masquerading as a teen on the Internet to stalk naive young victims is not only false, it's also distracting parents, educators and policy makers from addressing the sex crimes that are being initiated via the Internet, according to a new paper.
Almost all online-initiated sex crimes involve adults openly seducing teenaged victims into sexual relationships, according to data culled from two surveys of 3,000 Internet users aged between 10 and 17 and one involving more than 2,000 U.S. federal, state and local law-enforcement agencies, most specializing in sex crimes against minors.
Internet offenders pretended to be teenagers in only 5 per cent of the crimes studied by researchers at the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center. They also found that nearly 75 per cent of victims who met offenders face to face did so more than once. Very few cases involved violence, stalking or abduction.
...The researchers say it's premature to talk about the Internet as an established facilitator of sex crimes outside of the possession and distribution of child pornography. However, they still still recommend prevention and public policy for high risk teen behaviour online.
Read the complete article here:
Few pedophiles posing as youths onlineby Tralee PearceGlobe and Mail
Labels: In the News
The Kids Internet Safety Alliance (KINSA) supports its founding patron, OPP Police Commander Julian Fantino, in the cross-jurisdictional police announcement today of a massive child pornography sweep by Ontario law enforcement agencies. More than 18 police forces, headed by the OPP Provincial Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet, targeted child pornography in a series of raids across Ontario that have resulted in 73 criminal charges.
"Today's startling numbers prove that the societal problem of online child sexual abuse and exploitation is massive and requires a broad-based solution involving all facets of society - law enforcement, educators, business leaders, political leaders, parents and kids," declared KINSA Board Vice-Chair Michael Ras.
"It also proves that we have a resource problem in Canada. These are complex cases to investigate and prosecute, but we lack the specialized policing manpower to go after 65,000 potential offenders in Canada alone. As Mr. Fantino emphasized using Toronto’s 2003 horrific murder of Holly Jones as a profile example, these guys viewing images of children being sexually victimized are that much more likely to also engage in hands-on offences as well."
KINSA was established in 2005 as an aggressive and proactive organization taking positive action to battle the negative impacts of Internet child pornography, abuse, victimization and exploitation impacting on children and youth.. KINSA’s multi-faceted approach to addressing this issue by educating industry, government, law enforcement and families has included involvement in the worldwide promotion of the Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) as a cornerstone program. Law enforcement officers wielding sophisticated new software were able to track images on thousands of computers, and these capabilities were key to facilitating many of the arrests in this most recent sweep.
For additional information on the work of the OPP Provincial Strategy to Protect Children from Sexual Abuse and Exploitation on the Internet, click here for the text of today's announcement, including backgrounder, from the Ontario Police.
The following is additional media coverage of today's announcements:
Province-wide child porn arrestsToronto Star
Woman, youth, 20 men arrested in Ontario child porn sweepCBC News
Twenty-two nabbed in Ontario porn sweepGlobe and Mail
73 charges in massive child porn crackdownNational Post
Ontario: Three local men caught in child porn sweepKitchener-Waterloo Record
Ontario police crack down on child pornographyOttawa Citizen
Labels: In the News, Press Releases
The crime bill currently before the Canadian Senate includes the change to the age of consent previously supported by KINSA. The bill calls specifically for raising the age of sexual consent to 16 from 14 in certain cases. Click here for complete coverage on the bill.
KINSA contends that criminal legislation around teenage sexuality must be approached with caution, and balance. The proper solution must recognize that it is not the role of the state to closely regulate or dictate matters of adolescent sexuality. These issues are to a large degree private matters, and teenagers need some autonomy to make personal choices, influenced not by the law but by their own families, their own values, and their own religious or social communities. However, concern for personal autonomy must not override real threats to personal safety. Thus the focus of any new criminal law must be limited to real threats to a teenager’s personal safety that are not already addressed, such as the growing threat posed by adult sexual predators. The best possible law to protect young teenagers from adult sexual predators, while according them appropriate liberty to grow into their sexual selves, must have the following characteristics:
1. The new law should retain the current provisions that protect children thirteen and under.
2. The new law should, in a preamble, recognize that recent studies have pointed to 14 and 15 year olds as those most likely to be victimized by adult sexual predators in internet luring situations.
3. The new law should recognize that 14 and 15 year olds have a right to pursue their awakening sexual development, but that that development should take place in the safety of a social environment limited to their peers in age.
4. Accordingly, the new law should make it clear that consensual sexual activity with 14 and 15 year olds is lawful only if there is no exploitation, there is no abuse of power trust or authority and the 14 or 15 year old's sexual partner is no more than five years older.
5. The new law should not change the current law applicable to 16 and 17 year olds. The current law says that 16 and 17 year olds can have consensual sexual relations with persons of any age, as long as those relationships involve no exploitation, or abuse of power, trust or authority.
Click here for more information on this subject on the KINSA Web site.