User Submitted Blog Post: Do we need to rethink the Internet sex crime?

Do you think that the typical Internet sex offender lies about his age, pretends to be another child, then abducts his victim after tricking the boy or girl into a secret tryst?

That isn't the way it happens, a new report coming from the University of New Hampshire concludes. "Online Predators and Their Victims: Myths, Realities, and Implications for Prevention and Treatment" calls "largely inaccurate" the public perception of the problem.

"Internet sex crimes involving adults and juveniles more often fit a model of statutory rape—adult offenders who meet, develop relationships with, and openly seduce underage teenagers—than a model of forcible sexual assault or pedophilic child molesting," the report warns.

The authors of the study—Janis Wolak, David Finkelhor, Kimberly J. Mitchell, and Michele L. Ybarra—do research at the University of New Hampshire's Internet Solutions for Kids, Inc. The American Psychologist just published their survey. But Finkelhor began disclosing the groups' findings in the summer of last year. In July, Finkelhor testified before the United States Senate Commerce Committee. He said that, after studying hundreds of cases, his research team found "a different reality" than what most people probably think about the problem.

Here's some of what Finkelhor told the Committee.

• Teenagers, not young children, are the typical online sex crime victims. And the "predominant crime scenario" rarely involves violence or abduction. These take place, respectively, in only five and three percent of cases.
• The overwhelming majority of adult offenders do not conceal who they really are. 80% are "quite explicit about their sexual intentions towards these kids."
• Violent sex crimes are atypical in these cases. By the time the adult and the teenager have met, the former has typically engaged in weeks of "very often quite explicit online conversations that play on the teen's desire for romance, adventure, sexual information and understanding."
• Most of these teenagers are "troubled youth with histories of family turmoil and physical and sexual abuse." In 73% of the cases studied, the teenager went to meet with the adult offender more than once.
• And: "Half the victims were described by police as being in love with or feeling close friendship with the offender," Finkelhor told the committee. In 25% of the cases, "the teenager ran away from home to be with the offender."

Finkelhor said that, given this research, educators and authorities need to rethink what puts kids at risk on the Internet. The big risk factors do not include having a blog, a MySpace account, or giving out personal information.

"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-" Finkelhor argued, such as "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," he concluded. "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."

But Finkelhor and his teams' new report warns that this task may be a challenge. As use of handheld broadband devices like cell phones and personal organizers continues to expand, "youth Internet use could become harder to monitor, and accurate descriptions of and education about risks to youths will become even more important," the study concludes.