Local News
Internet opens a door for predators
Special Report: Sex offenders
MERCER COUNTY — EDITOR’S NOTE: Sexual crimes are among the most heinous of offenses. They stigmatize both the victims and the perpetrators. The Herald is taking an in-depth look at those who commit sexual offenses, at their victims and at how the criminal justice system and society deal with the aftermath.
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Since there have been adults and children, there have probably been adults who prey on children, said Nils Frederiksen, deputy press secretary for the state Attorney General.
“Prior to the Internet, though, they had to put themselves into a position where they’re in physical contact with children,” Frederiksen said. Places like school yards or playgrounds.
“Now the children are online and the playgrounds are electronic. And that means the stalking is electronic,” he said.
The Internet has allowed sexual predators to access more children, anonymously and quickly. State law enforcement has reacted by setting up sting operations though the attorney general’s Child Predator Unit, with specially trained agents who pose as 12- to 14-year-old children.
Fishing for sexual predators is a high-yield business. Frederiksen said agents will log in and receive their first message within 10 seconds to several minutes. Not a day goes by that agents aren’t chatting with someone.
The undercover agents aren’t looking for someone who just says “hi,” Frederiksen said.
“If you’re not dropping your pants in front of your computer and sending it to a 12-year-old, you’re not going to get arrested. But if you are, the odds are one of these days you’re going to send that to a law enforcement agent. You’ll make a mistake.”
Frederiksen said predators do seem to be using the Internet more. Of the more than 200 people arrested in Internet stings in the last four years, only about three had prior records.
While he punted on the question of whether or not sex offenses are on the rise, he said the Internet does increase the temptation and the level of access.
“Individuals who might never stalk a school yard would perhaps have less concern about going into an online chat room and sexually propositioning someone who says they are a 12- or 13-year-old girl or boy,” he said.
And Frederiksen said the Attorney General’s office firmly believes the behavior escalates. In many cases they find child pornography in a suspected predator’s computer, and they believe viewing adult porn can escalate to child porn.
If a person is attracted to children, it may ratchet up from viewing pornography to chatting, video communication, and eventually to face-to-face contact with children, he said.
New Castle psychologist Cathy L. Clover, who works with sex offenders, said some may believe they are “role playing” their fantasies, and that it’s not real. But she said that’s not true. “Sometimes, it’s a real child on the other end, and that child is sometimes willing to meet that guy at a motel, and gets really badly hurt.”
Frederiksen said most of the people they deal with are aware it’s real. “When you have individuals who will get in a car and drive from Kentucky to Cranberry to meet the 13-year-old they were chatting with online, I don’t think there’s any doubt they were looking for sexual contact with a child.”
Some individuals, he said, bring gifts, Teddy bears, alcohol or lingerie. Or, on the other side, rope and duct tape.
“We’ve yet to find a jury that has any doubt in those cases that these people were seeking to take sexual advantage of a child,” Frederiksen said. Their conviction rate is 100 percent.
The kinds of offenders that come before the AG’s office vary. “Traveling predators” who establish a relationship and try to physically meet children have been steady, and they catch two or three per month.
Travelers typically try to “groom” a child, establish a relationship, possibly drive a wedge between kids and authority figures, and eventually propose a meeting. They may take just a day to travel or go back and forth with the child for months, Frederiksen said.
A major surge, he said, has been in web camera predators who may never ask for a meeting, but use the cameras hooked into their computers to transmit nude images or video. That’s more like the 21st century version of a rain coat flasher, Frederiksen said. Those individuals may send images within minutes of meeting a child.
Even as technology changes the way people communicate, Frederiksen said law enforcement will also adapt. “We will continue to follow predators where ever we believe they go. Because you know predators are following the children.”
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