There has been a lot of publicity about online predators recently. As a former criminal investigator or sex crimes against children, I was  curious about the trend an decided to investigate. I’ve seen all of the promos for Dateline – To Catch a Predator, yet I cannot bring myself to watch it. I’ve lived it, I don’t need to watch it on TV, though many people do. However, I do want to understand the nature of the problem.

The University of New Hampshire has a Crimes Against Children Research Center that has published a report entitled Trends in Arrests of “Online Predators”. According to the results of this study, online predation is a problem… but not to the extent that Dateline would have you believe. “Arrests of online predators in 2006 constituted about 1% of all arrests for sex crimes committed against children and youth. That means 99% found another way to approach their victims. This is similar to the statistic that you are more likely to die in a car crash but the crash of an airliner gets the publicity.

Other key findings of the report are as follows:

• Between 2000 and 2006, there was a 21% increase in arrests of offenders who solicited actual youth and a 381% increase in arrests of offenders who solicited under cover investigators.
• As online predator arrests were increasing, overall sex offenses against children were in decline.
• There is no evidence that predators were stalking victims based upon information they posted on social networking sites.

The report concludes that law enforcement is having success in arresting online predators but it is premature to conclude that the internet is an unusually dangerous environment. Most crimes committed by online predators involved adolescent victims who knew they were communicating with older adults who wanted sex. Most victims went to the meetings expecting to engage in sexual activity and were victims because they were too young to consent to sexual activity with adults.

The possibility that Internet use facilitates sexual predation needs to be taken seriously, but it is not the problem that the media portrays. Law enforcement is doing a good job arresting predators and needs to continue that effort. However, parents need to understand that the internet is not more dangerous than other environments that their children encounter. My own experience, though some time ago, leads me to believe that abusive step-fathers, family friends, teachers, counselors, clergy and youth group leaders are a larger part of the problem. Parents need to pay attention to adults who gravitate to positions involving contact with children. Offenders are sociable people who work or volunteer in positions where they have contact with children and are able to choose their victims accordingly.