Internet Sex Predators Not So Prevalent

Is the Internet really filled with pedophilic sexual predators lurking in a social network or chat room near your child? Not necessarily, according to 3 nationwide surveys done by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in Durham. The first two surveys consisted of responses from 3,000 teens who use the Internet in 2000, and again in 2005. The third involved 612 interviews with investigators at a “nationally representative sample of agencies that deal with Internet sex crimes involving children,” according to McClatchy. They found, among other things, that the Internet had not driven up child sex crime rates (in fact, sexual assaults on teenagers fell 52 percent from 1993 to 2005), and that the majority of Internet-related sex crimes involved consensual sex with adolescents rather than “abduction” or “luring” of prepubescent children. To read the full text of the article, go here.