1.Access to and the availability of the Internet to conduct local and transnational business transactions, research personal and professional information to enrich our lives, and communicate with others even within the most remote regions of the world is

Frank Schmalleger Michael Pittaro

Frank Schmalleger | Michael Pittaro Crimes InternetoftheCrimes InternetoftheCrimes InternetoftheCrimes Internetofthe

Crimes Internet

ofthe Crimes

Internet ofthe

Upper Saddle River, NJ 07458 www.prenhall.com

ISBN-13: ISBN-10:

978-0-13-231886-0 0-13-231886-5

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Schmalleger

Pittaro“An impressive collection of essays on the many forms of computer-related crime, and on the challenges faced by individuals and institutions responsible for their prevention and control”

Peter Grabosky, The Australian National University

“This book collects and integrates information that has previously been scattered in relatively inaccessible places. Virtually all aspects of Internet-related crime are covered. The book also includes a welcome section on the theoretical explanations of Internet-facilitated crimes.”

Marc Renzema, Kurtztown University

“This book is a valuable compendium on a problem that is assuming monumental proportions against the backdrop of growing computer penetration across the globe. It will be useful to both academics and practitioners in criminal justice agencies the world over.”

R. K. Raghaven, Former Director, Central Bureau of Investigation, New Delhi

As the Internet continues to permeate and enrich the corners of our world, it also introduces us to new types of criminal risk that we quickly need to address. To this end, Michael Pittaro and Frank Schmalleger bring together a stellar international and multidisciplinary cast of new and established academics who map out new areas of Internet risk and also add new and refreshing perspectives to existing debates about cyber crime and their resolution. Crimes of the Internet provides a stimulating and informative read for students, academics and those who are simply interested in the way that the Internet is shaping our lives.

Davis S. Wall, University of Leeds, UK

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Crimes of the Internet

Edited by

Frank Schmalleger Distinguished Professor Emeritus, University of North Carolina at Pembroke

Michael Pittaro Executive Director, Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Adjunct Criminal Justice Professor, Cedar Crest College, Allentown, Pennsylvania

Upper Saddle River, New Jersey 07458

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Crimes of the Internet / edited by Frank Schmalleger, Michael Pittaro. p. cm.

Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN-13: 978-0-13-231886-0 (pbk. : alk. paper) ISBN-10: 0-13-231886-5 (pbk. : alk. paper)

1. Computer crimes. I. Schmalleger, Frank. II. Pittaro, Michael. HV6773.C765 2008 364.16’8—dc22

2007052871

Editor in Chief: Vernon R. Anthony Senior Acquisitions Editor: Tim Peyton Editorial Assistant: Alicia Kelly Director of Marketing: David Gesell Marketing Manager: Adam Kloza Marketing Coordinator: Alicia Dysert Production Manager: Kathy Sleys Creative Director: Jayne Conte Cover Design: Bruce Kenselaar Cover Illustration/Photo: Comstock Images/Jupiter Images, Inc. Full-Service Project Management/Composition: Babitha Balan/GGS Book Services Printer/Binder: R. R. Donnelley & Sons, Inc.

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Dedication

For Jason Star, the most brilliant scientist I know. Frank Schmalleger

To my beautiful and incredibly compassionate wife, Christine and my sons, Dakota and Darrian. Michael Pittaro

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Contents

Foreword ix

Preface xi

About the Editors xv

PART I ONLINE PREDATORY CHILD VICTIMIZATION AND EXPLOITATION 1

1 Sexual Addiction to the Internet: From Curiosity to Compulsive Behavior (Pittaro) 3

2 Pedophilia, Pornography, and Stalking: Analyzing Child Victimization on the Internet (Jaishankar/Halder/Ramdoss) 28

3 Internet Child Sexual Exploitation: Offenses, Offenders, and Victims (Huang/Leopard/Brockman) 43

4 Cyber Bullying: A Transnational Perspective (Jaishankar/Shariff) 66

5 Internet Crimes: Youth and Children (Raghavan/Ranjan/Reddy) 84

PART II EMERGING GLOBAL CRIMES OF THE INTERNET 99

6 Online Pharmaceutical Sales and the Challenge for Law Enforcement (Finley) 101

7 Charges Without Borders: Consumer Credit Card Fraud in Ghana (Davison) 129

8 Regulating Cyberstalking (Basu/Jones) 141

9 Internet Gambling (Geis/Brown/Pontell) 166

v

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10 Nature and Distribution of Phishing (Stroik/Huang) 191

11 You Can’t Cheat an Honest Man: Making ($$$s and) Sense of the Nigerian E-mail Scams (King/Thomas) 206

12 Identity Theft Causes, Correlates, and Factors: A Content Analysis (Berg) 225

13 Internet Fraud and Cyber Crime (Cukier/Levin) 251

PART III CRIMINOLOGICAL PERSPECTIVES ON CYBER CRIME 281

14 Space Transition Theory of Cyber Crimes (Jaishankar) 283

15 Routine Activity Theory and Internet Crime (Cox/Johnson/Richards) 302

16 The Rhetoric of Hackers’ Neutralizations (Turgeman-Goldschmidt) 317

17 Lone Hacks or Group Cracks: Examining the Social Organization of Computer Hackers (Holt) 336

18 “It’s like Printing Money”: Piracy on the Internet (Nhan) 356

19 The Warez Scene: Digital Piracy in the Online World (Ponte) 384

20 Internet and Crime Trends (Ouimet) 408

21 Internet Gambling: The Birth of a Victimless Crime? (Giacopassi/Pitts) 417

PART IV INVESTIGATING AND PROSECUTING CYBER CRIMES 437

22 Investigating Computer Crime (Hinduja) 439

23 Criminal Profiling and Cyber Criminal Investigations (Shoemaker/Kennedy) 456

24 Digital Evidence (Scarborough/Rogers/Frakes/Martin) 477

25 The Dateline Effect: Internet Stings (Rubenser/Orvis/Rush) 489

26 Evidence Issues Involved in Prosecuting Internet Crime (Roberson) 503

27 The Politics of Internet Crimes (Marion) 521

28 The Fourth Amendment Impact on Electronic Evidence (Obinyan/Ikegwuonu/Vanderpuye) 549

vi Contents

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PART V CYBER TERRORISM: THE “NEW” FACE OF TERRORISM 571

29 The Dark Side of the Web: Terrorists’ Use of the Internet (Damphousse) 573

30 Cyber Terrorism: Problems, Perspectives, and Prescription (Soma Sundaram/Jaishankar) 593

31 Cyber Terrorism and the Law (Walker) 612

Index 645

Contents vii

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*NCR Distinguished Professor of Law and Technology, University of Dayton School of Law, Dayton, OH.

Foreword

By Susan W. Brenner*

As some of us know, cyber crime takes many guises, and for that and other reasons constitutes a new and highly problematic threat to governments around the world. The chapters Professor Pittaro and Dr. Schmalleger have assembled in this volume examine the varied facets of this still-new phenomenon.

As I explain below, they address topics ranging from substantive law (the statutory offenses we can use to prosecute cyber criminals) to procedural law (Fourth Amendment and other laws that constrain what law enforcement can do in investigating these crimes) to what is probably the most difficult issue of all: the transnational nature of cyber crime. The chap- ters provide a comprehensive, current treatment of these issues and, in so doing, will give the reader an understanding, and an appreciation, of why we should all be concerned about this very different category of criminal activity.

As to substantive law, the book includes a series of impressive chapters that deal with particular types of cyber crime. Some deal with what experts and civilians alike agree as a particularly heinous category of cyber crime: crimes against children. These chapters examine the dangers that arise when pedophiles use the Internet to stalk and lure child victims and the related problem of online child pornography.

As those familiar with cyber crime know, the creation and dissemination of child pornog- raphy has exploded into cyberspace, for several reasons; pedophiles who would never have been willing to risk exposure by seeking out child pornography in the real-world can now acquire it anonymously online, with little risk of exposure. And we see a very similar phenom- enon with regard to child stalking and luring; cyberspace makes it possible for pedophiles to interact directly with potential victims, engaging them in online chats that can, and do, result in a pedophile’s luring children to a rendezvous, where the pedophile intends to attack the child. Cyberspace, in effect, lets pedophiles breach the security of our homes in their search for potential victims. In the same way and for the same reasons, it also facilitates other types of stalking and a very new phenomenon: cyber bullying. The book includes an entire chapter devoted to cyber bullying, a topic that has so far been rather neglected. This chapter does an excellent job of describing the nature and parameters of cyber bullying; its contribution is also distinctive because the author provides us with a transnational perspective on the problem.

There are additional chapters dealing with the substantive law of cyber crime, all of which do an excellent job of surveying the more important varieties of cyber crime. There is, for example, a very thoughtful chapter dealing with identity theft, which has become a problem

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of almost epidemic proportions in the United States and many other countries. Other, equally thoughtful chapters deal with the difficult legal and policy issues raised by online gambling and by the online sale of pharmaceuticals; another insightful chapter examines the related issues of fraud and spam and a companion piece deals with a crime that remains obscure to many: phishing. Other substantive law chapters deal with the very lucrative, and very elusive, phenomenon of online copyright infringement, a serious global phenomenon.

There are also chapters dealing with a type of cyber crime that is emerging as a very real concern for governments around the world: cyber terrorism. As these chapters explain, cyber terrorism is a concern because so many activities in the modern world—e.g., transportation, communications, commerce, utilities, and even governance—depend on computer systems. This creates an area of vulnerability terrorists can, and certainly will, exploit. In 2006, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the Secret Service ran a mock cyber terrorism exercise that encompassed all of these sectors and lasted for several days; the exercise, which included some international participation, revealed that civilian and governmental systems are woefully vulnerable to the kind of tactics these chapters examine.

In what I would deem the category of procedural law, there are chapters dealing with how the Fourth Amendment impacts on law enforcement’s efforts to investigate these and other online crimes and with the particularly intricate problem of adapting our traditional rules of evidence to the unique characteristics of digital evidence. A related chapter examines the process of investigating cyber crime; it analyzes the similarities and differences between tradi- tional criminal investigations and cyber crime investigations and offers guidance for improving how law enforcement officers pursue the latter. Like this chapter, other chapters provide a more theoretical perspective on aspects of cyber crime; these chapters examine issues such as trends in online crime, the politics of cyber crime and criminological perspectives on cyber crime.

The transnational aspect of cyber crime is an issue the treatment of which is woven throughout most, if not all, of the chapters in the book. It makes the application of both sub- stantive and procedural law problematic. If, for example, a citizen living in a country where gambling is illegal accesses an online casino located in another country where gambling is legal, has a crime been committed? Here, we have conduct that would be a crime if it had been committed entirely within the territory of the country where gambling is illegal, but it has not; cyberspace breaks the conduct into pieces, so that part of it occurs in the country where gam- bling is illegal and another part occurs in a country where gambling is legal. This creates a conundrum: How are we to apply substantive law, the law that defines what is and is not a crime, to conduct, which is at once legal and illegal? Moreover, if we can get past that hurdle, how do we decide which country’s law will govern the investigation of the crime?

Our laws, both substantive and procedural, were created for a physical world in which travel from one jurisdiction was possible, but time-consuming and difficult. Travel in the real world has become much easier and faster over the last, say, 50 years, but cyberspace takes the concept to an entirely new level. As I sit in my office in the United States, I can more easily access an extraterritorial online casino or Warez site or (if I were so inclined) child pornogra- phy site than I can the shop down the street. As you will learn from this book, cyberspace lets criminals attack us with relative impunity from halfway around the globe, and that is yet another issue we must address.

I am confident you will find this book to be more than worth your time: it is at once inter- esting, instructive, and thought provoking. I think we all owe a vote of thanks to Professor Pittaro and Dr. Schmalleger for assembling such a valuable contribution to scholarship in this area.

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Preface

Crimes of the Internet was expressly created for undergraduate and graduate criminal justice students, but it will undoubtedly appeal to a much wider audience interested in learning more about the growing number of Internet crimes; hereafter referred to as cyber crimes. This edited collection of original, previously unpublished articles has attempted to illuminate and explore some of the most technologically sophisticated crimes to surface since the dawn of the Internet. This book examines the changing nature of cyber crime that has specifically occurred with the evolution of the Internet. Our world, as we know it, has come to rely on the size, capability, and velocity of the Internet to locate and identify enormous quantities of personal and professional information. We have come to rely on the Internet as a tool for exploration and data gathering, and the Internet has enabled us to swiftly communicate with virtually anyone, anywhere, and at anytime across the globe.

The anonymity, accessibility, and ubiquitous availability of the Internet, coupled with its relatively low costs, have made it attractive and incredibly valuable to many people, including those who have turned to the Internet for unlawful, deviant purposes. Consequently, the Internet presents new challenges for law enforcement officials that, for the most part, tran- scend all geographical boundaries and borders, and evade many investigative and prosecutor- ial procedures that have traditionally been used to detect, prosecute, and punish criminal activity. As this book will show, the Internet has become a fertile breeding ground for an entirely new and unique type of criminal offender—the cyber criminal—who continues to elude law enforcement and avoid prosecution by engaging in crimes that are particularly dif- ficult to prosecute under laws.

ORGANIZATION OF THE BOOK

Crimes of the Internet is an edited volume of original scholarly articles authored by many of the world’s top experts on cyber crimes. As of this writing, the research into cyber crime activities has been limited to a few “not so well known” studies, which although often insight- ful, have unfortunately been confined mainly to academic journals that cater predominantly to college students, faculty, and researchers. Unfortunately, these findings seldom reach the desks of law enforcement officials, prosecutors, and policymakers. Outside of academia, cyber crime coverage is largely restricted to identity theft and child pornography—a short- coming that this book seeks to address.

Crimes of the Internet is divided into five major sections. Part I is titled “Online Predatory Child Victimization and Exploitation,” because it addresses the challenges and

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tribulations of combating child pornography and online predatory behaviors by pedophiles and other sexual sadists who have turned to the Internet for sexual gratification. Also included are the problems associated with cyber bullying. Childhood offenses that were once confined to the school playground have now entered cyberspace with far-reaching consequences to vic- tims, while presenting unique challenges to law enforcement agencies, school officials, and parents. Chapter 1 addresses Internet sexual addiction, which is considered by some to be an emerging clinical disorder. The search for online pornography and chat rooms that cater to sexual conversations has become a compulsive addiction for a number of individuals. These people spend countless hours searching for, downloading, viewing, and exchanging explicit pornographic images or engaging in sexually enticing text communication while displaying some of the same behaviors and actions as other documented clinical disorders.

Part II is titled “Emerging Global Crimes of the Internet” and this section introduces readers to developing Internet crimes about which there is limited information. Some of the topics provide a glimpse into the growing trend of online pharmaceutical sales, fraudulent online pharmacies, and illicit cyber drug-dealing within the United States and abroad. In this section, readers also learn about consumer credit card fraud taking place in Ghana, a country located on the western coast of Africa, from a researcher who spent a semester in Ghana exploring how a third-world community uses Internet technology to commit consumer credit card fraud. Chapter 8 compares and contrasts traditional offline stalking with that of online cyberstalking, and identifies the challenges associated with regulating such behaviors in cyberspace. Chapter 9 gives readers a glimpse into the world of Internet gambling and, in par- ticular, the efforts of the federal government in the United States to sanction such activity. Chapter 10 discusses the role of Internet phishing, a technique used by scammers to gather personal information from their victims, typically by sending e-mails that purport to be from reputable companies or simulating legitimate Web sites. Chapter 11 introduces readers to an email scam that is neither costly nor sophisticated; yet, the scam remains the most ubiquitous and well known of all cyber crimes. Chapter 12 highlights how the Internet as the so-called “information superhighway” has made it faster and easier to steal personal information in comparison to the traditional “dumpster diving” method of stealing personal information than ever before.

Part III is titled “Criminological Perspectives on Cyber Crime.” Chapter 14, which is the first one presented to readers in this section describes the “Space Transition Theory” of cyber crime behavior. Chapter 15 applies Marcus Felson’s Routine Activity Theory (RAT) to Internet crime. RAT has been applied to most traditional crimes; however, the ability to “surf” the Web. Chapter 16 examines hacking activities from the perspective of the hackers them- selves and the neutralization techniques that they use to justify their actions. Chapter 17 that follows presents an insider’s look into the social organization of hackers’ culture. Chapter 18 explains how the explosion of digital media, coupled with the rapid development of high- speed computer networks, has resulted in a spike in piracy, allowing digital files to be distrib- uted illegally yet efficiently to millions of file sharers. Chapter 19 is unique in that it introduces readers to the highly organized, domestic, and transnational groups that compete to illegally amass huge quantities of digital media in the secretive online world known as, the Warez scene. These groups are considered responsible for the vast majority of illegal digital media available on the Internet. Chapter 20 discusses the impact of the Internet on traditional forms of crimes that do not entail the use of new technologies, an area that the author says has never been addressed in the social science literature. Chapter 21 approaches online gambling from

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that of its companion Chapter 9. Many see the virtual casino as liberating, and think that its lure of readily accessible 24-hours-a-day entertainment is not only highly desirable but also inevitable. Others see the virtual casino as embodying a multitude of dangers that will mag- nify the problems associated with conventional casino gambling while introducing new and perhaps, yet unimagined dangers to vulnerable populations.

Part IV highlights the challenges associated with “Investigating and Prosecuting Cyber Crimes.” Chapter 22 emphasizes how computer crimes are requiring law enforcement depart- ments and criminal investigators to tailor an increasing amount of their efforts toward suc- cessfully identifying, apprehending, and assisting in the successful prosecution of cyber crime perpetrators. The authors of Chapter 23 note that crime in cyberspace, like most tradi- tional crime, is about making money. They note that highly organized groups of cyber crimi- nals have successfully perpetrated large-scale raids on financial institutions across the globe, and that much of that activity originates in countries like China, India, Russia, Romania, and Latin America, which puts perpetrators out of reach of U.S. law enforcement agencies. Chapter 24 focuses on the understanding of, and issues surrounding the prevention, detection, and investigation of electronic crime. Chapter 25 identifies inadequacies associated with investigating and prosecuting online predators using traditional law enforcement techniques, yet it shows how the media has been effective in locating and apprehending sexual predators on the Internet using highly successful sting operations. The Internet has been a great vehicle for individuals involved in both financial fraud and child pornography. In prosecuting both types of cases, one of the most frequent evidence issues involves the right to search and seize a suspect’s computer. Chapter 26 answers this and other questions regarding prosecutorial limitations and proposed solutions to prosecuting Internet crimes. In recent years, the prolif- eration of crimes committed on the Internet or with the help of the Internet has forced politi- cians and policymakers to react with laws and policies that have attempted to reduce the incidence of such crimes. These topics are addressed in Chapter 27. Lastly, Chapter 29 emphasizes the importance of the exclusionary rule and the Fourth Amendment in electronic investigations. The courts’ assessment of electronic evidence (E-Discovery) and the guide- lines for E-Discovery are presented. The chapter also provides some explanation of the process of investigation of electronic evidence, types of electronic evidence, the analysis of electronic evidence, and the misconceptions of digital evidence.

Part V is titled “Cyber Terrorism: The ‘New’ Face of Terrorism.” The Internet has brought about revolutionary change, and one of the greatest changes has been the growing connectivity between all “corners” of the world. In many ways, this has provided new eco- nomic and social opportunities. There is also, however, a dark side to such enhanced connec- tivity. The Internet is an extraordinary medium for the advancement of terrorist ideology because it is relatively inexpensive and attracts a large audience. The Internet also provides an outstanding tool for communicating with current and potential group members. Finally, the Internet provides access to vital information that can be used to injure terrorist targets (like governments) or to collect reconnaissance information to plan attacks. With every passing day, the world becomes more dependent on the myriad of activities carried out via the Internet; yet terrorists have capitalized on that increased dependence in many ways. Consequently, cyber- terrorist activities hold the potential to be highly destructive. As this section shows, cyber ter- rorism is essentially the convergence of terrorism and cyberspace. Chapter 30 examines cyber terrorism, the potential impact of cyber terrorism as well as cyber terrorism prevention, and control. Finally, the author of Chapter 31 asks whether countries should create new laws to

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combat cyber terrorism or use existing laws since many statutes that have been created to com- bat terrorism include language that can be applied to cyber terrorism.

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

We would like to acknowledge the following individuals for their steadfast support, guidance, and patience throughout the production stages of this peer-reviewed, edited volume of origi- nal cyber crime articles. First, we would be remiss if we did not thank all of the contributing authors. Without them, we could have never produced a book of this caliber. We genuinely appreciate their commitment and dedication in seeing this project through from the beginning to the very end. Our sincerest gratitude goes out to each of them.

We would also like to thank those contributing authors who voluntarily participated in the peer review process: Ryan Baker, Indiana University; Wendy Cukier, Ryerson University, Canada; Laura Finley, Florida Atlantic University; Kelli Frakes, Eastern Kentucky University; Gilbert Geis, University of California–Irvine; Thomas Holt, University of North Carolina; Wilson Huang, Valdosta State University; K. Jaishankar, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India; Madhava Soma Sundaram, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India; Marc Ouimet, University of Montreal, Canada; Wayne Pitts, University of Memphis; Cliff Roberson, Washburn University; Marc Rogers, Purdue University; Cristina San Martin, Purdue University; Kay Scarborough, Eastern Kentucky University; Daniel Shoemaker, University of Detroit–Michigan; Orly Turgeman-Goldschmidt, Bar-Ilan University, Israel.

Finally, we would also like to extend our sincerest appreciation and gratitude to all of the wonderful and incredibly helpful and talented people at Prentice Hall, namely Tim Peyton, senior acquisitions editor, and Alicia Kelly, editorial assistant.

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About the Editors Frank Schmalleger

Frank Schmalleger, Ph.D., is Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. He holds degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Ohio State University, having earned both a master’s (1970) and a doctorate in sociology (1974) from Ohio State University, with a special emphasis in criminology. From 1976 to 1994, he taught criminology and criminal justice courses at the University of North Carolina at Pembroke. For the last 16 of those years, he chaired the university’s Department of Sociology, Social Work, and Criminal Justice. The university named him Distinguished Professor in 1991.

Schmalleger has taught in the online graduate program of the New School for Social Research, helping to build the world’s first electronic classrooms in support of distance leaning through computer telecommunications. As an adjunct professor with Webster University in St. Louis, Missouri, Schmalleger helped develop the university’s graduate program in security administration and loss prevention. He taught courses in that curriculum for more than a decade.

Frank Schmalleger is the author of numerous articles and more than 30 books, includ- ing the widely used Criminal Justice: A Brief Introduction (Prentice Hall, 2008), Criminology Today (Prentice Hall, 2009), and Criminal Law Today (Prentice Hall, 2006).

Schmalleger is also founding editor of the journal Criminal Justice Studies. He has served as editor for the Prentice Hall series Criminal Justice in the Twenty-First first Century and as imprint adviser for Greenwood Publishing Group’s criminal justice reference series.

Schmalleger’s philosophy of both teaching and writing can be summed up in these words: “In order to communicate knowledge we must first catch, then hold, a person’s interest—be it student, colleague, or policymaker. Our writing, our speaking, and our teach- ing must be relevant to the problems facing people today, and they must in some way help solve those problems.” Visit the author’s Web site at http://www.schmalleger.com.

Michael Pittaro

Michael Pittaro, MPA, is the Executive Director of the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Allentown, Pennsylvania. He is also an adjunct criminal justice professor with Cedar Crest College in Allentown, Pennsylvania. Prior to assuming his current position, Pittaro was the Chair of the Legal Studies Department at Lehigh Valley College, Pennsylvania. In addition to teaching, he serves as a criminal justice curriculum specialist for the Pennsylvania Department of Education’s Degree Granting Team and as a criminal justice subject matter expert for the Accrediting Council for Independent Colleges and Schools (ACICS), Washington, D.C. Most recently, Professor Pittaro’s criminal justice associate degree pro- gram, which he chaired, was ranked 16th in the nation in a June 2007 report titled “Top 100 Associate Degree Producers,” in the publication Community College Week, 19 (21).

Professor Pittaro is the recipient of numerous awards for his philosophy, style, and approach to teaching. He has twice been nominated for Who’s Who Among America’s

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Teachers (2006 and 2005), Madison’s Who’s Who Among Business Professionals (2007), a finalist in Career Education Corporation’s “Educator of the Year” (2006), the recipient of Lehigh Valley College’s VIP Award, and the Alpha Beta Kappa National Honor Society award for exemplary performance. In addition to serving on a number of local advisory boards, Pittaro also serves on the academic advisory boards for Career Education Corporation’s National Criminal Justice Advisory Board as well as Wadsworth Publishing’s National Career Education Criminal Justice Advisory Board.

Professor Pittaro holds a master’s degree in public administration (summa cum laude, 2000) and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice (Who’s Who Among Students in Colleges and Universities, 1989) from Kutztown University, Pennsylvania. He is presently a 4.0 doc- toral student and student ambassador enrolled in Capella University’s School of Public Safety where he is pursuing his Ph.D. in criminal justice.

Prior to teaching, he worked for the Northampton County Department of Corrections in Easton, Pennsylvania, where he served in a number of administrative roles, including time spent as the lead internal affairs investigator, inmate treatment division coordinator, criminal records administrator, and field investigations officer. He has nearly 20 years of professional field experience working with both juvenile and adult criminal offenders and victims. He has also served as a youth advocate and mentor, a group facilitator for sexual offenders, a drug and alcohol counselor, and most recently as a child custody supervisor Northampton County Pennsylvania’s Orphans Court.

Professor Pittaro has authored several journal articles and has contributed to several book publications. Most recently, he authored the nation’s first and only criminal justice “quick study” academic reference guide. In addition to coediting this particular volume, he also assisted the copyeditor in the final production stages of John Dempsey’s Introduction to Private Security text (Wadsworth, 2007); and is on the editorial board for the International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences. Professor Pittaro is a member of the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, the American Society of Criminology, and the Pennsylvania Association of Criminal Justice Educators.

Visit the author’s Web site at http://www.MichaelPittaro.com.

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P A R T I Online Predatory Child

Victimization and Exploitation

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Michael Pittaro Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse, Pennsylvania

Michael Pittaro, MPA, is the Executive Director of the Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse in Allentown, Pennsylvania, and an adjunct professor with Cedar Crest College’s (Allentown, Pennsylvania) Criminal Justice Department. Prior to assuming his current position, Pittaro was the Chair of the Legal Studies Department at Lehigh Valley College, Pennsylvania. He is the author of several publications, including the nation’s first and only criminal justice quick study reference guide, and has been the honored recipient of several awards for his teaching style and practice. Pittaro is the coauthor and editor of Crimes of the Internet and a member of the Editorial Board for the International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences. Professor Pittaro has nearly 20 years of professional criminal justice field experience. The holder of a mas- ter’s degree in public administration and a bachelor’s degree in criminal justice from Kutztown University, he is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in criminal justice from Capella University.

Abstract

The Internet is undoubtedly the most valuable technological resource available to millions of people across the globe. With a simple click of the mouse, one can retrieve information on vir- tually every topic imaginable in that the Internet gives users access to millions of personal and professional Web sites. By and large, Internet users enter cyberspace to conduct business, research information, and communicate with others in virtually every corner of the globe, but the Internet has a dark side. The search for pornographic text, videos, and images has become a compulsive addiction for many men and women who spend countless hours searching for explicit pornographic images or sexually engaging text communication. As a result, a new psychological disorder has emerged. Sexual addiction to the Internet has slowly emerged as a clinical disorder like any other addictive disorder that requires intervention and treatment. This paper will provide an in-depth analysis into an emerging addictive disorder that is diffi- cult to detect and challenging to control.

INTRODUCTION

As of February 2002, 54 percent of all Americans used the Internet on a regular basis, and more than half of all households in the United States had an Internet provider at home (Schneider 2003). The overwhelming majority of those who use the Internet use it for both legitimate, law-abiding personal and professional purposes. Most users could safely be identified and

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Sexual Addiction to the Internet: From Curiosity to Compulsive Behavior

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classified as recreational users, whereas a smaller population has recently emerged with questionable addictive behaviors and tendencies. Internet usage, in general, and the duration of time spent in Internet activities, in particular, is staggering (Cooper et al. 1999).

Without question, the Internet has become the most valuable technological resource since its conception. With a simple click of the mouse, one can retrieve information on virtually every topic imaginable. Over the past several decades, society has struggled to create an accu- rate definition that would help identify and describe pornography. In 1973, the United States Supreme Court in Miller v. California called for a definition of pornography based on the aver- age person applying contemporary community standards (Dilevko and Gottlieb 2004). The subjectivity and impermanence of this definition is perhaps best illustrated by Justice Potter Stewart’s famous comment in reference to pornography, “I know it when I see it” (Dilevko and Gottlieb 2004).

As described by Cooper et al. (1999), the amount of information available on the Internet is virtually limitless, and a sizeable portion of it is related to the topic of sex. Prior to the Internet, most individuals refrained from fully embracing pornography out of fear of public exposure and likely humiliation if one were to get caught in an adult bookstore renting X-rated tapes or any other adult sexual paraphernalia, or while going into an X-rated theater, especially alone (Philaretou 2005). According to Bissette (2004), 25 percent of total search engine requests are porn-related. Consequently, Internet pornography can be enjoyed in the comforts and anonymity of one’s home (Philaretou 2005). It is for this reason that the search for Internet pornography has become a compulsive addiction to millions, mostly men, who spend countless hours viewing, downloading, and exchanging explicit sexual images and movies, including child pornography. Stein et al. (2001) characterize this particular behavior as psychiatric in general, sexual pathology in particular.

Far worse than child pornography is the fact that the Internet has also become a fertile breeding ground for sexual offenders, specifically pedophiles, who use the Internet to prey upon the weak, vulnerable, and innocent. Sexual addiction to pornography crosses all demo- graphic boundaries regardless of one’s religious, racial, ethnic, or cultural background and experiences. Even though women do not represent a large segment of those labeled as com- pulsive, there is a growing interest in the number of women accessing the Internet, especially chat rooms, for sexual gratification. Unlike print, video, and film pornography, Internet sex can also be interactive through real-time exchanges of words and video pictures that are more enticing to the viewer (Schneider 2003). Some of the many advantages of the Internet are that it is widely accessible, inexpensive, legal, available in the privacy of one’s home, anonymous, and does not put the user at risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease or an unplanned pregnancy (Schneider 2003).

THE PORNOGRAPHY EMPIRE

One cannot address the issue of sexual addiction to Internet pornography without first having discussed the enormous wealth and profitability of the pornography empire. The adult enter- tainment industry generates an estimated $57 billion in worldwide revenue (Bissette 2004). Twelve billion dollars of which originates in the United States alone, more than all combined revenues of ABC, CBS, and NBC news affiliates (Bissette 2004). In fact, it is one of the fastest growing economies in the world with the porn industry making an estimated 6,000 movies

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a year and growing (Rice-Hughes 2005). The Internet pornography business, in particular, is alleged to have grown significantly since 1985 when its profits are believed to have exceeded $75 million to an estimated $665 million in 1996. In fact, there are an estimated 1.3 million pornography Web sites, and this number is continuing to grow at unprecedented rates each year, particularly amongst amateurs who post their sexual adventures on the Internet for the simple thrill and excitement of doing so (Rice-Hughes 2005). The search engine, Google, now examines over three billion Web pages with sex continuously being the most searched topic on the Internet (Cooper 2004). As one could imagine, the pornography industry, as a whole, con- sists of a vast empire that will continue to expand as more and more users access the Internet in search of pornography.

According to a massive study conducted by Comscore Media Metrix, 71.9 million people visited adult Web sites and viewed an incredible 15 billion pages of adult content in August 2005, reaching 42.7 percent of the Internet (Rice-Hughes 2005). The two largest indi- vidual buyers of bandwidth are firms in the United States’ adult online industry (Rice-Hughes 2005). By 1997, there were roughly 900 pornography sites on the Web. One year later, this number had grown to approximately 30,000, and is estimated to climb at an unprecedented rate to meet the needs and demands of Internet surfers (Stack, Wasserman, and Kern 2004).

THE ETIOLOGY OF SEXUAL ADDICTION

Before embarking on this research-oriented journey, one must be familiar with the etiology of sexual addiction and the behaviors associated with this disorder. Sexual addiction is a sub- category of Internet Addiction Disorder, a term that was first proposed by Dr. Ivan Goldberg to explain pathological, compulsive Internet usage (King 1996). It has been suggested that an Internet addiction disorder has similar features to that of a gambling addiction, and therefore, one must approach this problem in much the same manner as one would approach an addic- tion to gambling (Young 1996). One must be cognizant of the fact that it is not the technology that is addictive, but rather the behaviors being expressed when one uses the Internet for sex- ual purposes (Grohl 2005). According to Young (n.d.), Internet addiction, like many drug addictions, provide the euphoria that some individuals desperately seek to feel normal. Consequently, this behavior is often displayed in individuals who are depressed, anxious, or experiencing problematic relational issues.

Sexual addiction to the Internet, for the most part, has been under-researched, but it has recently gained the attention of criminologists and criminal justice practitioners (Seegers 2003). The question remains unresolved as to whether sexual addiction is a bona fide addiction like other addictive disorders such as substance abuse (Griffiths 2001). Some still approach the subject of sexual addiction to the Internet with a strong degree of skepticism and rightfully so. Therefore, it is important to look deeply into the etiology of addictive disorders to fully appre- ciate and understand the potential problematic behaviors that this disorder, like the others, has on individuals, the individuals’ families, community, and workplace (Seegers 2003).

As with any addiction, there are many plausible causes and explanations that may help to explain how someone becomes an addict. Addiction has been linked to biological, neuro- logical, and physiological factors, yet one’s peers, family, and community can also influence one’s decisions (Seegers 2003). Early literature in the sexual addiction field placed a heavy emphasis on the role of childhood maltreatment, mainly physical and sexual abuse, as the

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primary cause of most sexually addictive behaviors (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Sexual addiction to the Internet has since become widely recognized by clinicians in the fields of psychology, sexology, and psychiatry as a behavioral disorder warranting further review and investigation (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Today, there are many causal explanations for this type of behavior with the evidence suggesting a correlation between sexual addiction and many well-known disorders. For example, studies have shown that sexual addicts also suffer from obsessive-compulsive disorders (OCD), attention deficit hyperactivity disorders, bipolar disorders, anxiety disorders, brain injuries, hormonal abnormalities, chemical imbal- ances, endocrine abnormalities, diabetic hyperglycemia, hypoglycemia, or any combination of the aforementioned (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002).

Cooper et al. (2004) credit Young (1996) for being one of the first to write about Internet addiction as an emerging clinical disorder warranting further research. Over the past decade, there have been dozens of studies conducted with a few researchers becoming self-proclaimed Internet addiction experts. Cooper et al. (1999) were the first to conduct a large-scale study of online sexual activity. The results of this particular study are scattered throughout this chapter. The Cooper et al. study (1999) is considered by many to be one of the most detailed and widely cited articles written on the subject.

Sexual addiction to the Internet usually implies a psychological dependence on the Internet, typically for 11 or more hours per week, that is frequently characterized by an increasing investment of time, resources, and attention (Cooper et al. 1999). Like most addicts who are initially confronted by family and friends, most will deny that a problem behavior exists. Denial is a common characteristic that most sexual addicts display once exposed. One must be cautious in assigning this label to individuals who may be using the Internet for lengthy periods of time to complete legitimate personal or professional business. For exam- ple, an online student will typically spend more than 11 hours per week online to perform research and complete weekly assignments in a timely manner. However, if one begins to neglect family, friends, school, and work in favor of spending time online in search of pornog- raphy or sexually enticing communication, one may be labeled as a sexual addict, especially when the Internet usage causes significant problems in one’s life.

The attention that this disorder has received over the past few years has resulted in scholars and practitioners acknowledging that Internet sexuality can be pathological (Cooper et al. 1999). The other issue to emerge is the growing acceptance that the Internet invites sexual exploration through sexual fantasies that would otherwise be extinguished if it were not for reinforcement of the immediate feedback (Cooper et al. 1999). The Internet is appealing and attractive in so many ways, yet it is feasible for some to rely on it as the drug of choice to fulfill certain needs and expectations.

Cooper et al. (2004) are credited with first introducing the concept of the Triple A Engine. The Triple A Engine highlights three characteristics of the Internet that undoubt- edly explain its tempting influence over its users: accessibility, anonymity, and affordability. The Triple A Engine is said to turbocharge, that is accelerate and intensify online sexual activ- ity, and is believed to be the precursor to the new sexual revolution (Byers, Menzies, and O’Grady 2004). The anonymity coupled with easy access and affordability leads to a sense of freedom and disinhibition, which can enhance self-disclosure and a willingness to talk frankly about sexual matters in general, and sexual fantasies in particular (Byers, Menzies, and O’Grady 2004). Some people adopt a completely different persona since physical and emo- tional characteristics like attractiveness and shyness can easily be concealed in secrecy from

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other online users. For instance, some homosexual men reveal their sexual orientation first in cyberspace to test the reactions of others to the announcement before doing so in the real world (Byers, Menzies, and O’Grady 2004).

Expanding on the Triple A Engine approach, Griffiths (2000) suggested additional facets such as convenience, escape, and social acceptability must also be examined and considered as powerful lures to Internet sexuality. In particular, it is the social aspect of computer-assisted communication and the interpersonal exchange with others, which is so stimulating, rewarding, and reinforcing that some find it difficult to stop this type of behav- ior from continuing (King 1996). In addition to the chat room experience, the Internet users have access to an enormous amount of information to anonymously solicit and trade massive amounts of pornography (Cluff 2005). Like some other addictions, sexual addiction to the Internet is often held in secrecy from family and friends. In fact, nearly 70 percent of those who download pornography keep it a secret from family, friends, and intimate partners (Rice-Hughes 2005).

THE EMERGENCE OF THE NEW SEXUAL REVOLUTION

As alluded to earlier, more and more people are using the Internet as an alternative to venturing out into the traditional bars, single clubs, and dating services to meet other people (Cooper and Griffin-Shelley 2002). People are uninhibited by the Internet and, thereby, not afraid to reveal fantasy-laden thoughts over the Internet as would be the case in a direct, face-to-face interac- tion. In other words, the Internet brings out behaviors that otherwise would not be openly dis- cussed in most sexual relationships for fear of rejection or embarrassment. Unfortunately, the reference to the so-called sexual revolution has not yet been fully explained and lacks empiri- cal evidence to substantiate its claims (Byers, Menzies, and O’Grady 2004). Revolutionary radical changes for women are not expected since women do not use the Internet in the same large numbers and for the same purposes as men have shown to do in almost all studies conducted to date (Byers, Menzies, and O’Grady 2004). However, more than 80 percent of women who have this particular addiction will take this behavior offline and are more likely than men to act out these behaviors in real life, including having multiple partners, casual sex, or an extra-marital affair (Rice-Hughes 2005).

Definition of Internet Sexuality

Internet sexuality has been defined as the use of the Internet for any activity, including audio, text, graphics, or any other Internet medium that involves sexuality (Cooper et al. 2004). This definition also includes recreational use, entertainment, exploration, support around sexual concerns, education, purchasing sexual materials, trying to find sexual partners, and so forth (Cooper et al. 2004). Given that the Internet allows rapid access to sexual materials and even sexual partners, sexual behavior in this context is especially interesting to researchers who continue to focus on the uninhibited nature of Internet sexuality (Stein et al. 2001).

Cybersex is a subcategory often associated with any conversation pertaining to Internet sexual activity. The term has been repeatedly described as using the Internet to engage in sexu- ally gratifying behaviors (Cooper et al. 2004). This would entail looking at pictures and movies, and engaging in other sexually gratifying behaviors, including sexual chat communication,

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exchanging sexually explicit e-mails and files, and cybering (Cooper et al. 2004). Cybering is a term coined by Cooper et al. (2004) to describe the sharing of fantasies over the Internet, which entails being sexual together while one or more of those participants masturbate to the shared fantasy.

It is considered an addiction if the individual is obsessed with spending a great deal of time fantasizing, planning, or thinking about sexual behavior in pursuit of the perfect image, story, or erotic material that fulfills a favorite fantasy (Cooper et al. 2004). Fantasy, when cou- pled with online pornography, can produce a potentially dangerous situation, one in which intimacy can be superficially gained and wrongly substituted for actual intimate contact (Bloem 2005). With fantasy, one can imagine anything one likes, however unrealistic, without experiencing embarrassment or rejection or social or legal restrictions or consequences (Bloem 2005). Sexual compulsivity is often used interchangeably with sexual addiction. Sexual compulsivity, however, is defined as an irresistible urge to perform an irrational sexual act that may be difficult to discontinue without intervention (Cooper et al. 2004). Those who suffer from sexual addiction depict this type of behavior as being unmanageable, chaotic, relentless, and unstoppable (Birchard 2004).

TYPOLOGY OF CYBERSEX USERS

Cooper et al. (2004) divide cybersex users into three distinct types. The first type of cybersex users are the recreational users who search for sexual material or engage in sexual chat rooms on a casual, recreational basis. The second type is the sexually compulsive users who typi- cally have a prior history of past difficulties or challenges with sex or sexuality. And finally, the third type is identified as being truly at-risk, the most critical category of cybersex users. These are the individuals with no history of sexual problems and would be unlikely to develop a problem if not for the Triple A Engine of accessibility, anonymity, and affordability (Cooper et al. 2004).

Those who suffer from low self-esteem, a severely distorted body image, untreated sex- ual dysfunction, or a prior sexual addiction are more at risk of developing cybersexual addic- tions (Griffiths 2001). This is not meant to declare that people who suffer from these problems will become sexually addicted to the Internet. Even for those individuals who are confident and lack any known sexual behavior problems cybersex can be the first expression of an addictive disorder that is similar to the increased crack cocaine abuse by the previously occasional cocaine user (Griffiths 2001).

The at-risk groups are divided further into three subtypes: the stress-reactive, depres- sive, and fantasy types (Cooper et al. 2004). The stress-reactive type is one with a tendency to engage in online sexual behavior during times of high stress to escape or cope with sexu- ally stressful situations. The depressive subtype refers to individuals who are generally depressed, dysthymic, or anxious individuals who use Internet sexual behavior to bring about relief from the dysphoria. The final subtype is one that surfaced unexpectedly during the Cooper et al. study (2004). Individuals in this subtype use the Internet to engage in sexual activities that normally would not be encountered in real life. These individuals are more likely to experiment sexually online because users feel encouraged to engage in secret fantasies and validated by the acceptance received by the cyberspace culture (Cooper et al. 2004).

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Paraphilia on the Internet

According to Healey (2005), paraphilia is defined as sexual arousal through deviant means. Paraphilias run the gamut from the seemingly harmless fetishisms such as being sexually aroused by a woman’s feet to those that have been deemed criminal by society such as child pornography (Healey 2005). According to Healey (2005), the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, fourth edition, hereafter known as DSM-IV, depicts paraphilia as behavior characterized by recurrent intense sexual urges and sexually arousing fantasies. To be properly diagnosed, these urges and fantasies must last at least 6 months and involve nonhuman objects, the suffering or humiliation of oneself or one’s partner or children or other nonconsenting people (Healey 2005). There are so many paraphilias out there on the Internet that one could easily spend countless hours identifying and describing each one from amo- maxia, sex in a parked car, to Ylophilia, an arousal to forests. For the purposes of this project, it would be best to confine this discussion to only the most heinous paraphilias such as those that involve sexual arousal and violence.

There has been an enormous emergence of violent pornography over the past decade. Increased anonymity has surely led to an increased demand, making various forms of violent pornography more appealing and available than in past years (Cluff 2005). What is disturbing is that some viewers become desensitized to the violence and aggression being portrayed in the images; most of which are staged (Cluff 2005). As an illustrative example of classical condi- tioning, violence and sexual excitement become paired and reinforced (Cluff 2005). For some viewers, this may become the desired fantasy scenario required to achieve a sense of sexual gratification (Cluff 2005).

In addition to rape, torture, degradation, and mutilation, there is an increasing demand for snuff films that depict the victim being killed at the end of the sexual encounter (Cluff 2005). Whether snuff films are actually real or simply urban legend is not nearly as important as the increased interest people have shown in acquiring such films or images for sexual gratification (Cluff 2005). The Internet pornography industry continues to cater to the needs of its consumers by providing even the most abhorrent images and films that most could not even fathom, especially since there is an incredibly large demand for such graphic images.

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

According to Bissette (2004), 12 percent of total Web sites are pornographic. An astounding 100,000 of those Web sites offer illegal child pornography that has been estimated to generate nearly $3 billion annually even though child pornography is banned worldwide (Bissette 2004). A staggering 20,000 images of child pornography are posted on the Internet every week, and this figure is growing at an alarming pace (Rice-Hughes 2005). What is even more frightening is the demand for pornographic images of babies and toddlers on the Internet, a paraphilia that is soaring, and it should be noted that the images are more tortuous and sadis- tic than previously known (Rice-Hughes 2005). The average age of children being portrayed in these images is between 6 and 12 years; however, the profile is getting much younger as the demand for child pornography continues to mount (Rice-Hughes 2005). Moreover, more than half of the illegal sites are hosted in the United States.

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The average age of first Internet exposure to pornography is 11 years and the largest consumer of Internet pornography is the 12–17 age group (Bissette 2004). One study concluded that 66 percent of adult content sites visited displayed a warning that the site contained adult content, consequently 25 percent prevented users, whether accidental or not, from exiting the site, a strategy known as mouse trapping (Rice-Hughes 2005). According to information posted by Rice-Hughes (2005), one out of 33 youths was sexually solicited online and asked to either meet, call, or send pictures to a predator soliciting the minor, and only 25 percent of youth who were sexually solicited online told their parents. Children must be continuously warned of the dangers and risks of pornography and online chat discussions, even if the dis- cussion initially appears to be an innocent one. Sexual predators have been known to access chat rooms specifically in search of young children and adolescents for the sole purpose of soliciting these minors for sex.

Common sense should prevail in knowing that not every child exposed to Internet pornography will become a sexual deviant or sexual addict. This same argument is often applied to any child who is raised in a poor, inner-city neighborhood surrounded by crime. A child raised in this type of environment will not necessarily be drawn to a life of crime. There are definitely higher probabilities that one will succumb to the temptations of one’s social environment, but it should not be perceived as one’s fate. The best advice for parents would simply be to monitor and supervise their children’s online activities. It would be advis- able to err on the side of caution by an occasional visit to the child’s or adolescent’s computer. Privacy is important for an individual, even if that individual is a child; however, that privacy has limits in that certain conditions exist, and therefore, should only be permissible to a cer- tain degree. The child’s safety and security are paramount, and therefore, the child’s safety takes precedence over the child’s privacy.

Children and adolescents are not exempt from online sexual addiction. During childhood, a child’s brain is being programmed for sexual orientation. Exposure to pornography and unhealthy sexual behaviors may affect the child’s views of sexuality and sexual orientation (Rice-Hughes 1998). Pornography is believed to distort the normal personality development of a child by supplying misinformation about the child’s sexuality, sense of self and body, that sub- sequently leaves the child confused, changed, and emotionally damaged (Rice-Hughes 1998). If a child’s early stimulus for sexual release was pornography, that child can conceivably be conditioned to become sexually aroused mostly by pornography, especially if the experience is positively reinforced a number of times (Rice-Hughes 1998).

It cannot be emphasized enough that consistent exposure to pornography, especially for children and adolescents, can lead to distorted perceptions of sex and one’s own sexuality. In one study, adult male subjects were exposed to as little as 6 weeks worth of standard hard- core Internet pornography, which resulted in obvious distorted changes in sexuality perception (Rice-Hughes 1998). Rice-Hughes (1998) claimed that the male subjects developed an increased sexual callousness toward women; began to trivialize rape; developed an appetite for more deviant, bizarre, or violent pornography; and viewed nonmonogamous relationships as normal and natural behavior. Imagine the negative impact this same study would have if children and adolescents served as the study’s participants. Ethically, this could never be made possible, but the thought is frightening.

Even with the introduction of such stringent legislative acts as Megan’s Law and the Jacob Wetterling Sexually Violent Crimes Against Children Act, sexual predators continue to roam cyberspace relatively undetected in an effort to lure in unsuspecting, vulnerable victims,

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including women and children. Law enforcement agencies throughout the nation have created cyber crime units in pursuit of sexual offenders who have chosen to use the Internet as the weapon of choice. These units are not as effective and successful in apprehending offenders as one would hope. There is no denying that the number of offenders being caught in police sting operations across the nation has risen significantly, yet there are literally thousands who have gone and will continue to go undetected unless law enforcement efforts are intensified further.

In fact, many sexual predators have gone underground to form criminal subcul- tures that disseminate and exchange images, movies, and other pertinent, personal infor- mation on children and adolescent victims. There is no doubt that sexual predators have formed deviant subcultures that exist and operate outside the realm of the dominant cul- ture. Deviant subcultures affect individual behavior through shared values, norms, and beliefs (Stack, Wasserman, and Kern 2004). This problem is not confined solely to the United States but abroad as well. In fact, many foreign countries cater to these individu- als and are more than willing to sell or rent children for sexual purposes at a modest, nominal fee.

Visual Stimuli, Pornography, and Men

There is clear evidence that gender constitutes a definitive variable that distinguishes users of sexually explicit Internet sites (Cooper et al. 1999). As most would suspect, males account for an estimated two-thirds of Internet users (Cooper et al. 1999). Men frequent Internet sites daily and feel more competent and comfortable using the Internet when compared to women (Cooper et al. 1999). According to a 2001 Nielsen Netrating study, 158 million users had access to the Internet in 12 different countries. According to Cooper et al. (1999), men prefer accessing Web sites featuring visual erotica; therefore, downloading pornographic images to stimulate arousal is significantly higher for men than women. In reference to pornography, most men would prefer to surf the Internet for pornography from the comfort and perceived security of one’s home. For many men, access to Internet pornography aids in eliminating the fear of being seen at an adult bookstore, contracting a sexually transmitted disease from a stranger or a prostitute, or being rejected by one’s spouse or one’s partner (Griffiths 2001). This perceived fear of rejection may stem from an underlying problem with premature ejacu- lation, impotence, or any other embarrassing sexual dysfunction that some men may encounter (Griffiths 2001).

In addition to accessing pornography from one’s home, men will also surprisingly fre- quent pornographic sites during the course of a normal workday. In one study, 20 percent of men admitted to accessing pornography at work whereas an unforeseen 13 percent of women admitted to doing the same (Bissette 2004). It is readily apparent that society has become more tolerant of pornography and sex in general. Partial nudity, sexuality, and references to sex are consistently being displayed on television, even during prime-time hours in television sitcoms that often cater to adolescents. At times, it is difficult to determine what constitutes normal and abusive behavior in terms of pornographic consumption (Bloem 2005). In other words, how much is too much? It is truly difficult to answer this question because there are so many variables to consider.

From a feminist perspective, one would agree that one aspect of pornography is the obvious objectification of women. The literature has overwhelmingly supported the notion

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that exposure to Internet pornography objectifies women in a negative light. Women are perceived as being weak, vulnerable, and submissive. Rape is illustrated as being sexually arousing and inviting to women. Men are perceived as being virile, powerful, and dominating. According to Seegers (2003), men will often behave in ways that objectify the partners and minimize emotional involvement, whereas the women will often use sex as a way to gain power, control, and attention.

The Intimacy and Infidelity Issues Associated with Sexual Chat Rooms

Women prefer to enter chat rooms where the ongoing discussions provide social interac- tion and can assist in the development of intimate relationships. Women are less interested in visual pornographic stimuli in comparison to men and prefer discussions and fantasies displayed through written communication (Cooper et al. 1999). Chat rooms are ideal for the computer savvy woman because chat room activities can be concealed from one’s spouse or partner (Schneider 2003). This is worrisome to many mental health profession- als. This combined with the improbability of any local, real life repercussions for online social activity produces a new and poorly understood psychological phenomena whereby people, mostly women, feel free to express themselves in an unrestrained manner (King 1996). Very rarely does the chat room conversation leave an obvious trail of evidence of the sexual encounter; making it fairly difficult to retrace the online user’s infidelity (Schneider 2003). However, if one is exposed, the discovery of an online affair can be emotionally devastating to the spouse or partner. In fact, adults who have been surveyed perceive this type of infidelity as being similar to that of a real-life physical affair (Schneider 2003). In essence, the Internet allows users to play out hidden or repressed sexual fantasies with little fear of being caught. For the curious, cybersex offers a private, safe, and anonymous way to explore those sexual fantasies without the fear of rejection or embarrassment (Griffiths 2001).

There are many possible explanations for why women enter chat rooms. Loneliness and low self-esteem have been found to be correlated with sexual compulsivity in women, even for those actively involved in a relationship (Cooper et al. 1999). Internet addicts suffer from relationship problems in 75 percent of the cases studied and use chat rooms as a safe way of establishing new relationships and improving one’s self-esteem and confidence (Young n.d.). Women who engage in cybersex use the elusive chat room as a form of sexual expressionism (Cooper et al. 1999). This sexual expression can range from simple curiosity to obsession. According to McCormick and Leonard (1996), chat rooms are appealing to women because physical attractiveness, age, and disability can be hidden; sexual feelings and fantasies can be expressed without fear or rejection; and, computer romances have no physical boundaries. Women prefer cybersex because it removes the social stigma that women should not enjoy sex and it creates a safe environment for women to explore sexuality in new, uninhibited ways (Griffiths 2001).

What may take months or years to establish in an offline relationship may only take a few hours, days, or weeks online (Griffiths 2001). Cybersex enables women to take sexual risks that would unlikely be voiced or attempted in real life. However, when a female chooses

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to take the behavior offline, there is a tendency to engage in dangerous sexual activities with complete strangers, thereby increasing the risk of contracting a sexually transmitted disease, being exploited, or being abused (Seegers 2003). Another critical factor is that chat room’s disinhibiting effect is inherent in online activity (King 1996). Disinhibition is clearly one of the Internet’s key appeals as there is little doubt that the anonymity associated with the Internet makes people less inhibited (Griffiths 2001).

There can also be a voyeuristic aspect to cyberspace participation whereby individuals, men and women alike, can simply sit back and read the ongoing discussions in sexually ori- ented chat rooms (King 1996). The ability to witness others interacting in an uninhibited fashion is sexually stimulating and arousing to some men and women (King 1996). Voyeurism is a characteristic more likely to be expressed by males; however, some women may be attracted to the sexual excitement it provides. Voyeuristic peeping may be perceived as a way to observe what others are saying and doing in cyberspace before deciding on whether one should participate in the same discussion or create a new discussion to guide the conversation in another direction.

Physiological Explanations

Many mistakenly believe that one’s sexual desires and urges stem from one’s genitalia but the fantasy originates in one’s mind, specifically the brain since there is a biological, neurologi- cal, and physiological reaction to sex (Seegers 2003). There are chemical reactions that increase in the brain during sexual stimulation that often start with the simplest sexual fantasy. With continued exposure to pornography for sexual stimulation, the brain chemistry becomes altered, which then requires the individual to engage in compulsive sexual activity to reach the same euphoric high (Seegers 2003). It is very similar to the biological process of drug and alcohol addiction and the concept of tolerance. Tolerance occurs when a subject’s reaction to a drug or, in this case, pornographic visual stimuli decreases so that a larger quantity is required to achieve the same desired effect. One could say that a tolerance develops when heightened sexual behavior is needed to reach the climax that one wants to achieve through the desired activity.

From a biological perspective, testosterone levels are predictive of hypersexual behavior in men; therefore, it should come as no surprise that men are more than six times more likely than women to use cyber pornography (Stack, Wasserman, and Kern 2004). Nevertheless, atypical sexuality, including hypersexuality, has repeatedly been linked to closed head trauma as well as injury and disease that cause damage to the frontal and tempo- ral lobes of the brain (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Blanchard and Tabachnick (2002) claim that temporal lobe epilepsy has been repeatedly thought to be a causal factor in the development of certain paraphiliac sexual addictions. Brain damage or neuropsychological deficit is significantly associated with criminal sexual activity (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). For example, sexual serial killer, John Wayne Gacy, suffered from severe seizures as a child that were thought to have originated from a childhood accident in which Gacy sustained a head injury. In an older, but relevant study, abnormal readings of quantitative electro- encephalograms were found in 100 percent of sexual abusers (Corley et al. 1994). One would approach this study’s findings with a strong degree of skepticism since absolute findings are rare.

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Personality and Other Psychiatric Disorders

Research trends indicate that Internet addicts suffer from emotional problems, particularly depression and anxiety-related disorders. These individuals often use the fantasy world of the Internet to psychologically escape and, in a sense, cope with unpleasant feelings or stressful situations (Young n.d.). Psychological studies of pornography use have speculated that factors such as personality disorders like mood, anxiety, and depression may be related to compulsive Internet pornography use (Stack, Wasserman, and Kern 2004). This type of neurotic behavior can result in increased levels of anxiety or stress as one lives in constant fear of the behavior being discovered (Reece and Dodge 2004). The feeling of shame and guilt may intensify as the addiction affects the individual’s values, beliefs, and spirituality (Reece and Dodge 2004). Depression is likely to follow which creates further despair since stress and depression have been found to play a significant role in the development of pathological Internet use. The studies pertaining to depression and anxiety-related disorders suggest that this compulsive behavior may be related to psychological difficulties stemming from social isolation and lone- liness (Cooper et al. 1999). Consequently, engaging in Internet sexual activity may be used as an escape, distraction, or means of coping with uncomfortable feelings that arise from such stressful situations (Cooper et al. 2004).

CRIMINOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS

Behavior theory can be applied to the study of Internet addiction. It has often been referred to as the stimulus response approach to human behavior (Schmalleger 2005). When an individ- ual’s behavior results in rewards or positive feedback, or when the behavior is regarded as pleasurable and desirable, it is likely that behavior will be repeated via the concept of positive reinforcement (Schmalleger 2005). Viewing and downloading pornography becomes a plea- surable activity that invokes strong, positive feelings regarding one’s sexual feelings, desires, and urges. The same argument could be applied to Internet chat rooms since such avenues provide a positive outlet for many women who find the experience pleasing and rewarding. As applied to sexual addiction, this behavior is likely to continue because it has been posi- tively reinforced through past pleasurable experiences. Reinforcement is a powerful psycho- logical concept, and its application to the study of Internet sexuality is quite relevant.

If one were to apply the philosophy of the early classical school works of criminology theorists such as Beccaria and Bentham, one would speculate that human behavior could be viewed from a rational choice perspective. One of the major principles of the classical school is that human beings are fundamentally rational and most human behavior is the result of free will coupled with rational choice (Schmalleger 2005). Pain and pleasure are the two central determinants of human behavior. If the pleasure is greater than the pain, the behavior is likely to continue.

According to Bentham, who coined the term, hedonistic calculus, the value of any plea- sure could be calculated by its intensity, duration, certainty, and immediacy (Schmalleger 2005). Humans are inherently pleasure-seeking organisms and are likely to engage in activi- ties that maximize pleasure and minimize pain. The sexual pleasure that one receives from Internet pornography or chat room communication is immense, yet the risks associated with this particular addiction are minimal. It is likely that most sexual addicts will continue to

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engage in this type of behavior because of the pleasure and positive reinforcement that it produces to its users.

As applied to modern day theory, Cooper et al. (1999) cited three psychological reinforce- ments underlying Internet addiction. In short, the Internet can be used to meet and socialize with new people; establishing relationships or viewing pornography can be a sexually fulfilling expe- rience; and, the anonymity of the Internet allows one to create an imaginary persona (Cooper et al. 1999). In other words, the Internet allows people to live out unfulfilled sexual fantasies or sexual acts that typically would not be attempted in a real-world setting. It is a fantasy world where one can be virtually anyone else but him or herself and interact with anyone whether real or imaginary (Cooper et al. 1999).

Attachment Theory

Giugliano (2004) applied Bowlby’s attachment theory that was first introduced in the 1950s to the study of sexual addiction. Attachment theory has become increasingly popular among researchers and scholars (Giugliano 2004). Bowlby viewed attachment as a strong affectional bond between the primary caregiver and the child. If the bond did not exist or did not properly form, the maladjusted child would have unresolved emotional attachment issues as an adult (Schmalleger 2005). Alley (2005) contends that there is a connection between childhood trauma and sexual acting out where the adult may be trying to recapture, albeit destructive, feelings of belonging and love from the presexualization encounter. As with most addictions, there can be co-occurring disorders (Blankenship and Laaser 2004). Blankenship and Laaser (2004) claim that 97 percent of sexual addicts have experienced some type of emotional, physical, or sexual trauma in childhood or adolescence.

ADHD and Sexual Addiction

In 2002 and again in 2004, Blankenship and Laaser determined that there is a strong link between attention deficit hyperactive disorder (ADHD) and sexual addiction. For some of these individuals, sex becomes a form of self-medication, a term researchers refer to as hyper- focused hypersexuality (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). The impulsive nature of individuals suffering from ADHD may explain the acting out behavior and the compulsive nature of the addictive tendencies. The link between ADHD and other addictive, delinquent, and criminal behaviors has been the subject of many studies for several decades.

Depression

As has been repeatedly mentioned, the link between major depression and sexual addiction is incredibly strong. Major depression, according to Weiss (2004), is listed in DSM-IV-TR. The symptoms include a depressed mood, diminished interest or pleasure in activities, significant weight loss or gain, insomnia or hyperinsomnia, fatigue, feelings of worthlessness and guilt, diminished ability to think or concentrate, and recurrent thoughts about death (Weiss 2004). Depression can be successfully treated with proper medication, and if needed, psychological counseling.

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Bipolar disorder or manic-depressive illness is characterized by dramatic swings in mood from depressive to manic. Studies have consistently revealed elevated rates of addictive behaviors among bipolar patients, especially those with drug or alcohol addictions (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). For men, bipolar disorder typically emerges, on average, around the age of 18 when testosterone levels are elevated (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). In some cases, individu- als with any one of the aforementioned disorders have an inherent risk that this behavior may manifest itself to the point where one needs to act out the sexual fantasy in real life. Heasman (2005) found that sex offenders, like Internet sexual addicts, suffer from comorbid psychiatric disorders, specifically major depression along with a history of one or more anxiety disorders.

OCD

OCD is also linked to sexual disturbances and sexual disorders. For example, compulsive mas- turbation, exhibitionism, and other sexually addictive behaviors have long been associated with an OCD diagnosis (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). As with any diagnosis mentioned throughout this chapter, one should proceed with caution in assuming that individuals suffering from any of these disorders will engage in sexual deviancy or criminality. In fact, there have only been a small number of cases in which OCD, if left untreated, has caused an individual to drift into exploitive or criminal behavior (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002).

SOCIAL BOND THEORY

Hirschi’s social bond theory can also be applied to the study of sexual addiction to the Internet as to how some people may be more at risk of developing such behaviors. In short, Hirschi argued that through successful socialization, a bond forms between individuals and the social group (Schmalleger 2005). When the bond is broken or weakened, deviance and crime may result (Schmalleger 2005). For the purpose of this chapter, the discussion will pertain to the deviance aspect of Hirschi’s theory. Hirschi described four components of the social bond, namely attachment, commitment, involvement, and belief.

Taken individually, attachment refers to a person’s shared interest with others; commitment is the amount of energy and effort put into activities with others; involvement is the amount of time spent with others in shared activities; and finally, belief is a shared value and moral system. (Schmalleger 2005)

Those with the strongest bonds to conventional society will be less likely than others to become socially isolated and resort to compulsive Internet pornography and other sexually addictive activities for sexual gratification.

Hirschi’s social bond theory could easily be applied to contemporary studies of Internet addiction. Stack, Wasserman, and Kern (2004) found that the strongest predictors of use of Internet pornography were weak ties to religion and an unhappy marriage or relationship. Those individuals with stronger marital bonds were likely to refrain from such activity when compared to those individuals in an unhealthy relationship in which one or both partners are unhappy (Stack, Wasserman, and Kern 2004).

Sexually compulsive users, on average, are comprised of those people who have had past or present difficulties with sexual issues, yet find the Internet to be an effective venue by

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Intervention 17

which to pursue uninhibited sexual interests (Cooper et al. 2004). The Sexual Behavior Sequence is a social psychological model of the antecedents and consequences of sexual behavior that can be applied to conceptualizing experience with Internet sexuality (Fisher and Barak 2001). Further, it directly addresses the question of how the effects of experiences with Internet sexuality may influence an individual’s future sexual behavior (Fisher and Barak 2001). According to Fisher and Barak (2001), a positive outcome will strengthen the future likelihood of further contact with sexual stimuli on the Internet. This behavior may trigger overt experimentation with a partner in a real-life setting.

For example, if one continues to search for a particular sexual image that is especially arousing, that individual may want to experiment with a partner in the same manner. Fisher and Barak’s study (2001) cited an example of an individual who was sexually aroused by images of men ejaculating on the breasts of women. According to Fisher and Barak (2001), that individual may be inclined to ask a partner to act out that particular fantasy. The man will only approach the sexual partner if a positive response is to be expected. If the sexual sugges- tion is anticipated to invoke a negative reaction, the individual might choose to confine this covert fantasy to masturbating to pornographic images. The problem lies in the fact that some individuals, especially teenagers, may expect this type of sexual activity to take place outside of the cyberworld based on the duration of time spent viewing pornographic images and movies on the Internet. For those with limited sexual experience, pornography generates dis- torted perceptions between fantasy and reality, which could potentially lead to problematic behaviors, including those that violate the law.

INTERVENTION

There are several obstacles to intervening and treating this disorder. Finding a qualified mental health professional who acknowledges this condition and specializes in this type of treatment may be a cumbersome task to accomplish (King 1996). As mentioned, sexual addiction does not occur in a vacuum. Frequently, there are coexisting disorders or problems that also need to be addressed in therapy. Counselors who treat this condition should adopt a holistic approach to treating the entire person and the environmental variables that may play a significant role in the addiction itself. Those individuals who engage in online sexual activity may be suffering from a number of problems including, but not limited to, negative financial, legal, occupa- tional, relational, and personal issues that can easily escalate involvement in sexually deviant Internet behaviors (Cooper 2004).

Unfortunately, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders does not acknowledge pornography as an addiction with a primary diagnosis, yet it meets the criteria noted in the DSM-IV for other addictive disorders (Bloem 2005). Treatment for online sexual addiction is best when conducted with a multimodal approach that is similar to other non- chemical process disorders (Cooper 2004). To facilitate long-term changes in behavior requires ongoing treatment, such as individual or couples therapy (Cooper 2004). To effec- tively confront this disorder, Cooper (2004) recommends focusing on what is commonly referred to as the three R’s—relationship, resistance, and reality.

In short, individuals must work on identifying, tolerating, and processing intense emo- tions, including interpersonal issues such as trust, vulnerability, and intimacy (Cooper 2004). Couples are encouraged to strive for a deeper level of intimacy and strengthen the relationship

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through improved communication, increased honesty, and commitment to the ongoing problem (Schneider 2002). Group therapy is also an integral part of treatment because groups offer sup- port for changing behaviors 24 hours a day, and it provides an opportunity for the client to prac- tice new healthy behaviors (Cooper and Griffin-Shelley 2002).

At present, treatment for sexual addiction usually includes inpatient, outpatient, and aftercare support, and self-help groups (Griffiths 2001). Outpatient is the preferred treatment intervention, whereas inpatient treatment is reserved primarily for those with chronic, possibly criminal, sexual tendencies. Treatment may also consist of family counseling programs, sup- port groups, and educational workshops for addicts and families (Griffiths 2001). Treatment for online sexual addiction needs to be centered on breaking the denial and isolation frequently associated with the sexually addictive personality disorder (Cooper et al. 1999). This is illus- trated in a study whereby 92 percent of those surveyed felt that the compulsive online sexual behavior was not problematic (Cooper et al. 1999).

Women, for the most part, are often more difficult to treat because the addiction rarely has anything to do with sex itself, but is a desperate search for intimacy, love, touch, affirma- tion, and acceptance (Seegers 2003). Treatment is based more on emotional need or the lack of the aforementioned in one’s life. In the search for love, women often have sex with multi- ple partners; therefore, the shame of sexual addiction is greater for women than it is for men (Seegers 2003). Women are more likely than men to be labeled as promiscuous for engaging in such immoral acts that are shunned by society.

The efficacy of treatment must consider other co-occurring problems. Issues such as ADHD, generalized anxiety disorder, OCD, posttraumatic stress, dysthymia, major depres- sion, and bipolar disorder may have a significant impact upon the speed and quality of the addict’s recovery (Blankenship and Laaser 2004). It may be difficult to determine with true exactness which came first, the sexual addiction or one or more of the psychological disorders listed above.

The Application of the Behavioral Economics Model to Internet Addiction

If one were to view sexual addiction to the Internet from the Behavioral Economics Model, one could apply the economic law of supply and demand (Vuchinich 1999). There are very lit- tle constraints on access to Internet pornography with the exception of child pornography. Even though the availability of alternative activities exists, most sexual addicts choose to engage in online sexual activities at the expense of normal, healthy relationships. The Behavioral Economics Model claims that consumption is based on economic costs. Gaining access to the Internet is fairly inexpensive, making it extremely appealing to even those indi- viduals with limited incomes. The Internet is easily accessible and available wherever one travels, whether it be at home, work, school, or a public library for that matter. Therefore, it is relatively easy to access, and costs associated with Internet access are minimal at best.

Demand is the primary dependent variable in microeconomics and refers to the amount of a commodity that is purchased (Vuchinich 1999). Further, the basic demand curve plots con- sumption as a function of its price, and the general economic Law of Demand suggests an inverse relationship between consumption and price (Vuchinich 1999). The demand for Internet pornography is incredibly high therefore; distributors of pornography will provide a steady

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supply of licit and illicit pornography based on consumer demands. As mentioned, researchers have seen an increasing demand for child pornography and violent pornography that is particu- larly disturbing to most people. The pornography industry has repeatedly shown that it will pro- vide virtually any image, movie, or discussion if there is a demand for such material. For the consumer, Internet pornography is relatively inexpensive. The pornography business continues to thrive, and will obligingly vary the content of Internet sex Web sites to meet individual con- sumer demands and needs (Philaretou 2005). The opportunity and easy access to the Internet makes it very appealing to its users. Research into other socially acceptable but potentially problematic behaviors such as drinking alcohol and gambling has demonstrated that increased accessibility leads to increased regular use (Griffiths 2003). The increased usage may lead to an increase in problematic behaviors (Griffiths 2003). The Behavioral Economics Model can easily be applied to the study of sexual addiction to the Internet as it has shown that economics and behavior are key indicators of compulsive Internet usage.

The Use of Harm Reduction

Although not widely pursued in the United States, a more balanced approach to supply and demand reduction strategies has emerged in other nations employing harm reduction pro- grams (Tucker 1999). Harm reduction, as applied to sexual addiction to the Internet, could be used as a public health approach aimed at reducing the harmful consequences of this addictive disorder for both the user and the community (Tucker 1999). Any change in behavior that reduces harm or the risk of harm is encouraged and accepted; even if it falls short of absti- nence (Tucker 1999). Total abstinence is not the goal of any intervention used to control the compulsiveness of this particular behavior unless, of course, the behavior is criminal such as the downloading of child pornography.

It is essential that the treatment intervention employed resembles that of an individual who is dieting by reducing caloric intake. Like dieting, the goal is to reduce the compulsive behavior of its user. The traditional approach to substance abuse is quite different, whereas groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous (AA) or Narcotics Anonymous (NA) require its mem- bers to abstain from drinking alcohol or using drugs. Contrarily, sexual addicts are led back into a normal, healthy sex life much in the same way that those suffering from eating disorders must relearn healthy eating patterns (Griffiths 2001). It would be illogical for one to consider abstaining from sex since sexual desires and urges are inherent human qualities that cannot be discounted. Avoiding the Internet is also not a realistic option. Total computer abstinence would be difficult, if not impossible, to adhere to considering that the Internet is used both per- sonally and professionally in today’s technological age.

Eliminating Internet usage altogether is simply not plausible or realistic in today’s con- temporary society since there is a heavy reliance on Internet usage both at work and at home. According to King (1996), mental health professionals may want to recommend that the client create a calendar schedule to record one’s time online, which can be used to establish a baseline for the behavior and tracking recovery progress. In addition, King (1996) suggested that users could create a program that flashes a warning message at regular intervals, remind- ing the user to stop momentarily and evaluate whether continuing Internet activity is war- ranted or not.

Dr. Young suggests implementing a treatment program based on cognitive-behavioral techniques to achieve moderation and controlled use along with a comprehensive psychosocial

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approach to address the underlying problems. This could be illustrated using an analogy similar to that of controlled or moderate drinking as a viable alternative to abstinence. The debate over controlled drinking has stirred up quite a bit of controversy since it was first introduced in early 1960s when the prominent British physician D. L. Davies (1962) published a paper document- ing his observation that a percentage of patients in an abstinence-based program had come to drink innocuously (Westermeyer n.d.). According to Westermeyer (n.d.), it was not until Mark and Linda Sobell’s study of chronic male alcoholics gained international attention in the late 1970s that this idea was revisited as a treatment alternative to the large majority of problem drinkers that are not dependent on alcohol. The same argument could be applied here as well. The objective behind harm reduction is to reduce the harmful consequences for the user and the community, and any change that reduces harm or risk of harm is encouraged and accepted, even if it falls short of abstinence (Tucker 1999). The goal is to reduce the compulsive behavior of sexual addicts who use the Internet for sexual gratification.

THE PUBLIC HEALTH APPROACH TO AWARENESS AND EDUCATION

The public health perspective often utilizes policies and programs already in place and approaches the issue of prevention through a multidisciplinary scientific approach (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). To begin, there must be a mature national public dialogue on issues of sexuality, sexual health, and responsible sexual behavior (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Society has often viewed sexuality as a taboo subject to avoid discussing at all costs. To com- bat the problems of sexuality, and sexual addiction in particular, society must call on all indi- viduals, communities, the media, private businesses, and the government from local to national to assist in prevention and education efforts (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Blanchard and Tabachnick (2002) suggested that education must begin by increasing public awareness of sexual health and responsible sexual behavior. Responsibility must include pro- viding the intervention necessary to promote sexual health and responsible sexual behavior (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). Blanchard and Tabachnick (2002) also suggest investing in scientific research related to sexual health and disseminating those findings both in and out of the world of academia.

Blanchard and Tabachnick (2002) recommend that early detection, diagnosis, and viable treatment options are essential to the public health perspective. Society must recognize the early warning signs and intervene before any harm is done. Reducing harm through the harm reduction philosophy of the public health perspective is a key ingredient to awareness and education. Those in the sex abuse and sex addiction treatment fields must unite and orchestrate a grassroots educational approach in which these issues could be addressed in the schools, with parent groups, with health care professionals, and with civic organizations (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002).

There is an undeniable need to create an environment that would encourage and invite families and individuals who have been affected by this disorder to come out, speak publicly, and provide awareness regarding this disorder. Those who work in the sexual addiction field must initiate collaboration with the various educational organizations to broaden the existing knowledge of the medical, psychological, and environmental factors that give rise to inappro- priate sexual behaviors (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002).

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Social Repercussions 21

The public need to be educated as to the dangers of the Internet, especially for those individuals who are at risk for developing online sexually compulsive behavior (Cooper et al. 1999). Programs are needed to help individuals develop healthy sexual self-esteem and behaviors, especially the disenfranchised populations such as those who are physically unat- tractive or emotionally insecure, who may struggle with sexuality issues (Cooper et al. 1999). As mentioned, there are coexisting problems or co-occurring psychiatric problems that must be addressed to reduce the harm being done to the individual as well as to the community.

It would also be helpful if the Internet service providers and major providers of online adult entertainment posted warnings about the potential negative effects of online sexual pur- suits (Cooper et al. 1999). Surprisingly, the adult entertainment industry has been very respon- sive to public opinion and pressure and has been supportive of Web site monitors like CyberNanny and the requiring of credit card numbers to access certain Web sites (Cooper et al. 1999). One would think that the adult entertainment industry would be resistant to such sug- gestions but the industry has been very receptive to the implementation of warnings and other attempts to block children and adolescents from accessing adult content sites, specifically those pornographic Web sites that may be emotionally traumatizing to this segment of the population.

It is imperative that mental health professionals and others identify those who may be at risk. By adopting a public health approach to sexual addiction, researchers can understand how to address societal factors and social norms that discourage most from discussing sexual behavior, especially unhealthy sexual behaviors that can possibly be treated and managed (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002). There must be a willingness to start providing awareness and education to the public about the possible dangers of the Internet, specifically the dangers of pornography and the lure of chat rooms.

SOCIAL REPERCUSSIONS

Sexual addiction to the Internet can have a profound effect on family and friends. In particu- lar, partners may feel lonely, ignored, unimportant, neglected, and obviously, angry because the user spends an inordinate amount of time online (Schneider 2003). The couple’s sexual relationship may also suffer because the user views and downloads images and movies of sex- ual behaviors that are often hidden from one’s spouse or significant partner. These images and movies take the place of healthy relational sex. Schneider (2003) cited a study in which divorce and separation were two of the unfortunate consequences of a sexual addiction to pornography, including the use of sexually intimate chat rooms.

Many users feel a sense of distrust and betrayal when the partner discovers an online romance. Even though actual physical encounters rarely occur between the two users, there is an elevated level of intimacy that is revealed and the sexual fantasies can escalate to the point of mutual masturbation amongst the cybersex users. The intensity of the sexual addiction may adversely affect the sexual relationships between couples. In a recent study, 68 percent of the study’s respondents, either one or both partners, reported having infrequent sexual relations or lost interest in sexual relations altogether (Schneider 2003). Some of those cited in the Schneider study (2003) were labeled as sexual anorexics because Internet sex was substituted for relational sex. This is clearly an indication that a problem behavior exists and must be con- fronted to save the relationship.

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Whitty’s study (2003) supported the hypothesis that women were more likely than men to perceive online sexual behavior as violations of fidelity. An unhappy marriage does not necessarily mean that sexual deviance is likely to emerge. However, there is strong evidence of a correlation between marital happiness and sexual addiction. Those who were unhappy or unsatisfied in an existing relationship are more at-risk of engaging in sexually explicit chat room conversations and more inclined to take that relationship to an offline sexual encounter. Those who suffer from sexual addiction to the Internet may jeopardize family and marriage relationships and job performance (Seegers 2003).

INTERNET PORNOGRAPHY AND THE WORKPLACE

According to the research, 30–40 percent of employee Internet activity is nonbusiness- related, costing millions of dollars in productivity loss (Bissette 2004). Nearly 70 percent of all Internet pornography traffic occurs during the typical nine-to-five workday (Bissette 2004). These individuals recognize the consequences of the behavior but most are unable to control this compulsive behavior without receiving appropriate treatment intervention (Seegers 2003). It takes a very daring person to view and download pornography at work. The risk of detection is high and the penalties may be severe, including termination.

According to Cooper (2004), the increasing use of the Internet in the workplace provides a brand new avenue for the availability, spread, and distribution of sexually related material and its consumption by employees with jobs that require online access. In a 2002 study, almost 20 percent of the 40,000 adults surveyed reported engaging in online sexual activity while at work (Cooper et al. 2002). This study corroborates data from other sources that adult content sites are astonishingly the fourth most visited category at work (Delmonico, Griffin, and Carnes 2002).

Cybersexual Internet abuse is a term coined by Griffiths (2003) which involves the abuse of adult Web sites for cybersex and cyber porn during work hours. It includes conven- tional soft-core Web sites like Playboy and unconventional Web sites that consist primarily of hard-core pornography (Griffiths 2003). In addition to the above, there are also pornographic picture libraries, videos, video clips, live strip shows, live sex shows, and voyeuristic Web cam sites that can easily be accessed while at work (Griffiths 2003).

LEGAL RAMIFICATIONS

In an attempt to curb the number of adults, mainly men, who are viewing, downloading, and trading child pornography, law enforcement is continuously fighting back. Law enforcement has responded by establishing controversial sting programs offering child pornography and a chance to meet children to gullible Americans, many of whom have never been in any prior legal trouble (Cooper 2004). The Communications Decency Act, enacted as part of the Telecommunication Act of 1996, criminalized the knowing transmission of obscene or inde- cent messages or images through telecommunications to recipients under age 18 (McCarthy 2005). This is just one of the many legislative acts passed in recent years to combat the prob- lem of child pornography and solicitation over the Internet.

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There are several other legislative acts worth mentioning briefly that have had a signifi- cant role in protecting children and adolescents of the dangers of Internet activity. The Children’s Internet Protection Act of 2000 focuses on the recipients rather than the senders of transmission. It requires public libraries and school districts receiving federal technology funds to implement Internet safety procedures, specifically filters that protect against harmful images (McCarthy 2005). The Child Online Protection Act has generated the most litigation because it prohibits content harmful to minors under age 17 from being distributed for commercial pur- poses through the Internet (McCarthy 2005).

The Supreme Court decision in Ashcroft v. ACLU was a major disappointment to antipornography groups and a win for the adult pornography empire since the power and pro- tection of the First Amendment remains somewhat elusive (McCarthy 2005). The United States Supreme Court ruled that the government’s attempt to restrict access to online pornogra- phy is too restrictive. One has to question whether America’s forefathers intended to protect sexual deviants and predators under the First Amendment’s protection of the right to freedom of religion and freedom of expression from government interference. The Supreme Court has struggled with the intent of the First Amendment’s right to freedom of speech, a clause that allows individuals to express themselves without interference or constraint by the government.

It is difficult, if not impossible, to adequately monitor or regulate the Internet effec- tively; therefore, one cannot accurately understand the negative impact that society will expe- rience (Cluff 2005). To complicate matters further, those with the potential for developing deviant interests and sexual addiction have access to more sexually explicit, violent, and even illegal materials without ever having to leave the comfort of one’s home (Cluff 2005). The anonymity of the Internet allows one to accumulate and trade mass amounts of pornography. Unlike a substance abuse addiction, there is a steady, constant supply of pornography that one could obtain relatively cheap and with minimal risk. The global nature of the Internet has cre- ated considerable challenges for the various law enforcement agencies throughout the world who desperately need to unite in a cooperative effort to effectively monitor Internet activity (Philaretou 2005).

Even after the behavior is exposed, the person being questioned will typically deny that the behavior is problematic. If the material being downloaded or shared with others is illegal, there could be numerous legal implications that follow. There may be a loss of professional status or licensure (Reece and Dodge 2004); however, the ultimate fear and the most likely to occur if one is downloading child pornography would be imprisonment. The downloading of illegal material, specifically child pornography, is likely to result in a sentence of imprison- ment. Those who are sent to prison for child pornography are perceived by the inmate popu- lation to be child molesters even though that individual may not have had direct contact with a child. Child molesters are even loathed in prison and must be segregated from the general inmate population for fear of being victimized.

Unfortunately, treatment in prison is often confined to confrontational therapy, which, according to Williams (2004), may be ineffective or counterproductive to treating sex offend- ers. Despite its popularity, the confrontational approach has a damaging effect on individuals and it does not encourage change (Williams 2004). The scare tactic of confrontation therapy is to get the offender to admit to the crimes and accept responsibility for those actions. Coercion and other forceful acts may be effective in getting a confession or admission but this approach is not effective in producing positive change in this type of offender.

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24 Chapter 1 Sexual Addiction to the Internet

INCARCERATION

Incarceration is only a temporary solution to a societal problem that is growing at an alarming rate. The literature strongly suggests that sexual offenders have compulsively used pornogra- phy to stimulate deviant sexual fantasies. For some, the fantasy may not be enough to satisfy the insatiable sexual appetite or other compulsive behaviors. These individuals may act out the fantasies if the conditions are right and the intended victim meets the role of the fantasized victim. If one were to use an analogy, incarceration is like putting a band-aid on a serious wound. It may be effective in the short term but unlikely to do the job in the long term. American society has concentrated all of its efforts on managing sexual offenders who have already been caught and subsequently convicted and sentenced to prison. However, to truly move forward, society must change the way it thinks about sexual abuse and addiction, and expand efforts to address this epidemic (Blanchard and Tabachnick 2002).

DISCUSSION

To respond compassionately and effectively and to assist the sexual addict in recovery, pro- fessionals must set aside personal biases and judgments and treat this problem as a clinical disorder. The stigma, specifically shame and guilt, that accompanies behaviors of this kind make it difficult for people to come forward on their own accord. By providing a respectful, caring, and safe therapeutic environment where one might feel comfortable in revealing and examining those hidden secrets, further exploitation can be prevented. The first step starts with society accepting that discussions about sex and sexual behavior are vital to addressing the issue headfirst. Prevention and intervention are critical ingredients to the successful treat- ment of sexual addiction to the Internet. The updated Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is due to be released in 2011. Until that time, sexual addiction to the Internet will continue to be viewed as a problem issue, not necessarily a recognizable addic- tion. The society should take a proactive rather than a reactive approach to the problem before the problem escalates to one of epidemic proportions.

Law enforcement, policymakers, and political legislators are struggling to respond to fears of new forms of sexual violence via the Internet. These emerging scenarios include online harassment, cyberstalking, cyber peeping, rape Web sites, child seduction, cybersex with minors, child pornography, male violence, and online pedophilia (Cooper 2004). These challenges are not new but the Internet has made it easier to access such material and signifi- cantly lowered the risk of detection, apprehension, and prosecution. The Internet has become the new playground for the child molester. All one needs is access to the Internet and every- thing imaginable is virtually at one’s fingertips.

In summary, anything that can safely, quickly, and completely satisfy such basic human desires is bound to be addictive to some (King 1996). Further empirical evidence is warranted that would hopefully yield more promising results into intervention strategy suggestions and alternative viable treatment options that are inexpensive, yet effective. The Internet is one of the most resourceful pieces of technology to have ever been created by humankind but it also has a malevolent side that cannot be discounted. The problems associated with sexual addic- tion to the Internet might grow exponentially as technology becomes more sophisticated than humankind has ever imagined.

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Whitty, M. T. 2003. Pushing the wrong buttons: Men’s and women’s attitudes toward online and offline infidelity. CyberPsychology and Behavior 6 (6): 569–79.

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28

K. Jaishankar Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India

Debarati Halder Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India

and

S. Ramdoss University of Madras, India

Dr. K. Jaishankar is a lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, India. He is the founding editor in chief of the International Journal of Cyber Criminology, the founding editor of “Crime and Justice Perspective”—the official organ of the Criminal Justice Forum (CJF), India, and the founding managing editor of the International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences. He serves in the international editorial boards of Journal of Social Change (U.S.), Electronic Journal of Sociology (Canada), Crime, Punishment and Law: An International Journal (U.S.), Journal of Physical Security (U.S.), and Graduate Journal of Social Science (UK). He is the national focal point for India for the International Police Executive Symposium’s working paper series and Expert of World Police Database at www.coginta.com. He is a coinvestigator of the International Project on Cyber Bullying funded by SSHRC, Canada, involving eight countries, along with the principal investigator Dr. Shaheen Shariff, McGill University. He is a pioneer in developing the new field Cyber Criminology and is the proponent of Space Transition Theory, which gives an explanation for the criminal behavior in cyberspace. He is a recognized expert in the field of cyber criminology and invited by various universi- ties in the United States to deliver lectures on his Space Transition Theory of Cyber Crimes. His areas of academic competence are cyber criminology, crime mapping, GIS, communal violence, victimology, policing, and crime prevention.

Ms. Debarati Halder is a lawyer. She is presently a research assistant in the International Project on Cyber Bullying in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, India. She received her LLB degree from the University of Calcutta and master’s degree in International and Constitutional Law from the University of Madras. Her research interests include constitutional law, cyber laws, international law, and international criminal justice.

Dr. S. Ramdoss is a lecturer in the Department of Criminology, University of Madras, Chennai, India. Ramdoss’s areas of interest are Victimology and Correctional Administration, and he specifically focuses on the bonded labor victims in India. He holds a master’s and a Ph.D. degree in criminology from the University of Madras. He was awarded the prestigious UGC Junior Research Fellowship for his doctoral research. His doctoral dissertation is in the field of victimology with special reference to victim- ization of bonded laborers in tobacco industries. He is a Life Member of Indian Society of Criminology and Indian Society of Victimology.

Chapter 2

Pedophilia, Pornography, and Stalking: Analyzing Child Victimization on the Internet

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Introduction 29

Abstract

Children have always been vulnerable to victimization. Their trusting nature and naiveté make them perfect targets for perpetrators—both people they know and whom they don’t. Today, an estimated 10 million children are using the Internet. With so many children online, today’s predators can easily find and exploit them. For predators, the Internet is a new, effec- tive, and more anonymous way to seek out and groom children for sexual activity. Before the Internet came along, pedophiles were lonely and hunted individuals. Today, networks of child abusers are proliferating worldwide. Child victimization on the information superhighway or Internet is escalating at an alarming rate. Many children are being sexually exploited/solicited by individuals who are using the online services as their new playgrounds. There are many reasons for this increase, and some of these are discussed in this chapter. Also analyzed in this chapter are the three types of crimes being committed against children using the online ser- vices (i.e., pedophilia, child pornography, and stalking), and the ways through which children can lower the risk of becoming victimized while online.

INTRODUCTION

The development of the Internet has been called the most profound change in the way we communicate since the invention of the printing press. Users can access an almost limitless array of rewarding content at the click of a mouse. Familiarity with this technology is vital to our children’s future. For today’s children to lead tomorrow’s world, they must acquire the skills to access the enormous benefits of the Internet, safely. It is especially important that they develop key job skills and an awareness of the increasingly global community. The Internet can empower children, giving them the ability to communicate and share ideas and information on a worldwide basis (Aftab and Polly 1997).

As wonderful as the future of the Internet may be, the extensive media coverage of various “potholes” on the information highway is not an exercise in fiction—there are problems, which cannot be swept under the rug. These problems must be addressed squarely in order to protect our children and maximize the potential of the Internet (Aftab and Polly 1997). While the World Wide Web has made the world shrink, it has also made it more dangerous for children. While we should encourage our children to take advantage of the benefits of the Internet, we must also ensure that they are aware of the dangers and that we take the necessary steps to protect them.

Millions of children are online, either in their own homes, in public libraries, in schools, or at a friend’s house. When children who return from school find that there’s nobody in their house, they may turn to the Internet as much as they used to turn on the television. They may not feel any threat by talking to someone online, and after a few weeks or months of commu- nication, they are not strangers any more. The Internet is not governed by anyone, and it does not respect any global boundaries. This makes it difficult to police. Experienced users can operate with virtual anonymity, although law enforcement in some parts of the world is strug- gling to find out the original identity of the users. Those countries have recognized this new form of child sexual exploitation and have begun to dedicate the necessary resources and attention to this growing problem (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime 2000). Although there have been some highly publicized cases of abuse involving the Internet and online services, reported cases are relatively infrequent. Of course, like most crimes against

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children, many cases go unreported, especially if the child is engaged in an activity that he or she does not want to discuss with a parent (Armagh 1998).

The potential dangers facing children on the Internet (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime 2000) are:

1. Children may be exposed to inappropriate material that is sexual, hateful, or vio- lent in nature, or encouraged to take up activities that are dangerous or illegal (e.g., there are sites that instruct people how to build pipe bombs);

2. Pedophiles may “meet” a child online through e-mail, bulletin board systems (which are the most popular source of child pornography), and chat rooms. They gain a child’s confidence and then arrange a face-to-face meeting. They target kids who are lonely or having trouble at home (just as they do in the real world; Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime 2000);

3. Children may not feel threatened talking to someone online, and after a few weeks or months of communication, they are no longer strangers. The young person may feel comfortable and provide personal information. If they send a photo, the preda- tor may alter or “morph” it to put the child into explicit positions and use it as blackmail (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime 2000);

4. Internet provides an underground market for child pornography;

5. Adults who normally would not actively seek child pornography may become interested through the easy access of the Internet;

6. Pedophiles will share methods and means to reduce a child’s inhibitions and facil- itate exploitation;

7. The Internet can be used to facilitate the sex trade/tourism. Web sites offer infor- mation about locations of places/countries to go where laws protecting children from sexual abuse may be lax or not be enforced;

8. Children may be “stalked” or harassed on the Internet through unsolicited e-mails, mail bombs, spreading of rumors, negative Web pages, impersonation of victim, providing personal information online, etc. In one reported U.S. case, a man posted the name and number of a 9-year-old girl on the Internet saying she wanted to have sex. In another case, a man impersonated a woman and posted her name and address saying she wanted to be raped—six men showed up at her door in the middle of the night (Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime 2000).

Child Victimization on the Internet

Child victimization on the Internet is escalating at an alarming rate. Many children are being sexually exploited/solicited by individuals who are using the online services as their new playgrounds (Zwicke 2000). In this chapter, child victimization on the Internet is analyzed under three types:

1. Pedophiles: Individuals who sexually exploit/solicit children.

2. Child Pornography: Mostly involves adults getting kids involved in child pornog- raphy or distributing pornography to minors.

30 Chapter 2 Pedophilia, Pornography, and Stalking

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Pedophilia 31

3. Stalkers: Individuals who become obsessed with another individual and they fol- low their victim from board to board, seeking and compiling various information that their victim may have posted on the boards, with the intent to locate personal information on their victim such as address, telephone number, date of birth, or the city/state in which they live. They then use this information to harass, threaten, and intimidate their victim both online and offline (Zwicke 2000).

PEDOPHILIA

Computer technology and the Internet enable pedophiles to locate and interact with other pedophiles more readily than ever before. Although pedophiles luring kids on the Internet is a horrifying problem, the long-term organizational aspects are more terrifying. The common meeting place and the resultant support child predators provide to each other is probably their most significant advantage—and the most troublesome for a concerned public. The computer, a common household fixture, is now a place where pedophiles can go to hear others say, “You’re okay and what you’re doing is okay; don’t listen to the rest of the world, just listen to us.” The ability to receive and offer comfort within the support of their like-minded group reinforces pedophiles with the belief that their attraction to children and adult–child sex are an acceptable way of life (Mahoney and Faulkner 1997; Carr 2003; Krone 2005).

With the advent of the Internet, pedophilic activity has exploded. Pedophiles could use their own computers to make instant copies of pictures grabbed from an Internet club on a Web site located in, say, Moscow and send them to like-minded friends around the world (ECPAT 2004). The Internet has been transformed in recent years into a big store where pedophiles and voyeurs can look or shop around for “articles.” They can go to Web sites for the provision of photos and films; to newsgroups for the sharing of mailing lists and URLs (the link to a partic- ular Internet site); to Internet Relay Chats (IRCs) in order to identify, groom, and approach children; and to systems of instant messages. These are enhanced through encrypted plug-ins (software that adds extra features to these programs; ECPAT 2004).

Men who had fantasies that they were once ashamed to admit or afraid to act upon now found a “community” online clubs and chat rooms devoted to preteen sex. Via the Internet, they could enter a home, introduce themselves to children, and carry on a long process of seduction (Nordland and Bartholet 2001a, b; ECPAT 2004). Pedophiles may use the Internet for a variety of reasons, including validation (communication with like-minded people), to find potential victims, and to trade child pornography. Pedophiles who use the Internet to search new victims may be the predatory type, who have above-average intelligence and have the economic means to operate the Internet (Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention 1999). Many pedophiles never act on their urges, while others commit acts of cru- elty that are, simply, unthinkable (Nordland and Bartholet 2001a, b).

The Internet allows pedophiles the following (Mahoney and Faulkner 1997; ECPAT 2004):

• Instant access to other predators worldwide;

• Open discussion of their sexual desires;

• Shared ideas about ways to lure victims;

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32 Chapter 2 Pedophilia, Pornography, and Stalking

• Mutual support of their adult–child sex philosophies;

• Instant access to potential child victims worldwide;

• Disguised identities for approaching children, even to the point of presenting as a member of teen groups;

• Ready access to “teen chat rooms” to find out how and who to target as potential victims;

• Means to identify and track down home contact information; and

• Ability to build a long-term “Internet” relationship with a potential victim, prior to attempting to engage the child in physical contact (Mahoney and Faulkner 1997).

How Do They Operate?

a) Many of the offenders sign on the services giving false personal information.

b) Seek child/teen victim in the kid’s areas on the services, such as the Teens BB, Games BB, or chat areas where the kids gather.

c) Make contact through e-mail.

d) Befriend child/teen.

e) Extract personal information from child/teen.

f) Write sexually explicit e-mails to the child/teen.

g) Set up a “meet”—molest child/teen (Zwicke 2000; Taylor and Quayle 2003).

Many pedophiles will also make telephone contact with the victim, usually by having the child call so that his telephone number don’t show up on the parents’ bill (Taylor and Quayle 2003; Smith, Grabosky, and Urbas 2004). Two main reasons why they want telephone contact are

a) To engage the child in “phone sex,” and

b) To make sure that they are communicating with a child and not with a law enforce- ment agent.

Child predators are forming an online community and bond that is unparalleled in history. They are openly uniting against legal authorities and discussing ways to influence public thinking and legislation on child exploitation. While pedophile Web sites are being tracked down and removed from the Internet servers in countries all over the world, they are still easily finding ways to post Web sites, Webrings, forums, and chat rooms. Recent online topics have even focused on fund-raising efforts and plan to purchase a dedicated server for their Web sites. It is easy to find and read messages between pedophiles supporting adult–child sex. It is also increasingly common to observe pedophiles in chat rooms pro- moting one another to move forward with advances on new victims and their families, in what they define as “loving relationships.” The advancement of Internet technology allows pedophiles to exchange information about children in an organized forum. They are able to meet in “online chat rooms” and educate each other. These online discussions include shar- ing schemes about how to meet, attract, and exploit children, and how to lure the parents of their victims into a false sense of security about their presence within the sanctity of the

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Pedophilia 33

family structure. It has become an online “How To” seminar in pedophilia activities (Mahoney and Faulkner 1997).

Scale of the Problem

Some Internet pedophiles raided during United Kingdom law enforcement operations in recent years have been found to be in possession of magazines, videos, and CDs (as well as computer images), and to be downloading images from the Internet onto CDs for distribu- tion by post (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999). Operation Starburst was the first operation in the United Kingdom to target pedophiles who were using the Internet for communications. Information provided by the U.S. Customs led to the identification of a researcher at Birmingham University who was using the university computer to store 11,850 images, of which 1,875 were pedophilic pictures. Investigations by the West Midlands Police Commercial Vice Unit enabled other individuals, who had copied some of these images, to be identified and located. Police forces in Australia, Germany, South Africa, Singapore, the United Kingdom, and the United States then cooperated and coordi- nated arrests to prevent the targets from using the Internet to tip each other off. Evidence seized in the original operation led to follow-up investigations, and to date, there have been over 20 prosecutions in the United Kingdom and over 100 worldwide (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

Operation Cathedral, a law enforcement operation across 15 different countries against the “Wonderland” pedophile ring, resulted in autumn 1998 in the largest ever worldwide seizure of pedophile material. In the 12 European countries alone, over a quarter of a million pedophilic images were uncovered from computers, plus hundreds of CDs and thousands of videos and floppy disks containing such material. In the United Kingdom, eight suspects were charged with the conspiracy of distributing obscene images of children, one suspect with the possession of such images, and another (in Scotland) with the possession and distribution of obscene material. Another suspect was not proceeded against, but was already serving a 12-year sentence following conviction of child abuse offences. In other countries, law enforce- ment agencies sought to identify over 110 targets and, where identified, either charged sus- pects or continued their investigations (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

The Internet has become an essential medium for facilitation of pedophiles in Korea; as of 2006, the Koreans had spent more time on the Internet than citizens of any other country. Almost all Korean Internet portal sites have chat rooms frequented by teenagers. One search of a portal’s chat service revealed 869 individual chat sites, with some obscurely titled “friends of the other gender,” where men can meet girls and arrange to provide them with money in exchange for sexual relations. After locating girls online, men usually meet them at subway stations and then proceed to inns or hotels (McCoy 2005). A survey released by Chulalongkorn University of Thailand in early 2003 found that many students provide sexual services through IRC, a form of real-time text communication via the Internet. It allows stu- dents and prospective “clients” to communicate in Thai and set up chat rooms with names such as “High School Girls for Sale,” “Hi-So[ciety] Girls for Sale,” and “Hi-School Gay Room.” Adults looking for sex with students often ask for their telephone numbers and a dig- ital photo (McCoy 2005). In India, the pedophilic activity is considered as a crime of Western origin even though there are some cases of pedophiles actively involving in the abuse of chil- dren (Bindra 2001).

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34 Chapter 2 Pedophilia, Pornography, and Stalking

CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

Child pornography is different from other pornography, and consequently receives more strin- gent legal treatment. It is distinguished as an issue of child abuse—in its production and/or in the way it is used by pedophiles to desensitize their victims. The growth of the Internet has provided child pornographers with a distribution vehicle, which is perceived to be relatively anonymous (Akdeniz 1997; Taylor and Quayle 2003; Krone 2004, 2005). In its project “Innocent Images,” the FBI specified (Weekly Standard, April 14, 1997) that the bureau has a database of at least 4,000 cases of child pornography being distributed online. Child pornog- raphy makes most people turn away with profound revulsion. Other people will dismiss the problem as one of lone perverts trading dirty pictures. However, that very instinct—to turn away—serves well the child pornographers. The fact is, thousands of children around the world have been brutally abused to create these images, and the demand for the pictures is burgeoning, fuelled by the Internet (Akdeniz 1997; Taylor and Quayle 2003). This in turn encourages more abuse. Child pornography comes in many forms, ranging from photos of kids in baths to the terrible images of child sexual involvement. Some are old images that have been scanned into computers; others are new. It is sad to know that the thousands of children in the photos, tapes, and videos pinging around the Internet were likely forced to partake in the above (Nordland and Bartholet 2001a, b; Taylor and Quayle 2003).

Many times persons involved in child pornography deceive their victims into sending pictures of themselves to the people. Some of the ways they do this is by stating they are pho- tographers and that they can help the child get into modeling, and many times offer them sev- eral hundred dollars to pose. Another way is, after they build a “close” relationship with their victim, they tell them they want “sexy” pictures for their viewing only. The pictures are scanned and put on disk. Even if the victim sends his/her photo that is not sexually explicit, there are graphic programs that allow one to alter these photos, such as morphing the face of the victim with the nude body of another person. These pictures are then distributed via modem to others. The pictures are many times posted on the Internet without the victim’s knowledge and are used to trade with others involved in child pornography (Akdeniz 1997; Zwicke 2000; Taylor and Quayle 2003).

The distribution of child pornography, through utilizing the online services, is rapidly increasing at an alarming rate. The most common way of distribution is by sending the graphic images to another person’s e-mail. Pedophiles will use this method in attempts to “excite” the child and to lead them into other sexual conversation/acts (Krone 2004, 2005). They will also send child porn, as well as adult porn, to the child in attempts to desensitize them to a degree that the child feels everyone is doing these things, and there is nothing wrong with taking these kinds of sexually graphic pictures. When an individual sends these files through e-mail, he will many times coach the kids as to how to get rid of any evidence of hav- ing received the files. Some of the things they will be coached to do are as follows:

a) Download the files to floppy disk rather than the hard drive;

b) Label the disk with the name of a game or other child-appropriate program so that the parents will not suspect;

c) Change the file extension after downloading. For example, when the file origi- nally named “teenxxx.jpg” is renamed as “checkers.exe,” parents would think the file was a checkers game; besides, even if they attempt to execute the file, they

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would receive an execution error message and would not be able to open the file. When the child wants to view the graphic, all she/he has to do is rename the file with the correct extension to it. Individuals will also assign a password to the child allowing them to enter their account to download graphic files from their e-mail. Example: Prodigy allows the “A” member (the account holder) to add five other members to their accounts using sub ids B–F. The “A” member will set up a sub id# with a false name and date of birth, then give the password to the child so that he/she can sign on to his/her account using a sub id#. The individual will then send the porn from his “A” membership e-mail to the sub id e-mail. If he is writing sexually explicit letters to the child, he will also send them to the sub id#. The child downloads the files, reads the letters, replies to the individual, sending it back to the “A” id, deletes the e-mail/files in the sub id e-mail box, and then signs off of the service. This is done to keep the parents who do monitor their children’s e-mail from becoming aware that someone is distributing porn or writ- ing sexually explicit letters to their children. Since all of the communication between the child and the individual is taking place in the individual’s account, parents are unaware of these exchanges (Zwicke 2000; Taylor and Quayle 2003; Krone 2004, 2005).

Scale of the Problem

In the United Kingdom, since December 1996, the Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) has operated a telephone and e-mail hotline for members of the public to report material encoun- tered on the Internet, which they consider illegal. While it would be presumptuous to interpret the figures as indicating an increase in pedophile activity on the Internet, they do at least rep- resent a growing awareness of the presence of obscene material on this medium. It is also important to note that the vast majority of these complaints (about 95%) relate to material originating outside of the United Kingdom (mostly from the United States and Japan). Supplementing the hotline, the IWF also routinely monitors certain newsgroups, which have a record of accomplishment of carrying potentially illegal material; in January 1998, about 40 such newsgroups were watched (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children of United States (NCMEC) Cyber Tip Line receives over 200 leads a week from parents and concerned citizens about child pornography, child solicitation of enticement, child prostitution, child sex tourism, etc. (Magid 1998). In March 1998, the Tip Line received over 10,000 tips about online child pornography alone (remarks by U.S. Deputy Attorney General Eric Holder at the International Conference on Combating Child pornography on the Internet, Vienna, Australia, September 29, 1999). Because Canada has no such tip line, some Canadians have reportedly called the NCMEC line.

In a 2-week period in January 1998, research by the COPINE project of University College Cork in United Kingdom identified 6,033 erotic and pornographic pictures of chil- dren posted in 23 child-sex-related newsgroups. In a repeated exercise in April 1998, 7,303 such pictures were found, although the number of newsgroups had fallen to 16. Two-thirds of the images were deemed to be arguably erotic rather than pornographic, with the latter comprising largely either old European photos or more recent ones featuring Asian children (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999). In the United States, in 1996, child protection services

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reported at least 23 cases of “cyber solicitation.” The U.S. law enforcement, though, has had some success with a proactive approach to this threat. Teams will pose as children upon chat channels and gather evidence through online conversations. Thus, the anonymity of the Internet—the inability to determine gender or age or trustworthiness—can work both for and against the offender (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

The 2000 Annual Report of the Criminal Intelligence Service Canada warns that the “distribution of child pornography is expanding proportionately with the Internet use in Canada. Chat rooms available throughout the Internet global community further facilitate and compound this problem.” The report presents the following statistics: Interpol Ottawa (which coordinates international investigation of child pornography) received 164 requests for assistance in 1999 (101 from international law enforcement). In the first 6 months of 2000, 89 cases were received and forwarded to Canadian jurisdictions (78 from international law enforcement). In the same period, one pornography unit investigated 100 incidents and laid 92 charges (in 1999 for the same time period, they did 52 investigations and laid 55 charges).

In 1999, one police service handled 116 files related to child pornography on the Internet. The report concludes that the “sexual exploitation of children and child pornogra- phy . . . remains an area of criminal activity that is largely undetected or not reported.” The report warns that as “technology provides more opportunities for anonymity and the easy trans- fer of images and information on the Internet, the distribution of child pornography by pedophiles may increase.” The report recommends, “partnerships among police forces, gov- ernments and other agencies will be increasingly required to facilitate provincial, national, and international investigations.” Prior to the Internet, it was more difficult for pedophiles to find child pornography and to link with others who had similar interests. By the late 1980s, police had cut the flow of child pornography to a trickle (Canadian Police College 1998, 16).

Given the secretive nature of this type of activity, the size of the Internet, and the anonymity it provides, accurate estimates are virtually impossible, although some say there are over one million sexually explicit images of children on the Internet (Canadian Police College 1998, 16). The policing of child pornography should be considered as proac- tive police work. According to a report from the Attorney General of New Jersey (2000), about 70 percent of convicted child molesters also collect child pornography . The former director of the U.S. Customs Cyber Smuggling Center says that 75 percent of registered sex offenders routinely surf the Internet (Attorney General of New Jersey 2000). About half of the 700 pedophiles arrested in Los Angeles had child pornography in their possession, and a study in England showed nearly all child molesters arrested had child pornography in their possession (Canadian Police College 1998, 8).

When the U.S. Customs set up a child porn Web page for investigative purposes, it had over 70,000 visitors in the first two months (Canadian Police College 1998, 16). In 1997, the FBI probed 301 child pornography cases, 698 in 1998, and 1,500 in 1999 (Ottawa Sun, April 11, 2000). In 1999, the FBI opened 1,497 new cases and obtained over 185 search warrants, made almost 200 arrests, and had over 100 convictions (Federal Bureau of Investigation 2000). In 1998, there were 700 documented cases of sexual predators working on the Internet in the United States (Vancouver Province 2000). There were almost 800 traveler (someone who meets a potential victim on the Internet and is willing to travel to meet them) cases identified in 1999 alone, with over 300 being investigated by the FBI (Crimes Against Children Research Centre 2000).

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The U.S. federal prosecutions have increased 10 percent every year since 1995, with over 400 cases per year now being prosecuted in federal courts alone (Holder 1999). Child pornography offences have increased over 129 percent in 1996 (Attorney General of New Jersey 2000). The U.S. Postal Inspection Service and the FBI made over 450 arrests involving the exchange of child pornography on the Internet (Attorney General of New Jersey 2000). Ninety-five percent of the child pornography that comes into the United States is via the Internet (Attorney General of New Jersey 2000). By May 1999, there were over 21,000 docu- mented Web sites on the Internet devoted to child pornography and pedophilia, which was up from only four months earlier (Attorney General of New Jersey 2000).

The problem seems to be growing in Canada as well. For example, the workload of the Ontario Provincial Police’s Child Pornography Unit doubled in 2000. The unit has grown to 14 full-time officers. Vancouver’s Organized Crime Agency of BC has seen an increasing consumer demand from Canada for child pornography and access to children. They point to an increase in the use of computers in child pornography offences and to help facilitate other offences. They had at least 10 “luring” cases in 1999 including one case involving a 12-year- old boy and a 55-year-old man from the United States. Ottawa Carleton Regional Police Staff Sergeant Randy Brennan told the Ottawa Sun (March 6, 2000) that if all his five-person team deals with Internet child pornography and pedophiles online, they “could take someone down everyday.” Canadian Customs intercepts over 200 shipments of child pornography and obscenity with children every year. Follow-up investigations reveal many importers to be working or volunteering with children (teachers, volunteers, etc.) and most are unknown to police.

An unanswered question is the proportion of users of child pornography who are also child abusers. West Midlands Police estimated that 35 percent of those targeted by Operation Starburst in 1995 had physically abused children. The FBI’s research of child pornographers in 1998 suggested that less than 50 percent of collectors of material had, as far as investiga- tions could tell, committed physical offences. Whether there is a tendency for collectors, in time, to move on to actual child abuse, however, is also a pertinent question (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999; Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor 2003).

Reason for Concern Research conducted at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh, PA, shows the reason for such concerns. Drawing on computer records of online activity, researchers measured the material being downloaded in comparison with the stated reasons for Internet use. The results were enlightening. In an 18-month study, the research team reviewed 917,410 images that were downloaded; 83.5 percent were pornographic. Trading sexually explicit images is currently one of the largest recreational applications of users of computer networks. At one university, 13 of the 40 most frequently visited newsgroups fea- tured sexually explicit posts. The study demonstrated that these materials go beyond the soft- core pornography on magazine racks. The online market features images of pedophilia (nude photographs of children in various poses), hebephilia (youth/teens), and paraphilia (images of bondage, sadomasochism, urination, defecation, and sex acts with animals; Rimm 1995; Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor 2003).

Internet child pornography is an international problem; all countries that are tied to the cyberspace face this problem. In 2000, three men from Indonesia and Russia, and a couple from Texas, were charged with selling pictures and videos of children having sex with adults through Web sites named “child rape” and “Lolita hardcore.” Some of these children were as young as four. The Texas couple charged $29.95 per month for access to the sites from which

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they made $1.1 million a year. Two-thirds of that money was paid to the Web masters in Indonesia and Russia. Their customers extended to several continents (Make-IT-safe 2005). A 2002 National Police Agency report of Japan indicated that teenage prostitution and pornography was the most common Internet crime, with 408 cases encountered in that year alone. The prostitution of teenagers via Internet dating accounted for 268 of these cases, a 230 percent increase from 2001 (McCoy 2005).

The latest situation of child pornography is mind-boggling. The IWF has reported a fourfold rise in online images depicting the most severe form of child sexual abuse. The IWF 2006 Annual Report warns of a growing demand for more severe images, and claims that nearly 60 percent of commercial child-abuse Web sites sell images of child rape. Some 80 percent of the children in abusive images are female, according to the report, and 91 per- cent appear to be under 12 years. The United States and Russia seem to be the main havens for hosting such sites, with 82.5 percent of all the Web sites linked these countries up from 67.9 percent in 2005. The IWF has claimed a 34 percent increase in reports processed by its “Hotline,” leading to the confirmation of 10,656 URLs on 3,077 Web sites containing potentially illegal content. Less than one percent of all child abuse content has been hosted in the United Kingdom since 2003, and in 2006 the IWF provided 11 eviden- tial statements supporting UK police enquiries and gave evidence at five UK trials (Williams 2007).

STALKING

There are over a hundred million Internet users across the world. The overwhelming majority is people who use Internet for work, research, or to communicate with family and friends. However, even if cyberstalkers and predators represent only a small percentage of users, we are still talking about a significant number of offenders and potential victims. In 1999, a U.S. report “Cyberstalking: A new challenge for law enforcement and industry” specified that cyberstalking was a serious and growing problem (U.S. Attorney General 1999). Both the Los Angeles and the Manhattan DA’s offices said that 20 percent of their stalking cases involved cyberstalking. Twenty-five percent of female college students have been cyber- stalked. The majority of victims do not report it to the police. When they do, many police offi- cers do not know how to investigate and do not take it seriously.

How Do They Operate? (Zwicke 2000)

a) Stalkers follow their victims from board to board. They “hangout” on the same BBs as their victims do, many times posting notes to the victim, making sure the victim is aware that he/she is being followed. Many times they “flame” their vic- tim (becoming argumentative or insulting) to get their attention.

b) They accumulate personal information of their victims. Many times members post personal information such as address, date of birth, or telephone number, on the various bulletin boards. The stalker will accumulate any information that he can of his victim.

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c) Stalkers almost always make contact with their victims through e-mail. The letters may be loving, threatening, or sexually explicit. Many times he uses multiple names when contacting the victim.

d) They contact victims via telephone. If the stalker is able to access the victim’s tele- phone number, he will call the victim many times to threaten, harass, or intimidate.

e) They track the victims to their home.

Scale of the Problem

A 1999 study done in the United States (Crimes against Children Research Centre 2000) sampled 1,500 youth that regularly use the Internet, and the findings are as follows: 1/5 received a sexual solicitation or approach over the Internet; 1/33 received an aggressive sexual solicitation— asked to meet, called them on the phone, sent them e-mails or gifts; 1/4 had unwanted expo- sure to pictures of naked people or people having sex; 1/17 was threatened or harassed; less than 10 percent of sexual solicitation and only 3 percent of unwanted exposure episodes were reported to authorities such as a law enforcement agency, an Internet service provider, or a hotline.

A Novell survey in 1998 (of 810 people using e-mail at work) found that half the sam- ple had received unwanted e-mails from a persistent sender. Thirty-five percent of the offen- sive messages comprised unsolicited pornography. To date, however, there have been no known criminal cases in the United Kingdom concerning cyberstalking. However, as Internet usage grows, NCIS assesses that occurrences of harassment will escalate (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999). Online stalking of children is on the rise in the United States. In 2003, the Cyber Tip Line received 2,600 complaints about online sexual predators, up 23 percent from the previous year. A United Kingdom national survey in 2004 of online expe- rience of more than 1,500 young people aged 9–19 found a third had received unwanted sex- ual or nasty comments online. Also, 46 percent said they had given out personal information online. A national U.S. survey in 2001 found that almost one in five of the young people aged 10–17 had received an unwanted sexual solicitation in the past year, two-thirds of those were in chat rooms. An online ECPAT survey in Thailand in 2000 found 92 percent of the young respondents had been persuaded to chat about sex online, and only a quarter told their parents about it. In 2002, Japanese police listed teen prostitution and pornography as the most com- mon cyber crime, with half their cases related to prostitution by teenagers via Internet dating (Make-IT-safe 2005).

Cyberstalking has attracted much concern in the United States, and 17 states have reportedly passed laws against online stalking or harassment. A court in Texas issued the first temporary restraining order on an online stalker in October 1996; the individual had been harassing the employees of a Dallas-based ISP. In addition, the first prison sentence for an e-mail hate crime was handed out in May 1998. A student in California was con- victed of violating the civil rights of 59 students by sending racially targeted threats to them in 1996; he was sentenced to one year imprisonment (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

Vicious online statements and rumors may be used against the victim. Two especially nasty cases have reportedly occurred in the United States. In 1997, someone allegedly posted

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a child’s name, age, and telephone number on 14 pedophile chat rooms, giving false sexual messages which led pedophiles to call on the girl’s home. In January 1999, a Californian man was arrested after allegedly impersonating a girl (who had spurned his advances) on the Internet. He, posing as she, is believed to have placed an ad on a bulletin board, seeking male partners to live out a gang rape fantasy and giving (the girl’s) name, address, and telephone number, and even instructions on how to bypass her house’s burglar alarm. Several men responded to the ad with telephone calls and visits to the girl’s home (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

E-mail harassment shares similarities with the posting of hate e-mails and the making of obscene telephone calls. Notably, the stalker does not have to terrorize the victim face-to-face. However, compared with those traditional forms of pestering, the Internet offers advantages to the stalker. No forensic evidence is left on the message (which may occur with letters); there is no need to confront the victim in real time (as on the phone); there is no danger of voice or handwriting recognition; and there are various ways in which it is possible to attain relative anonymity (so there is less risk of the connection being traced, as with telephone calls; National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

In the period 1996–98, the NCIS Kidnap and Extortion Desk of the United States was notified of two cases of blackmail by e-mail. This figure is small in comparison with the total number of notified blackmails in this time (96 cases). As with cyberstalking, the Internet offers a number of advantages to the electronic extortionist. There is no danger of fingerprints, and steps can be taken to hide identity. However, the blackmailer will need a physical interface in order to access their ill-gotten gains (National Criminal Intelligence Service 1999).

CONCLUSION

Our society is beginning to learn the dark side of the Internet only now. The cases referred at the beginning of this chapter make it clear that this is an emerging problem, and the sexual exploitation of children is only one of many other types of crimes being committed online. Sabotage, fraud, hacking all present major problems for companies, individuals, and govern- ments, and all deserve a law enforcement response. However, there is no more precious com- modity than our children, and no more important priority than their well-being. Most children do not understand online risks, and few parents are sufficiently familiar with them and/or Internet technology to effectively guard against them. These problems must be addressed. This requires unprecedented collaboration and cooperation among government entities (including law enforcement agencies), the Internet industry, schools, corporations, families, and others. Broad access to quality content on the Internet must be a community priority, where all involved identify and implement appropriate solutions (Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force 2000; Williams 2007).

K EY T E R M S

Child victimization Cyberstalking Cyber crime Internet Cyberspace Pedophilia

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References 41

R E F E R E N C E S

Aftab, P., and J. A. Polly. 1997. Child safety online. Paper presented at the Internet online summit: Focus on children, Washington, DC, December 1–3, 1997. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www.prevent- abuse-now.com/home.htm

Akdeniz, Y. 1997. The regulation of pornography and child pornography on the internet. Journal of Information Law and Technology. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www2.warwick.ac. UnitedKingdom/fac/soc/law/elj/jilt/1997_1/akdeniz1/

Armagh, D. 1998. A safety net for the Internet: Protecting our children. Juvenile Justice Journal V (1). Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://ojjdp.ncjrs.org/jjjournal/jjjournal598/contents.html

Attorney General of New Jersey. June 2000. Computer crime. Bindra, P. S. 2001. Log on to the reality. The Week (August 12). Canadian Police College. May 1998. Innocence exploited: Child pornography in the electronic age.

Canadian Police College, 16. Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime. 2000. Child sexual exploitation and the Internet.

Report prepared by the Canadian Resource Center for Victims of Crime. Retrieved July 12, 2005, from http://www.crcvc.ca/Resources/childsexualexploitation.pdf

Carr, J. 2003. Child Abuse, Child Pornography and the Internet. London: National Children’s Home. Crimes against Children Research Centre. 2000. Online victimization—A report on the nation’s youth. ECPAT. July 2004. A challenge for the real world. ECPAT Newsletter, No. 48. Federal Bureau of Investigation. 2000. Congressional statement (February 16). Holder, E. 1999. Remarks at the international conference on combating child pornography on the

Internet, Vienna, Australia, September 29, 1999. Internet Crimes against Children Task Force. 2000. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www.troopers.

state.ny.us/CrimInv/Icac/IcacIntro.html Krone, T. 2004. A typology of online child pornography offending. Trends & Issues in Crime and

Criminal Justice, No. 279. Australian Institute of Criminology. Krone, T. 2005. International police operations against online child pornography. Trends & Issues in

Crime and Criminal Justice. No. 296. Australian Institute of Criminology. Magid, L. J. 1998. Child Safety on the Information Highway. National Center for Missing and Exploited

Children. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www.safekids.com/child_safety.htm Mahoney, D., and N. Faulkner. 1997. Brief overview of pedophiles on the Web. Submitted by request to

the Child Advocacy Task Force on The Internet Online Summit: Focus on Children, Washington, DC, December 1, 1997. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www.prevent-abuse-now.com/summit.htm

Make-IT-safe. April 2005. Fact sheet #1: Children, young people and IT 1. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from www.makeitsafe.com

McCoy, A. 2005. Blaming children for their own exploitation: The situation in East Asia. ECPAT 7th report on the implementation of the agenda for action 1 against the commercial sexual exploitation of children.

National Criminal Intelligence Service. 1999. Project Trawler: Crime on the information highways. Retrieved May 29, 2006, from http://www.cyber-rights.org

Nordland, R., and J. Bartholet. 2001a. Blue babies of the web. The Week (August 12). Nordland, R., and J. Bartholet. 2001b. The Web’s dark secret. Special Report, Newsweek (March 19). Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. 1999. Use of computers in the sexual

exploitation of children. Rimm, M. 1995. Marketing pornography on the information highway. Georgetown Law Journal 83:

1849. Smith, R., P. Grabosky, and G. Urbas. 2004. Cyber Criminals on Trial. Cambridge: Cambridge

University Press.

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Taylor, M., and E. Quayle. 2003. Child Pornography: An Internet Crime. Hove: Brunner & Routledge. U.S. Attorney General. 1999. Cyberstalking: A new challenge for law enforcement and industry. Report

prepared by the U.S. Attorney General. Williams, I. 2007. Internet child porn on the rise: More prolific and more severe content than ever

before. Retrieved May 29, 2007, from http://www.vnunet.com/vnunet/news/2187930/internet-child- porn-rise

Wolak, J., K. Mitchell, and D. Finkelhor. 2003. Internet Sex Crimes Against Minors: The Response of Law Enforcement. New Hampshire: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Zwicke, L. 2000. Crime on the superhighway: A guide to online safety. Retrieved May 19, 2006, from http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/6647/rings.html

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Wilson Huang, Mathew Earl Leopard, and Andrea Brockman Valdosta State University, Georgia

Wilson Huang is an associate professor in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice at Valdosta State University. He received his Ph.D. in criminal justice and criminology from the University of Maryland, College Park. His teaching and research interests include police–community relations, comparative criminal justice, research methodology, and cyber crime.

Mathew Earl Leopard is a former criminal justice student at Valdosta State University. He holds an Associate of Science degree in criminal justice from Middle Georgia College and is currently pursuing his bachelor’s degree from Valdosta State University on a part-time basis and also hopes to pursue a mas- ter’s degree. While at Valdosta State, Mathew became a member of the Criminal Justice Honor Society, Alpha Phi Sigma, and was the President of the Society from January 2006 to January 2007. Mathew cur- rently resides in Perry, GA, with his beautiful wife Tiffany and works for the Perry Police Department as a patrol officer.

Andrea Brockman is a criminal justice graduate from Valdosta State University. She works for the Department of Corrections as a full-time correctional counselor at Valdosta State Prison. She holds a bachelor’s degree in both psychology and criminal justice. Andrea actively participates in the Big Brothers Big Sisters program of South Georgia. She also plans to attend a doctorate program with a focus in forensic psychology.

Abstract

Factors contributing to the explosive growth of child sexual exploitation in cyberspace can be linked to online accessibility and anonymity, increasing commercialization of exploita- tion features, and greater digitization in the production and dissemination of images. As Internet applications advance, legislative initiations and modifications are continuously evolving in defining offenses of child sexual exploitation. But the nature and distribution of child exploitation cases by characteristics of both offenders and victims are found to remain similar over time and across studies. Efforts of criminal justice responses can be concen- trated on emerging challenges so that online child exploitation can be prevented and con- tained ahead.

Chapter 3

Internet Child Sexual Exploitation: Offenses, Offenders, and Victims

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44 Chapter 3 Internet Child Sexual Exploitation: Offenses, Offenders, and Victims

INTRODUCTION

Sexual exploitation of children is a heartless crime detestable to any individual conscious of civil responsibility. It deprives the dignity of an innocent child, and in the worst of cases it even takes the life of the young victim. The despicable nature of the crime can be illustrated in two appalling cases. In the first, 6-year-old Thea Pumbroek, who had appeared in a number of child pornography videos, died of a cocaine overdose while being filmed in Amsterdam (Taylor and Quayle 2003). Information about the overdose and circumstances surrounding her death were misplaced or unknown. No social campaigns were created under her name to tackle the problem. The second case, which occurred more recently in Pennsylvania, involved a 2-year-old girl (Ove 2005). The girl’s own mother took her to a man’s residence for sexual acts and pornographic images, which were sent online to others. Subsequently five men were convicted. One of the convicts was also charged with using a Web camera to send porno- graphic images of his own 4-year-old daughter over the Net. He pled guilty and was sentenced to 71 months in prison.

Thea’s story and that of the Pennsylvanian 2-year-old are more than isolated tragedies in a civilized world. They are reflective how helpless, exploited children suffer and how the pleasures of wrongdoers can be built upon the suffering of children—shockingly, in some cases, their own children. Shocking also is that the possession of child pornography is still not a crime in 138 countries, according to a study by the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children (ICMEC) (2006), and that stories like Thea’s and the 2-year-old’s are just the tip of a rapidly growing iceberg.

In fact, a 2005 survey of online victimization of youths by the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) found that about 13 percent of the young respon- dents received at least one sexual solicitation over the Internet in the previous year (Wolak, Mitchell, and Finkelhor 2006). Of these victims being solicited, only a few of them (5%) reported their victimization to law enforcement agents; the majority did not disclose the solic- itation to anyone. An emerging problem discovered by the NCMEC survey was the solicita- tion of sexual photographs of youths: 56 percent of victims mentioned that their solicitors had asked them for photographs of themselves. In 27 percent of these incidents, solicitors asked specifically for sexual photographs. As the level of Internet use among youths continues to climb, the prevalence of the child pornography problem in the cyberspace is unavoidably and unfortunately expanding.

THE GROWTH OF CHILD EXPLOITATION IMAGES IN CYBERSPACE

Child pornography (CP) and the Internet have become inseparable in this information era. Before the advent of the Internet, photographs, films, and videocassettes portraying erotic or sexual images of minors were distributed through conventional means such as the postal ser- vice, pornographic stores, or commercial dealers (Burgess, Clark, and Books 1984; Durkin 1997; Hughes 2002). Mainstream adult magazines, Playboy, Penthouse, and Hustler, also occasionally carried pornographic depictions of youthful adult models. One study by the Justice Department revealed that 20 percent of images of teen models shown in these maga- zines involve nudity or sexual activity and about 16 percent include sexual contact with an adult (Taylor et al. 2006). Though these traditional distributions remain operational, their role

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has been replaced gradually and largely by electronic transmissions via the Internet. In 1995, an inspector of Greater Manchester in the United Kingdom seized only 12 child pornographic images displayed in the form of photographs or videos. In 1999, when the Internet began to boom, the CP images seized increased to 41,000, and almost all of those originated from the Internet (Carr 2001). In the United States, the percentages of CP cases related to the Internet increased from 32 percent in 1998 to 77 percent in 2000, according to a U.S. Postal Inspection Service investigator (Hughes 2002). This represented an average 15 percent annual increase. These observations from law enforcement officials have indicated a persistent upward trend since the late 1990s in the distribution of CP materials by the Internet.

Accompanying this Internet trend is the skyrocketing number of CP sites. The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF), a watchdog group headquartered in the United Kingdom, has tracked CP Web sites around the world through citizen reports since 1996. In the first reporting year, the foundation processed 615 reports of CP Web sites. By 2006, that number had grown to 27,750 (Internet Watch Foundation 2006). IWF stated that the organization has processed more than 100,000 reports since its inception and that the average has reached about 1,000 reports a month. Among these reports to IWF, more than 31,000 Web sites had been found to contain potentially illegal child abuse content. Statistics from NCMEC, which has monitored online sexual exploitation in the United States since 1990s, are even more astonishing. Scherer (2005) estimated that the number of CP sites has grown by almost 400 percent in the last 4 years. Further NCMEC statistics showed that complaints of child exploitation to its telephone hotline increased from 20,000 in 2000 to more than 390,000 in 2006. About 90 percent of these hotline complaints involved CP (Barton and Johnson 2006). In addition to the creation of numerous Web sites, the number of CP images has increased dramatically as well. According to the hotline data maintained by the British IWF, there were around 1 million images of child exploitation in circulation on the Internet and this number is growing at the rate of about 200 per day (Chetty 2003). In New Hampshire, McLaughlin (2000) and his team in the Keene Police Department seized more than 2 million CP images over a 3-year investigation. Most recently, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force program sponsored by the federal government claimed the number at 6.5 million (Koch 2006).

Factors contributing to this rapid growth can best be summarized by the so-called Triple-A Engine of access, affordability, and anonymity (Cooper 2002). Accessibility and speed are clear advantages of the Internet over traditional delivery methods. The Internet allows child pornographers to receive images instantly through downloads, electronic attach- ments, Webcams, etc., 24 hours a day, 365 days a year in the privacy of their homes (Chetty 2003). They no longer need to visit adult bookstores or make face-to-face contact to purchase pornographic materials. The pornographer’s name, address, or other identifying information is no longer necessary to view pornographic images. Moreover, the expense of exploring sex- ual images on the Internet is minimal, often costing no more than a $30 monthly connection fee. Once on the Net, search engines that have not filtered their links are obviously offering free services to CP seekers and collectors. Maintaining anonymity is always of greatest con- cern to child pornographers, in particular, pedophiles (Armstrong and Forde 2003). The Internet to them is the best choice of communication, because it can be used as a shield to dis- guise their identity in full. For instance, when child pornographers search for targets on the Web, they can use falsified information to misrepresent their identity. When they need to com- municate within their own network, they activate private channels or one-to-one communication

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to prevent their exchanges from being exposed to others. The Internet has provided all neces- sary nutrition for CP to grow on this platform. Unless the criminal justice system is able to contain CP effectively, it is inevitable that the problem will increase directly with the use of the Internet.

The commercialization of CP is another force that has accelerated its growth. The U.S. Customs Service estimates that revenues for the domestic market range from about $200 million to more than $1 billion per year (Hughes 2001). Some experts estimate that overall revenues from the entire CP industry may exceed $50 billion annually (Barton and Johnson 2006). In one recent case, two citizens of Belarus were convicted in a U.S. federal court and sentenced to 25 years in prison for operating a global Internet pornography busi- ness that had thousands of paid memberships to erotic sites featuring children (Sampson 2006). Between June 2002 and July 2003, the two men processed between $2.5 million and $7 million in credit card transactions for dozens of Web sites that offered images of prepu- bescent children engaged in sex acts. The authorities identified 270,000 subscribers from the seized billing records and subsequent investigations have resulted in more than 1,200 arrests in 12 countries.

To attract potential customers, commercial CP Web sites usually exhibit the words “hard-core child pornography” on their home pages (Save the Children European Group 2003). These sites typically display “child erotica” for anyone who visit their site, but suggest that “stronger” materials are available to subscribers who pay, typically by credit card. Viewing fees commonly range from a few U.S. dollars per image viewed (Hughes 2001; Save the Children Sweden n.d.) to $20–50 for unlimited monthly access. Records from Save the Children hot- lines show that the number of such paid sites has grown fast in recent years. The organization has discovered that many of these Web sites operate in Russia, Romania, the Czech Republic, and Baltic countries (Save the Children Sweden n.d.) and that the financial transactions also take place in these East European countries. For example, in the Belarusian case, two U.S. companies in California and Florida processed the credit card verification and the payment was funneled to bank accounts in the Baltic country Latvia. This electronic billing process is instantaneous and highly commercialized to meet the needs of the CP market. But it is defi- nitely a serious threat to the welfare of children.

Digitization and its associated technology also facilitate the production and dissemi- nation of images in the network of child pornographers. Congressional reports accompany- ing recent legislative changes in federal statutes (18 U.S.C. §2251) have found that the vast majority of CP prosecutions today involve images stored on computer hard drives, computer disks, or related new media. Prior to the invention of the Internet, many CP images were duplicated into hardcopies and recycled in the pedophilia subculture. Now, any printed pic- tures or video programs can be easily digitized through a scanner, camera, cellular phone, or other image-capture device into an electronic file saved in a regular computer, laptop, or handheld PC. A simple click can then send hundreds of images to a member in the subculture network in less than a minute. Hughes (2002) found that pedophiles have regularly trans- formed single video clips to 200–300 still images and then sent them to pedophile news- groups or uploaded them to a Web site. In some cases, pedophiles have employed encryption technology to conceal their identities when sending files to other members in the “cottage industry” (Scherer 1998; Taylor et al. 2006). Hughes (2002) also noted that many currently circulating images were originally made in the 1970s. These images have been digitized and exchanged among pedophiles (Save the Children European Group 2003). Hughes (2001)

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estimated that about 50 percent of current images were digitized from old images, although others indicate that as many as 70–80 percent were (Save the Children Sweden n.d.). Digitized files can be maintained in a more organized manner than hardcopy files. They can be sorted, saved, and duplicated in different ways by the preference of the CP possessor. Furthermore, the current user-friendly equipment and features enable a CP collector to eas- ily assume the role of distributor. If the upward trend in digitization continues, the functions of CP distribution can be more commercialized in lieu of the profit and growth of adult pornography.

LEGAL DEFINITION AND SCOPE OF CHILD SEXUAL EXPLOITATION

Laws against production, distribution, and possession of child sexual exploitation materials are in existence under federal statutes in all 50 states. Though the legal definition and scope of CP may vary from state to state, U.S. federal laws have set a strong foundation for the prohi- bition of and prosecution for child sexual exploitation. Many states have adopted federal statutes to enact their legislation against child sexual exploitation. States have also followed the federal lead to combat CP and exploitation (Wortley and Smallbone 2006). At the federal level, legislative activities banning child sexual exploitation have been very active in the past 20 years. More than 10 congressional acts have been enacted to better protect children from being sexually exploited. These acts are manifestations of the dynamic interrelations of the ever-changing technology and the diverse aspects of child exploitation in the society. The fol- lowing discussions examine these legislative initiations and modifications that have taken part in shaping the legal definition of CP in recent decades.

The series of legislative campaigns against child sexual exploitation began in 1977 when Congress passed the Protection of Children Against Sexual Exploitation Act (Public Law 95-225). This 1977 Act prohibited sexual exploitation of children under age 16. The statutes prohibited any person from employing, enticing, or coercing any minor to engage in any sexually explicit conduct for the purpose of producing any visual or print medium of such conduct. The Act also prohibited transporting or mailing these sexual materials of minors for sale or distribution. Under the act, persons convicted for the offenses shall be fined up to $10,000 or imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years, or both. These statutes formally recognize the prohibition and penalty against the production and commercial distribution of sexually explicit activities involving children. The provisions were codified as amended to sections 2251–2253 under Title 18 of U.S. Code. A few years later, the Supreme Court affirmed the prohibition in New York v. Ferber (1982). The Court held that a New York criminal statute pro- hibiting the promotion of sexual performances by children under 16 is constitutional. The court reasoned that visual depictions of sexual conduct by children without serious literary, artistic, or scientific value are harmful to the physiological, emotional, and mental health of the victimized child and that government entities have a compelling interest in protecting chil- dren from these harms. As such, CP, like obscenity, is not entitled to the First Amendment protection.

After the 1982 landmark case, several congressional acts were passed to tighten provi- sions banning the exploitive use of minors in the production, distribution, and possession of sexual depictions. First, the Child Protection Act of 1984 (Public Law 98-292) raised the age of a minor from 16 to 18 to ease the proof for prosecution. The Act also prohibited any person

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from knowingly reproducing any visual depiction of child sexual exploitation for distribution. In addition, this 1984 Act removed the commercial clause that required distribution for sale; this removal enabled the law to ban not-for-profit distribution of child sexual depiction. Previously, only commercial distribution of these images was prohibited. Two years later, the Child Sex Abuse and Pornography Act of 1986 (Public Law 99-628) began prohibiting the production and use of advertisements for seeking or offering CP. In 1988, the Child Protection and Obscenity Enforcement Act (Public Law 100-690) further banned the use of computers to transport, distribute, or receive CP. Then in 1990, the Child Protection Restoration and Penalties Enhancement Act (Public Law 101-647) penalized any person who knowingly pos- sesses three or more books, magazines, periodicals, films, video tapes, or other matter which contain any visual depiction of child sexual activities. The above four acts were codified as amended at 18 U.S.C. §2251–2256.

All prohibitions at this stage meant sexual exploitation of real children in the depic- tion. In the mid-1990s, rapidly advancing computer technology in conjunction with Internet growth necessitated new legislation to include images producible by computer. Congress has found that contemporary computer imaging technologies such as morphing software can generate visual depictions that are virtually indistinguishable from actual children engaging in sexual activities. Films, videos, and photos can also be altered in a way that makes it virtually impossible for viewers to identify children or determine if the offending material was produced using real children (Public Law 104-208, 110 Stat. 3009). This abil- ity along with the concerns for the potential harm to children gave birth to the Child Pornography Prevention Act (CPPA) of 1996. Major amendments were introduced by Congress to ban mailing, receiving, distributing, and possessing CP as amended at 18 U.S.C. §2251(A), and virtual CP as amended at 18 U.S.C. §2256. In the CPPA, the statutes define CP as any visual depiction, including computer-generated images, of sexu- ally explicit conduct, where

(A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

(B) such visual depiction is, or appears to be, of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

(C) such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or

(D) such visual depiction is advertised, promoted, presented, described, or distributed in such a manner that conveys the impression that the material is or contains a visual depiction of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

As defined by the 1996 statutes, sexually explicit conduct means actual or simulated: “(A) sexual intercourse, including genital–genital, oral–genital, anal–genital, or oral–anal, whether between persons of the same or opposite sex; (B) bestiality; (C) masturbation; (D) sadistic or masochistic abuse; or (E) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of any person” (18 U.S.C. §2256). Simulated conduct here refers mainly to simulated sexual acts performed by an adult who appears to be underage and pretends acts of a minor. A simulation can also be an acting performance instead of a real act. The intention of the statutes is to pro- hibit to the fullest extent the production of any CP.

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The CPPA definitions codified and amended at 18 U.S.C. §2256(8)(A)(B)(C)(D) encountered immediate allegations for violating the First Amendment protection, and were challenged legally by the Free Speech Coalition, a trade association founded in 1991 by busi- nesses in the production of pornographic materials (Mota 2002). The Coalition alleges that certain provisions of CPPA are unconstitutionally overbroad and vague, and constitute imper- missible content-specific regulations on free speech. At the lower court, the judge held that CPPA was neither overbroad nor vague. The CPPA was not overbroad because it prohibited only those works necessary to prevent the malicious effects of CP from reaching minors. The CPPA was not void for vagueness, as it gave sufficient guidance to a person of reasonable intelligence as to what it prohibited. But in 1999, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit reversed the district court’s ruling in Free Speech Coalition v. Reno (198 F.3d 1083; 9th Cir.). Judges of the appellate court found that the CPPA’s two phrases “appear to be a minor” and “conveys the impression” were highly subjective. The CPPA did not specify an explicit stan- dard as to what the provisions containing the questionable phrases mean. The appellate court found that the provisions provided no measure to guide an ordinarily intelligent person about prohibited conduct, and any such person could not be reasonably assured about whose per- spectives define the appearance of a minor.

In Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition (122 S. Ct. 1389, 2002), the Supreme Court affirmed the Ninth Circuit’s decision. It was decided that the 2256(8)(B) and 2256(8)(D) phrases were overbroad and violative of the First Amendment. The majority of the Court held that the overbreadth of 2256(8)(B) had implicitly banned a range of sexually explicit images, including “virtual child pornography” and some works which possibly have significant literary, artistic, political, or scientific merit. Cited examples included the Academy Award-nominated films Traffic and American Beauty, in which underage sexual relations were portrayed. The ban on virtual CP also could not be justified because, unlike real CP, it was not intrinsically related to the sexual abuse of real children. The link between virtual images and actual instances of child abuse was contingent and indirect. As to 2256(8)(D), the Court also found it unconstitutionally vague. Mainly, the “conveys the impression” provision required little judgment about the image’s content. The provision seemed to indicate that even if a film con- tains no sexually explicit scenes involving minors, it can be treated as CP if the title and trail- ers convey the impression that such scenes are to be found in the movie. The Court advised that the 1996 statutes require a more precise restriction on the meaning of CP.

The constitutional controversy has resulted in noticeable consequences on governmen- tal prosecutions after Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition. The case establishes that the gov- ernment carries the burden to determine and identify a real child who was actually used in a depiction. Because it places the burden on the prosecutor’s side, defendants have become less likely to plead guilty. If defendants plead not guilty, cases are less likely to result in guilty verdict (Farhangian 2003). In the Ninth Circuit, prosecutions have been brought in the most clear-cut cases where the child in the depiction or the origin of the image can be iden- tified specifically as a real minor. The adverse effect of the decision on the federal govern- ment’s ability to prosecute CP offenders was evident (Public Law No. 108-21, Section 501). In response to the ruling and finding, Congress enacted the “Prosecutorial Remedies and Other Tools to End the Exploitation of Children Today Act of 2003” or the PROTECT Act to modify the two controversial phrases (Public Law No. 108-21, Section 502). The Act amended the four 2256 subsections by revising 2256(8)(B) provision and striking down 2256(8)(D) in entirety.

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CP is today defined at 18 U.S.C. §2256(8) as any visual depiction, including any photo- graph, film, video, picture, or computer-generated image or picture, whether made or pro- duced by electronic, mechanical, or other means, of sexually explicit conduct, where

(A) the production of such visual depiction involves the use of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct;

(B) such visual depiction is a digital image, computer image, or computer-generated image that is, or is indistinguishable from, that of a minor engaging in sexually explicit conduct; or

(C) such visual depiction has been created, adapted, or modified to appear that an identifiable minor is engaging in sexually explicit conduct.

In (B), the term indistinguishable means that the depiction must be so realistic that a viewer would conclude that such depiction is of an actual minor engaged in sexually explicit conduct.

A main purpose of 18 U.S.C. §2256(8) as amended in the PROTECT Act is clearly to ban virtual CP. The terms “digital image,” “computer image,” and “computer-generated image” in the Act are used purposely to prohibit virtual or composite child sexual images. Such prohi- bition, however, remains constitutionally deficient, claimed Farhangian (2003). She argued that the words “indistinguishable from” are subject to the same problem as “appears to be” from a constitutional standpoint. That term and other language are similarly overbroad in that they may criminalize innocent speech and innovative work which may have literary or artistic value. The statutory overbreadth would make artists or filmmakers vulnerable to prosecution where their artistic products were created without the use of a real child.

In addition to the ban of virtual CP, the 2003 PROTECT Act also prohibits Web site owners from using domain names that will draw Internet users into viewing materials consti- tuting obscenity. An owner who intentionally deceives a minor into viewing material that is harmful to minors will be punished more harshly. In 2006, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act (Public Law 109-248) expands the prohibitions to any words or digital images embedded into the source code of a Web site. This definition covers both viewable and non- viewable images available at the Web site (Baron-Evans and Noonan 2006). Under the Adam Walsh Act, any person who knowingly embeds such words or digital images will receive an even harsher punishment than the one involving misleading domain names. This ban is codi- fied and amended at 18 U.S.C. §2252(C). Below is a summarized list of the key statutes and penalty associated with child sexual exploitation in the current U.S. Code:

18 U.S.C. §2251: Sexual exploitation of children in the production of child pornogra- phy, 30 years maximum for 1st offense;

18 U.S.C. §2251A: Selling or buying children for sexual exploitation, life sentence maximum;

18 U.S.C. §2252: Transportation, distribution, and possession of visual depiction involving child sexual exploitation, 20 years maximum for 1st offense;

18 U.S.C. §2252A: Mailing, transportation, distribution, and possession of child pornography, 20 years maximum for 1st offense;

18 U.S.C. §2252B: Misleading domain names on the Internet, 10 years maximum; and

18 U.S.C. §2252C: Misleading words or digital images on the Internet, 20 years maximum.

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Nature of Child Abuse Images 51

NATURE OF CHILD ABUSE IMAGES

In dealing with child sexual exploitation, there is a tendency for investigators worldwide to use the term “child abuse image” (CAI) instead of “child pornography.” Trifiletti (2005) noted from his law enforcement experience that the former term can more accurately describe the dramatic and long-lasting effects of the images on victimized children. Lanning (2001), a for- mer FBI expert in child sexual exploitation, has classified CAIs as commercial or homemade depending on whether they were created for sale or not. In his investigative guide, Lanning reported that commercial CAIs are usually produced in foreign countries and smuggled into the United States. U.S. customers appear to be the main buyer of these materials. Homemade images are not produced for profit; however, they may be used for exchange within the pedophile network. For instance, “Operation Hamlet” executed in the United States and six European countries uncovered a pedophile ring of more than 15 members who exploited their own children to produce homemade images. These depictions were not produced for commer- cial profit, but rather were made for and disseminated primarily to other members of the network (Cable News Network 2002). Once homemade CAIs were released to the network; these images were reproduced and circulated over and over again in the pedophile community. Child advo- cates have found that a substantial part of the images currently circulating are homemade (Save the Children European Group 2003). Jenkins (2001) uncovered that these homemade CAIs are very graphic, frequently depicting the perpetrators’ ongoing acts of sexual assault against young family members or neighbors. Digital technology has enabled home producers to enhance the quality of their images, thereby decreasing the difference between the quality of commercial and homemade CAIs. Fortunately, according to Lanning (2001), forensic examiners and technicians are able to distinguish the difference between the two.

Another categorization of CAIs mentioned by Lanning (2001) is the dichotomy of CP and child erotica. In Lanning’s practical view, CP is a permanent record of the sexual exploitation of an actual child in the form of photographs, negatives, slides, magazines, movies, videotapes, or computer disks. CP, therefore, is illegal and it has harmed the victim through sexual exploitation. Child erotica, on the other hand, is usually not illegal. It is fre- quently used to serve “a sexual purpose for a given individual” (Lanning 2001, 65). These materials, which may be considered pedophile paraphernalia, include erotic novels, letters, drawings, or other written fantasies in e-mails or diaries. Though child erotica can be in a wide array of visual or written formats, many investigators have used the term child erotica to refer only to images of naked children in nonsexual settings. These images are referred by Jenkins (2001) as “soft-core.” In Jenkins’ investigation, lots of soft-core photographs were taken in nudist camps or on nude beaches showing children playing games or sports. These images were captured without causing direct harm to the children. Some other sources of soft- core photos may come from nonpornographic works of art photographers, underwear or swimsuit advertisements, photos of teen gymnasts, or glamour shots. These images become child erotica when they are used for sexual gratification of culprits (Jenkins 2001). In contrast to the soft-core images, hard-core images involve explicit sexual conduct or obscene poses by a minor. Jenkins disclosed that most of these hard-core images are associated with oral sex or mutual masturbation. Penetration is rare due to the young age of the subject; however, some depictions did involve genital and anal penetration. Jenkins (2001) noted that hard-core images exist in abundance. Some of them were from the magazines of the 1970s; many were produced in recent years.

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EXTENT OF CAI’S

Several empirical studies on the extent of CAIs have been conducted by academicians and child advocates in the United States (Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell 2005) and Great Britain (Gallagher et al. 2006; Taylor, Holland, and Quayle 2001; Taylor and Quayle 2003). The National Juvenile Online Victimization (N-JOV) Study was a large-scale survey con- ducted by researchers of NCMEC (Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell 2004, 2005) in an effort to understand Internet-related sex offenses committed against children. The study sent out questionnaires to more than 2,500 local, county, state, and federal agencies asking if they had made arrests related to Internet child sexual exploitation during the period between July 1, 2000, and June 30, 2001. From cases reported by the responding agencies, the study was able to track down 612 arrestees via phone interviews. Among the 612 offenders, 429 were arrested for offenses related directly to child sexual exploitation or pornography involving the Internet. Descriptive data of these 429 arrestees showed that 96 percent of them had CAIs stored on a hard drive or removable media and 39 percent had moving pic- tures in digital or other video formats. About half of the arrestees possessed more than 100 still images; 14 percent possessed more than 1,000 images. Of the 429 offenders, the study also discovered that

• 92 percent had graphic images showing genitals or explicit sexual activity,

• 80 percent had images showing the sexual penetration of a child, including oral sex,

• 79 percent had images showing nude or seminude children and that some of these images displayed minors being sexually victimized, and

• 71 percent had images showing sexual contact between adults and minors, such as an adult touching the genitals or breasts of a minor or vise versa.

The N-JOV findings strongly suggest that a large majority of child pornographers own hard- core images involving sexual violence against a minor. This type of highly graphic, strong image is a possessor’s favorite and target collection. However, in terms of numbers, violent hard-core images remain a minority collection. Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) reported that about 21 percent had depictions showing bondage, rape, or torture. Possession of these cruel, hard-core images should be considered a very serious crime.

In Great Britain, Gallagher et al. (2006) gathered data from Her Majesty’s Revenue and Customs (HMRC) on cases prosecuted for importation of CP images. Eighty-two cases prosecuted between 2001 and 2004 were examined. HMRC classified these cases into three categories: (1) indicative (i.e., borderline images which suggests a sexual inter- est in children), (2) indecent (i.e., images of naked children), and (3) obscene (i.e., images of children being sexually abused). The study found that the majority of the exploitive images imported into the United Kingdom were either indicative or indecent. Obscene images account for only a tiny proportion of all seizures of CP. The study also reviewed investigative reports on cases involving Internet-based CAIs in three police jurisdictions. Their reviews of police reports revealed that content of CAIs varied greatly, ranging from photos of children taken on a beach to depictions of rape, torture, and other sexual vio- lence. Their findings indicated that the relation between seriousness of depictions and the number of such depictions is inverse. The most serious depiction is the least likely to be found on the Internet.

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Reasons for Collections of CAI’s 53

The Combating Paedophile Information Networks in Europe (COPINE) project admin- istered at the University College Cork, Ireland, is well known for its comprehensive effort in research of CAIs. The COPINE project has collected more than 150,000 still images and more than 400 video clips since its archival initiation in the mid-1990s (Taylor and Quayle 2003). COPINE researchers have created a 10-point continuum system to grade still and ser- ial images of child abuse pictures. The grading system is constructed to reflect the level of child sexual victimization and adult sexual interest in children. The higher the level, the greater the degree of severity of victimization dramatization. In this rating system, the 10 cat- egories are as follows: (1) indicative (e.g., children in their underwear or bathing suits), (2) nudist (e.g., naked children in an appropriate setting), (3) erotic (e.g., children showing varying degrees of nakedness in safe play areas), (4) posing (e.g., partially clothed or naked children in deliberate poses), (5) erotic posing (e.g., partially clothed or naked children in sex- ualized poses), (6) explicit erotic posing (e.g., emphasizing genital areas of partially or fully naked children), (7) explicit sexual activity (e.g., masturbation, oral sex, or intercourse by child not involving an adult), (8) assault (e.g., children being sexually assaulted by adults), (9) gross assault (e.g., obscene depiction of penetrative sex or oral sex involving adults), and (10) sadistic/bestiality (e.g., pain is implied in pictures showing a child is tied, beaten, or whipped).

Taylor and Quayle (2003) applied the grading system to their analysis of a sample of over 3,000 still images derived from about 100 individual picture series featuring girls aged 1.5 to 7. They found that most of the pictures in the series fell within level 6 or below, suggesting that the majority of these pictures did not show explicit sexual activities. A very distressing discovery from the analysis was that those pictures of level 7 and above were por- trayed mainly by few repeatedly exploited girls, one of whom was photographed over time from a very young age of 3 to about 7. Sadly, none of these exploited girls nor the producers were identified at the time of their analysis. This inability to identify a child victim of an image has been a continuing problem in the investigation of child sexual exploitation cases.

REASONS FOR COLLECTIONS OF CAI’S

A number of explanations have been discussed by researchers and investigators as to why child pornographers possess and catalog exploitive images of children (Carr 2001; Jenkins 2001; Lanning 2001; Taylor and Quayle 2003). Sexual gratification may be the most direct incentive for possession of CAI by child pornographers. CP enthusiasts may use the images to satisfy their sexual fantasies or to stimulate their sexual arousal for immediate gratification. But sex may not be a sole reason why child pornographers eagerly seek and collect CAI. Obviously, such gratification can be achieved legally and more conveniently through adult pornography. Sometimes, CAI possession and collection may start purely incidentally (Carr 2001). One may encounter an exploitative image in cyberspace accidentally the first time. This may pique an interest in searching for more, which gradually evolves into a compulsive habit. Jenkins (2001) suggests that a “collector fetish” may be a main motivation for posses- sion of CAI. Collecting CAI can function as a hobby, much like collecting stamps, coins, sports cards, badges, or other memorabilia. Possessors of CAIs may collect the images as sou- venirs or trophies for their intended purposes (Lanning 2001). Like other seasoned collectors, CP enthusiasts can be obsessed with a particular type of CAI. They may strive for a sense of

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completion and perfection by collecting CAI of a particular series or subject. A perfect com- pletion signifies a great sense of dominance and control over the CAI collection. If a child pornographer is able to fill missing images in a CAI serial, the person can gain a strong sense of pride (Lanning 2001). This filling contribution can also gain status for person who posts the image in the network of CAI collectors.

Another main reason for the collection of CAIs is to use those images as a medium of exchange for validation. Through newsgroups, chat rooms, bulletin boards, and other Internet channels, child pornographers communicate frequently to exchange information and sexual images in their own network. They actively look for new, hard-core images to enlarge and strengthen their collections. Lanning (2001) has found that the younger the victim and the more bizarre the sexual act is, the higher the value of the image is for exchange in the net- work. The psychological utility of the exchange is for validation (Lanning 2001; Taylor and Quayle 2003). The networking with similar others reduces their sense of guilt and helps legit- imize their collection activities. Collection and distribution reinforce their values on accep- tance of CAI. By distributing and exchanging CAI in their own network, collectors gain a sense of commonality and legitimacy. This false sense of common acceptance can validate what they have done and believe. As explained by Lanning (2001), continuous collection and updates help child pornographers fulfill their mental needs for validation.

For pedophiles and child molesters, CAI may be used to groom their young prey (Moore 2005). By showing sexual images of a child of the same age to the target child, pedophiles are able to reduce the minor’s resistance to real sexual acts. During the grooming process, pedophiles frequently show the images to propel the minor’s interest and curiosity in sex. Lowering the minor’s sexual inhibition enables the pedophile to entice a minor to pose for sexual photos or engage in sexual acts. This technique is commonly employed by pedophiles on the Internet to groom a minor into sex activity. Once the child is sexually abused, the images may be saved in a computer as a souvenir of the relationship established with the minor. The images may also be used by the predator as blackmail to coerce the victim in keep- ing the secret (Lanning 2001). Because victimized children are typically afraid of letting their parents know about the abuse incident, the molester’s threat to reveal the images to the vic- tim’s parents allows the molester to continuously exploit the child in secrecy.

The ongoing collection of CAIs may eventually turn the CP possessor into a CP pro- ducer. At a certain point, the possessor may find new images are difficult to acquire unless he can contribute new images to the collection group. Unfortunately, this demand and pres- sure for new images may lead to a predator to produce images from children of his imme- diate social networks such as family, school, and neighborhood. The following scripts taken from a pedophile during an interview by Taylor and Quayle (2003) illustrate this distressing progression:

The progression for me came when I started offending against my daughter . . . I was in the chat room . . . and obviously chatting to a lot of other people who were trading images . . . people would send lists of material that they had . . . and they were reluctant to give me access to any of that material unless I could come up with my new material . . . I was sort of let out of this sort of arena that was going on, this trading of private pictures . . . my motiva- tion was to come up with some images that I could trade for this new material . . . it was then that I thought about steps of . . . of involving my daughter in . . . in creating video to actually trade to get the material that I wanted. (p. 161)

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Though the above case depicts a link between CAI collection and production, no empirical study has been conducted to establish this linkage by causal analysis. There is some evidence suggesting that CAI possession is quite common among child molesters. For example, Carr (2001) examined police records from the Chicago police, U.S. Postal Service, and U.S. Customs Service, and found that child molesters arrested for sexual abuse always possess and collect CAI. Taylor et al. (2006) reviewed prior research on the link and also reported that CP is a potential facilitator in the commission of child molesta- tion. These reviews suggest a correlation but do not demonstrate a causality. Systematic, scientific research is needed to verify such link that possession causes production and molestation.

EXAMINING CHARACTERISTICS OF CP OFFENDERS

Several empirical studies adopting sampling methodology have been carried out to under- stand the types of CP and personal characteristics of those who produce and collect it. In their analysis on official data gathered by the National Incident-Based Reporting System (or NIBRS in abbreviation), Finkelhor and Ormrod (2004) studied 677 CP incidents known to the police between 1997 and 2000. They classified cases into two categories: CP involving vic- tims (this includes the production of CP and the use of pornography in the seduction of a child) and CP involving possession and distribution only. Their classification showed that the large majority (84%) of CP offenses were limited to possession and distribution of exploitive materials. Only 111 cases (16%) involved incidents where an identifiable child victim was found. Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006) have used a similar classification of offenders in their content analysis of Internet CP cases. They sought cases reported by major U.S. news- papers during the year 2005 and utilized the LexisNexis newspapers database as their primary source of data. Their search procedures using “child pornography” and “Internet” resulted in a total of 354 offenders. Their findings reported that 83 percent of cases were possession and distribution charges, the other 17 percent involved not only possession/distribution but also contacts with minors.

The large scale N-JOV Study directed by Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) created a slightly different classification. They categorized their 429 arrest cases into three groups: CP possession, child sexual victimization, and CP solicitation to undercover investigator. They found that about 52 percent of offenders were charged for CP possession, 31 percent involved actual child victims, and the remaining offenders (17 percent) were arrested for CP solicita- tions over the Internet. These solicitation arrestees were neither CP possessors nor victimiz- ers. If we recount only the first two categories, the percentages change to 63 percent for possession and 37 percent for child sexual victimizations. Another recent study conducted by Alexy, Burgess, and Baker (2005) also designed a typology of three categories. They reviewed newspaper articles published between 1996 and 2002 and generated a convenience sample of 225 cases. In these cases, 59 percent were categorized as traders, 22 percent as trav- elers, and the rest (19%) involved a combination of both roles. In the study, traders were defined as collectors of online CP, while travelers were vigorous offenders who approached children for sexual purposes either online or face-to-face. A comparison of these percentages with those of the N-JOV Study shows similarities. Table 3-1 highlights findings of these offender types described above.

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In addition to types of CP offenders, researchers have also investigated offenders’ few personal characteristics, such as gender, age, and vocational types. Table 3-2 displays gender and age distributions found in recent studies. It can be observed that results regarding gender have been fairly consistent in that offenders have been predominantly male. When females are involved, they are usually acting in concert with their male counterparts (Gallagher et al. 2006). It appears that the role of CP female offenders tends to be that of facilitator rather than perpetrator, but females can be active CP providers, taking a role in the production of CAIs through exploitation of their own children (Ove 2005). Unlike gender distribution, ages of CP offenders vary widely, ranging from 17 to 70 years (Huang, Leopard, and Brockman 2006). The majority range between 35 and 55 years. CP predators tend to be slightly younger than possessors. Even though the majority of CP offenders were middle aged, Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) found that more than half (62%) of possessors were not married. These men were never married, separated, divorced, or widowed at the time of their crime.

Similar to the diversity in age, vocational background of CP offenders differs greatly by types. Alexy, Burgess, and Baker (2005) found that in 64 percent of their CP cases, the offend- ers were considered professional, 11.2 percent were laborers, 8.8 percent were unemployed, 7.2 percent were students, and 5.6 percent were in the military. Clergy accounted for 3.2 per- cent. Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006) have created similar categories and have found that 42 percent work in governmental agencies, another 42 percent work in private business or nonprofit organizations, 3 percent are students, and 2 percent are in the military. Clergy accounted for 7 percent, and 5 percent were unemployed or retired. Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) found that among offenders who were employed at the time of their arrest, most were working full time. Findings from the above studies suggest that CP offenders are typically full-time workers who may come from almost any occupation or socioeconomic status. For example, previous arrestees have included lawyers, medical doctors, college administrators,

TABLE 3-1 Offender Types of Internet Child Pornography

Authors Offender Types Percentages of Total

Finkelhor and Ormrod (2004) CP possession and distribution 84%

CP involving victims 16%

Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006) CP without contact 83%

CP involving personal contact 17%

Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2004, 2005) CP possession 53%

CP with victimization 31%

CP solicitation to undercover Investigator

16%

Alexy, Burgess, and Baker (2005) CP traders 59%

CP travelers 22%

Combination of both 19%

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TABLE 3-2 Gender and Age of Child Pornography Offenders

Finkelhor and Ormrod (2004) CP Involving

Victims CP Possessors and

Distributors

Males 85% 86%

Females 8% 8%

Mixed gender 7% 6%

Adults 83% 90%

Juveniles <18 14% 8%

Mix age 3% 2%

Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2004, 2005) CP Involving Victims CP Possessors

Males 99% 100%

Females 1% <1%

Younger than 18 1% 3%

18–25 23% 11%

26–39 41% 41%

40 or more 35% 45%

Alexy, Burgess, and Baker (2005) CP Travelers CP Traders

Males 95.9% 94.7%

Females 4.1% 5.3%

Younger than 20 – 3.0%

20–29 22.4% 21.8%

30–39 36.7% 34.6%

40 or more 30.6% 30.1%

Unknown 10.2% 10.5%

Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006) CP Involving Contact CP Without Contact

Males 98.3% 100%

Females 1.7% <1%

Younger than 18 – .3%

18–25 8.3% 9.9%

26–39 40% 30.3%

40 or more 48.3% 52%

Unknown 3.4% 7.5%

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teachers, youth counselors, janitors, police officers, and a spokesman for the federal home- land security department (Kalfrin 2006).

The N-JOV Study has investigated additional characteristics related to the social and economic backgrounds of arrested CP possessors. With regard to race, Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) found that whites accounted for a total of 91 percent of cases. The majority of offenders did not have biological children (53%), nor did they live with a minor (65%). Educational backgrounds of possessors were quite diversified: 5 percent did not finish high school, 38 percent had a high school diploma, 21 percent had some college education, 20 per- cent had college degree or higher. For 17 percent, information concerning education was not available. Similar diversity was found at income levels: 18 percent had an annual salary of less than $20,000, 41 percent earned between $20,000 and $50,000, 17 percent earned between $50,001 and $80,000, and 10 percent earned more than $80,000 annually. An exam- ination of criminal histories for CP possessors showed that the majority had no record of sexual offenses, violence incidents, drugs, or mental illness. These findings suggest that the typical CP possessor is a white, single, middle-aged, middle-income man, with a high school diploma and possibly some college education, and no criminal record.

Characteristics of computer use by CP offenders were also examined by the 2005 N-JOV Study. Findings of Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell indicate that 91 percent of CP pos- sessors employed home computers as their primary access to CP materials; the other 9 percent relied on computers at work, libraries, or rental venues as their primary means. Using sophis- ticated technology to hide CP images was uncommon among offenders. The study found that only 20 percent of CP possessors used some sort of hiding methods such as password protec- tion, encryption, or evidence-elimination software. However, the actual percentage of CP pos- sessors using these methods may be higher, because CP possessors who are knowledgeable of computer technology may be more capable of hindering detection (Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell 2005, 10). This suggests that CP criminal investigators should be well equipped with timely and proficient knowledge of computer technology so that they can stay informed of hiding techniques employed by CP possessors.

UNDERSTANDING THE VICTIM CHARACTERISTICS

Few studies have examined victim characteristics by gender, age, race, and other factors. A common issue addressed by previous researchers was whether a girl or boy is more likely to be victimized. In their study of CAIs, Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) reported that girls are more likely than boys to be depicted in pictures. They found that 62 percent of CP posses- sors hold mostly pictures of girls, 17 percent own mostly pictures of boys, and 15 percent possess pictures of about equal numbers of girls and boys. Regarding ages of children depicted on the images, Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2005) found that 83 percent of arrested posses- sors had images of children 6–12 years old, 75 percent had pictures of children aged 13–17, 39 percent had images of 3–5 year olds, and 19 percent had CP pictures showing children younger than 3. Like ages of offenders, victims’ ages vary greatly—from newborn to age 18.

Table 3-3 reports gender and age distributions for children victimized or contacted by sexual perpetrators. Finkelhor and Ormrod (2004) found that the percentages were about 62 for girls and 38 for boys. Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2004) reported the ratio is about

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3:1, i.e., 75 percent girls and 25 percent boys. Consistent with the two prior studies, Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006) found that the majority of victims were girls, which accounted for 66 percent of contact cases. As to ages, results reveal that the 12- to 17-year-old group seems to be at the greatest risk of sexual attacks. These teenagers are frequent users of chat rooms, instant messaging, blogs, or some other social networking systems, which may expose them to sexual predators on the Internet. Table 3-3 also indicates that children under age 6 accounted for a little over 10 percent of victims. Though this percentage is smaller than those of the other two older groups, these very young children are most defenseless and should be protected with greater attention. Medical professionals, daycare teachers, and pre- kindergarten activity providers play an important role in detecting and reporting the possible victimizations of these young children.

Family and economic backgrounds of victims were rarely examined in prior research due to confidentiality and safety reasons. However, Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2004) overcame difficulties and were able to provide valuable information on these per- sonal characteristics. The study, conducted in the United States, found that most victims (81%) were non-Hispanic whites. Other ethnic groups had a much smaller percentages:

TABLE 3-3 Gender and Age of Victims

Finkelhor and Ormrod (2004)

Males 38%

Females 62%

Younger than 6 13%

6–11 28%

12–17 59%

Wolak, Finkelhor, and Mitchell (2004)

Males 25%

Females 75%

12 1%

13 26%

14 22%

15 28%

16 14%

17 7%

Huang, Leopard, and Brockman (2006)

Males 34.1%

Females 65.9%

Younger than 6 18.9%

6–11 40.6%

12–17 40.5%

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African-American, 7 percent; Asian, 5 percent; Hispanic white, 3 percent; others, 1 percent. Sixty-one percent of victims lived with both biological parents at the time of the incident. Though information about parents’ highest level of education was missing for 40 percent of the cases, valid percentages suggest that victims are equally likely to come from families whose parents had either college degrees or a high school education or less. Incomes of vic- tims’ households were not available for 23 percent of cases; percentages of victims by other income brackets were: 4 percent, less than $20,000; 42 percent, $20,000–$50,000; and 30 percent, more than $50,000. Results appear that victims are most likely to come from low- to moderate-income families. This finding to some degree overlaps with Gallagher’s observation (Gallagher et al. 2006) that victims are most likely to come from a disadvantaged background. Vieth and Ragland (2005) also noted that children living in small rural communities supply a significant proportion of commercially exploited children in the United States.

The harmful consequences of sexual exploitation on victimized children could be dev- astating and long lasting, but hopefully curable. To evaluate the short- and long-term effects, Silbert (1989) studied 100 victims of child sexual abuse over various periods of the victims’ involvement. During the period of the exploitation, Silbert reported that victims suffered a great deal of soreness and irritation around genital areas, and some somatic symptoms such as vomiting, headaches, sleeplessness, and loss of appetite. Later, many victims developed emo- tional withdrawal, moodiness, a sense of helplessness, feelings of anxiety and shame, etc. These negative responses might develop into extremely low self-concept, strong sense of guilt, and deep despair. Silbert (1989) also noted that some psychological malfunctions would continue even after the abuse had been disclosed. The victim might experience an initial relief from the disclosure, but negative symptoms such as nightmares and paranoia might subse- quently arise. Without proper treatment and counseling, victims might develop learned help- lessness and fall into long-term depression. Layden and Smith (2005) have conducted clinical observations of several adult survivors of child sexual exploitation concerning negative con- sequences in adulthood. Outcomes showed that these adult survivors continuously suffered a variety of psychological disorders such as depression, posttraumatic stress disorder, substance abuse disorder, and social problems like divorce and unemployment. They (Layden and Smith 2005) advised that victims need to learn some coping strategies and problem-solving skills to improve their healing process. Those who suffer physical and psychological damages during childhood must work to rise from being victims to being winning survivors.

EMERGING ISSUES IN FIGHTING ONLINE CHILD EXPLOITATION

As Internet usage and technology continues to grow, the ability to effectively protect a child’s innocence becomes more threatened. Many enforcement and prevention programs have been created within and outside the United States to crack down on this new phase of child sexual exploitation (Wortley and Smallbone 2006). Criminal Justice professionals have successfully prosecuted numerous child pornographers and members of molestation rings. But the potential applications of the Internet are so immense and fast-changing that it is dif- ficult for governmental responses to meet and control the spread of the problem. Congress has recently passed the 2006 Adam Walsh Act, creating more resources and programs to pre- vent child sexual exploitation while promoting Internet safety. A new bill, Deleting Online Predators Act (DOPA), was passed overwhelmingly 410-15 by the House in July 2006,

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Emerging Issues in Fighting Online Child Exploitation 61

but was unable to be approved by the Senate before the closing of the last session. DOPA, which intends to limit public access to social networking sites such as MySpace, Xanga, LiveJournal, and Facebook, may be reviewed again by both the House and the Senate in their 2007 session. But passing DOPA remains opposed by the American Library Association and some educators. Their concerns are that access limitations placed on schools and libraries will take away an educational environment where teachers and librarians can show how Internet applications are used for collaboration, business, and learning (American Library Association 2006). Further, the bill would deprive socially disadvantaged youths of access to online social networking, while others are able to have 24-hour access to all features of the Internet (Borger 2006; Jenkins 2006).

The increasing popularity of online social networking is a real threat to the protection of innocent children. A keyword search on cases related to CP and MySpace in the LexisNexis newspaper database showed only one case in 2005. Quite amazingly, the same keyword search using the 2006 database resulted in more than 20 unique cases. It seems that social net- working sites have been utilized by some child predators as a platform for preying on victims of their choice. Teens’ online profiles, which they post on the sites, provide entry points for sexual predators to become acquainted with their chosen targets. The sites’ interactive, multi- media features like blogs, photos, videos, and chat rooms help create relationship, intimacy, and excitement, all of which facilitate the predators’ grooming process. Without legal regula- tions and strong safeguards installed, the social networking sites can be a dangerous virtual ground for these aggressive perpetrators to harm unguarded children.

Another alarming phenomenon is the mutual blending of the CP producer and victim. A front-page story reported by Eichenwald (2005a) in the New York Times illustrates how an underage teenager, Justin Berry, built up his own business by exposing himself live in front of a Webcam. Over a period of 5 years, Justin performed a wide array of sexually explicit activ- ities following real-time instructions provided by viewers. He claimed more than 1,500 online subscribers had paid fees to watch him undressing or performing sexual acts. Though the Webcam sites that featured Justin’s images and videos have since been shut down, other por- tals featuring girls still operate actively (Eichenwald 2005b). A congressional testimony (Mattar 2006) revealed that 80 percent of female prostitutes enter the market before the age of 18. Even if only a tiny proportion of this potential pool of female minors is involved in Webcam pornography, the impact of its large number on Internet CP activities will be sub- stantial. In his investigation of Webcam CP, Eichenwald (2005a) reported that more than 500 sites were created by teenagers to advertise pornographic showing. In a one-week period, Eichenwald discovered Webcam images of 98 minors. The profit, fame, and gifts received by the operating minor, along with the ease of site creation and social network, will potentially drive more teens to attempt opening their own online CP business. To viewers, the interactive nature of Webcam broadcasting makes sexual materials more exciting and participative. The instant display also allows viewers to evaluate and determine whether the subject is a minor or not. This identification facet has made the Webcam delivery of images more appealing to child pornographers, while more challenging to undercover police investigations.

The lack of universal criminalization of CP is another obstacle to the crackdown of child sexual exploitation. A recent survey of 186 Interpol member nations by ICMEC showed that 95 countries have no legislation specifically addressing the CP issue. Of those countries that do have CP legislation, 41 do not criminalize possession of CP (International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children n.d.). The ICMEC has recommended a model

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CP law to help establish standards on the definition of CP. Mattar (2006) has also recom- mended an international convention or declaration against Internet sexual exploitation to solidify global efforts in combating CP. If universal prohibition and enforcement are not established, Web portals and other individual sites can still operate in countries that have loose laws about CP. As long as these sites are up and running on the Net, they can deliver sexual depictions to meet the desires of child pornographers around the world. Engagements in international and interagency collaborations are hence crucial in winning the war against child sexual exploitation.

The invention and power of the Internet have without question changed the nature and extent of child sexual exploitation. New challenges have come subsequently with the out- growth of the Internet. These challenges can best be addressed by holistic efforts involving governments, private sectors, parents, and concerned citizens. Law enforcement agencies have to cooperate professionally with stakeholders in the investigation and conviction of child exploitation cases. Internet service providers, chat and Webcam sites, social networking por- tals, and other Web hosting services are obligated to maintain a safe environment for usage by children. Banks and credit card billing companies should block financial transactions between CP buyers and sellers, and develop tracking procedures for law enforcement purposes. Schools can offer Internet safety awareness programs to teach students and their parents about the hazards of online communication. Meanwhile, parents are to be highly cognizant of the Internet use by their children, and monitor closely their children’s online activities. Also, citi- zens should be vigilant in reporting CP and exploitation to hotlines and authorities. With these efforts combined and solidified, the society will be able to move toward a stronger position in protecting the well-being of children of this Internet generation.

K EY T E R M S

Child sexual exploitation Digitization Victimization

R E F E R E N C E S

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Baron-Evans, A., and N. Noonan. October 19, 2006. Memorandum regarding Adam Walsh Act, Part I. Office of Defender Services/Training Branch of the Administrative Office of the U.S. Courts. Retrieved January 2, 2007 from http://www.fd.org/pdf_lib/Adam%20Walsh%20MemoPt%201.pdf

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Layden, M., and L. Smith. 2005. “Adult survivors of the child sexual exploitation industry: Psychological profiles.” In Medical, Legal, Social Science Aspects of Child Sexual Exploitation: Comprehensive Review of Pornography, Prostitution, and Internet Crimes, edited by Cooper et al., 155–77. St. Louis, Missouri: G.W. Medical Publishing, Inc.

Mattar, M. 2006. Protecting children: The battle against child pornography and other forms of sexual exploitation. Congressional hearing before the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, September 27, 2006. Retrieved December 23, 2006, from http://sharedhope.org/images/ct_ drmohamed.doc

McLaughlin, J. 2000. Cyber child offender typology. Keene Police Department, New Hampshire. Retrieved December 14, 2006, from http://www.ci.keene.nh.us/police/typology.html

Moore, R. 2005. Cybercrime: Investigating High-Technology Computer Crime. Cincinnati, TN: Anderson Publishing.

Mota, S. A. 2002. The U.S. Supreme Court addresses the Child Pornography Prevention Act and Child Online Protection Act in Ashcroft v. Free Speech Coalition and Ashcroft v. American Civil Liberties. Federal Communication Laws Journal 55 (1): 85–98.

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66

K. Jaishankar Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, India

Shaheen Shariff McGill University, Canada

Dr. K. Jaishankar is a lecturer in the Department of Criminology and Criminal Justice, Manonmaniam Sundaranar University, Tirunelveli, India. He is the founding editor in chief of the International Journal of Cyber Criminology, the founding editor of “Crime and Justice Perspective”—the official organ of the Criminal Justice Forum (CJF), India, and the founding managing editor of the International Journal of Criminal Justice Sciences. He serves in the international editorial boards of Journal of Social Change (U.S.), Electronic Journal of Sociology (Canada), Crime, Punishment and Law: An International Journal (U.S.), Journal of Physical Security (U.S.), and Graduate Journal of Social Science (UK). He is the national focal point for India for the International Police Executive Symposium’s working paper series and Expert of World Police Database at www.coginta.com. He is a coinvestigator of the International Project on Cyber Bullying funded by SSHRC, Canada involving eight countries, along with the principal inves- tigator Dr. Shaheen Shariff, McGill University. He is a pioneer in developing the new field, Cyber Criminology and is the proponent of “Space Transition Theory” which gives an explanation for the criminal behavior in cyberspace. He is a recognized expert in the field of cyber criminology and invited by various universities in the United States to deliver lectures on his Space Transition Theory of Cyber Crimes. His areas of academic competence are cyber criminology, crime mapping, GIS, communal vio- lence, victimology, policing, and crime prevention.

Dr. Shaheen Shariff is an assistant professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada. Her appointment is in leadership, policy studies and education law, informed by human rights, legal pluralism, and tort law and constitutional law. She is principal investigator on two grants funded by Social Science and Humanities Research Council of Canada to develop a profile of cyber bullying, inform the current policy vacuum, and develop guidelines to help schools address cyber bullying. She has published numerous journal articles and book chapters on cyber bullying, and she is also writing two books on this topic: Cyber-bullying: Issues and Solutions for the School, the Classroom, and the Home (Routledge, UK); and Cyber-bullying: What Schools Need to Know to Control Misconduct and Avoid Legal Consequences (Cambridge University Press). Dr. Shariff has pre- sented many papers nationally and internationally on cyber bullying and has also contributed to a round- table consultation on violence against children organized by the United Nations Secretary General in June 2005. Her work on cyber bullying has drawn significant public and media interest, placing her among Canada’s top 20 most frequently interviewed and quoted experts according to a recent media relations survey.

Chapter 4

Cyber Bullying: A Transnational Perspective

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Introduction 67

Abstract

Cyber bullying is a psychologically devastating form of social cruelty among adolescents and others. This chapter reviews the international scenario of cyber bullying and emphasizes the cur- rent policy vacuum across the world on this malicious act. It opens with a description and defin- ition of cyber bullying, followed by a brief discussion of the international responses to cyber bullying. A detailed comparative analysis of cyber bullying in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, China, Japan, India, South Korea, and Thailand will be presented.

INTRODUCTION

Parents can often be heard complaining that once their children reach adolescence, they crave for independence and prefer that their parents’ care and affection are not obvious to public. Their primary focus turns on clothes, physical appearance, music, and friends. Adolescence is a period of abrupt biological and social change. Specifically, the rapid body changes associ- ated with the onset of adolescence, in particular, puberty, and changes from elementary to high school initiate dramatic changes in the youngster’s peer group composition and status. Changes in peer group availability, an individual’s status within the said groups, and peer pressure confront youngsters as they are entering new, larger, and typically impersonal sec- ondary high schools. One way in which peer status is often achieved in these sorts of environ- ments, especially for boys, is through the selective use of aggression and other agonistic strategies.

This is typically a time when a young person’s reputation amongst his or her peers is of crucial importance, and when the slightest insult, derogatory statement, or threat can result in extreme feelings of shame and humiliation (Rigby 2005; Shariff and Johnny 2007). This sense of shame is exacerbated as the offensive peer group increases in size (Salmivalli et al. 1996; Pellegrini and Bartini 2000). Bullying is a problem behavior that concerns students, educators, and parents because of its potential detriment to the students’ well-being (Nansel et al. 2001, 2003; Haynie et al. 2001). Most school violence, particularly during adolescence, involves students bullying their peers (Boulton and Underwood 1992; Boulton 1993).

In the 1990s, the United States saw an epidemic of school shootings (of which the most notorious was the Columbine High School massacre). Many of the children behind these shootings claimed that they were victims of bullying and that they resorted to violence only after the school administrators repeatedly failed to intervene. In many of these cases, the vic- tims of the shooters sued the shooters’ families and the school district. In fact, many victims have filed suit against the bullies directly for intentional infliction of emotional distress. Because of these school violence trends, schools in many countries strongly discouraged bul- lying, with programs designed to teach students on how to cooperate and respect each other’s differences, as well as to train peer moderators in intervention and dispute resolution tech- niques. According to Hoover and Olsen (2001), “up to 15% of students in American schools are frequently or severely harassed by their peers. . . . Only a slim majority of 4th through 12th graders . . . (55.2%) reported neither having been picked on nor picking on others.’’ Further, bully–victim cycles are found where individuals are both bullies and victims (Ma 2001; Pellegrini and Bartini 2000; Schwartz, Dodge, and Coie 1993; Schwartz et al. 1997).

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More importantly, it is reported that in many school-shooting cases, bullying played a major role (Dedman 2001).

Bullying among school children is certainly a very old phenomenon, though it was not until the early 1970s, that it was made the object of systematic research. In schools, bullying usually occurs in areas where there is minimal or no adult supervision. It can occur in nearly any part in or around the school building, though it more often occurs in gym, exploratory classes, hallways, bathrooms, classes that require group work, and/or after school activities. Bullying in some school instances consists of a group of students taking advantage over a stu- dent (a boy or girl), or isolating one student in particular, and outnumbering him/her. The typ- ical targets of bullying in school are often pupils who are considered strange or different by their peers to begin with, making the situation harder for them to deal with. Teachers who fail to intervene on behalf of the victim may actually be partly responsible for perpetrating the bullying incidents further.

From a historical perspective, bullying was not perceived to be a problem that necessar- ily needed attention but rather has been accepted as a fundamental and normal part of child- hood similar to a rite of passage (Limber and Small 2003; Campbell 2005). In the last two decades, however, this view has changed and schoolyard bullying is now perceived to be a serious problem that warrants further attention. Bullying is an age-old societal problem, beginning in the schoolyard and often progressing to the boardroom later in life (McCarthy et al. 2001; Campbell 2005). “Bullying” is often defined as being an aggressive, intentional act or behavior that is carried out by a group or an individual repeatedly against a victim who cannot easily defend himself or herself (Whitney and Smith 1993; Olweus 1991; Campbell 2005). It is a form of abuse that is based on an imbalance of power; in that way, it can be defined as a systematic abuse of power (Smith and Sharp 1994; Rigby 2002). Bullying may involve physical assault, including behaviors such as hitting, punching, and spitting, or it may involve language that is similar to browbeating using verbal assaults, teasing, ridicule, sar- casm, and scapegoating (DiGiulio 2001; Slee and Rigby 1993; Campbell 2005). It involves a minimum of two people, typically the perpetrator and the victim. However, a large number of people, bystanders who are witnesses to the bullying incidents, may be perceived as an audi- ence. These bystanders may be other students who witness the bullying event, yet remain uninvolved. They are frequently afraid of becoming the next victim if they do choose to inter- fere. They often feel powerless and show a loss of self-respect and self-confidence (Harris and Petrie 2002; Campbell 2005).

In the recent years, a new form of bullying has emerged that makes use of the diverse range of technology that is now available. Cyber bullying, as coined by Canadian Bill Belsey (2007), or bullying using technology, is a phenomenon that children and adolescents seem to be increasingly using to harm others (National Children’s Home 2002; Campbell 2005). Cyber bullying using e-mail, text, chat rooms, mobile phones, mobile phone cameras, and Web sites is surfacing as a new medium used by today’s bullies. Methods include “texting” derogatory messages on mobile phones, with students showing the message to others before sending it to the target; sending threatening e-mails; and forwarding a confidential e-mail to all address book contacts, thus publicly humiliating the first sender. Others gang up on one student and bombard him/her with “flame” (sending derogatory messages to a person(s) e mails) (Snider 2004; Campbell 2005).

Another way to cyber bully is to set up a derogatory Web site dedicated to a targeted student, and then e-mail others about the targeted victim’s address or Web site to invite their comments.

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Cyber Bullying: Definitions and Conceptualization 69

In addition, Web sites can be set up for others to vote on the biggest geek, or sluttiest girl in the school (Snider 2004; Campbell 2005). In one widely reported incident, a self-made film of a 15-year-old Quebec boy emulating a Star Wars fight was posted on the Internet by his class- mates. Millions of people downloaded the film, with the media dubbing him the Star Wars Kid (Snider 2004; Campbell 2005). In another incident, an overweight boy in the school’s changing room was photographed by another student with a mobile phone camera, and the picture was subsequently posted on the Internet (Mitchell 2004; Campbell 2005). Cyber bullying can also be carried out in chat rooms with the participants ragging a targeted student or continually excluding someone (Williams, Cheung, and Choi 2000; Campbell 2005).

CYBER BULLYING: DEFINITIONS AND CONCEPTUALIZATION

There is no dearth of definitions regarding cyber bullying. Cyber bullying is defined by vari- ous scholars (Willard 2003; Belsey 2005; Smith et al. 2004; Shariff 2005; Patchin and Hinduja 2006). Bill Belsey defined cyber bullying as “the use of information and communi- cation technologies such as e-mail, cell phone and pager text messages, instant messaging, defamatory personal Web sites, and defamatory online personal polling Web sites, to support deliberate, repeated, and hostile behavior by an individual or group, that is intended to harm others.” According to Nancy Willard, Director for the Center for Safe and Responsible Internet Use, cyber bullying is speech that is “defamatory, constitutes bullying, harassment, or discrimination, discloses personal information, or contains offensive, vulgar, or derogatory comments” (Willard 2003). The numerous tactics students can employ include flaming (send- ing derogatory messages to a person(s)), harassing and denigrating (put-downs), masquerad- ing, outing, and excluding (Willard n.d.). Shariff (2005) defines cyber bullying as follows: “Cyber bullying consists of covert, psychological bullying, conveyed through the electronic mediums such as cell-phones, web-logs and web-sites, on-line chat rooms, ‘MUD’ rooms (multi-user domains where individuals take on different characters) and Xangas (on-line per- sonal profiles where some adolescents create lists of people they do not like).”

Patchin and Hinduja (2006) define cyber bullying as “willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text.” Smith et al. (2004) defines cyber bullying as “an aggressive, intentional act carried out by a group or individual, using electronic forms of contact, repeatedly and over time against a victim who cannot easily defend him or herself.” Cyber bullying is a form of bullying which has, in recent years, become more apparent, as the use of electronic devices such as computers and mobile phones by young people has increased. Cyber bullying can take many forms, and for the sake of this chapter, the concept of “cyber bullying” is subdivided (Smith et al. 2004) into seven subcategories:

• Text message bullying

• Picture/video clip bullying (via mobile phone cameras)

• Phone call bullying (via mobile phone)

• E-mail bullying

• Chat room bullying

• Bullying through instant messaging

• Bullying via Web sites.

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70 Chapter 4 Cyber Bullying: A Transnational Perspective

These subcategories were chosen because “cyber bullying” is a very broad term, and the subcategories would help get a better understanding of the range of cyber bullying and of forms that were most prevalent. Three aspects of cyber bullying make it a challenge for schools to supervise and monitor. First, cyber bullying is anonymous. For example, in Li’s (2005) study, 41 percent of the students surveyed did not know the identity of their perpetra- tors. Second, it allows participation by an infinite audience. A third concern is that sexual harassment is a prevalent aspect of cyber bullying.

Anonymity

Most cyber bullying is anonymous because perpetrators are shielded by screen names that protect their identity. Anonymity in cyberspace adds to the challenges for schools (Harmon 2004). Furthermore, although cyber bullying begins anonymously in the virtual environment, it influences learning in the physical school environment. The consequences can be psycho- logically devastating for victims, and socially detrimental for all students (Gáti et al. 2002). Fear of unknown cyber perpetrators among classmates and bullying that continues at school distracts all students (victims, bystanders, and perpetrators alike) from schoolwork. It creates a hostile physical school environment where students feel unwelcome and unsafe. In such an atmosphere, equal opportunities to learn are greatly reduced (Devlin 1997; Shariff and Strong-Wilson 2005).

An Infinite Audience

Research on general bullying finds that 30 percent of onlookers and bystanders support the perpetrators instead of victims (Salmivalli et al. 1996; Boulton 1993). The longer it persists, the more bystanders join in on the abuse (Henderson et al. 2002), creating a power imbalance between victims and perpetrators. Isolation renders victims vulnerable to continued abuse, and the cycle repeats itself. What might begin in the physical school environment as friendly banter can quickly turn into verbal bullying that continues in cyberspace as covert psycholog- ical bullying. The difference in cyberspace is that hundreds of perpetrators can get involved in the abuse, and classmates who may not engage in the bullying at school can hide themselves using technology to inflict the most serious abuse (see examples in Shariff 2004; Shariff and Strong-Wilson 2005).

Prevalence of Sexual Harassment

Preliminary research suggests that although both genders engage in cyber bullying, there are considerable gender differences (Chu 2005; Li 2005). It has been argued that children who engage in any form of bullying are victims. However, studies have shown that teenage girls have more often been at the receiving end of cyber bullying (Dibbell 1993; Evard 1996).

A review of the scholarly literature (Shariff and Gouin 2005) finds that according to Herring (2002), 25 percent of Internet users aged 10–17 were exposed to unwanted porno- graphic images in the past year; 8 percent of the images involved violence, in addition to sex and nudity. Mitchell et al. (2001, cited in Barak 2005), who conducted a survey of American teenagers found that 19 percent of these youths (mostly older girls) had experienced at least

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Cyber Bullying: The International Scenario 71

one sexual solicitation online in the preceding year. According to Adams (2001), one in three female children reported online harassment in 2001. Moreover, adolescent hormones rage and influence social relationships as children negotiate social and romantic relationships and become more physically self-conscious, independent, and insecure (Boyd 2000). Research on dating and harassment practices at the middle-school level shows that peer pressure causes males to engage in increased homophobic bullying of male peers and increased sexual harass- ment of female peers to establish their manhood (Tolman et al. 2001). During this confusing stage of adolescent life, the conditions are ripe for bullying to take place. The Internet media provides a perfect platform for adolescent anxieties to play themselves out.

These three aspects of cyber bullying present a number of unprecedented legal and educational concerns for schools. The first involves a determination of the boundaries of supervision. Schools find it difficult to monitor students’ online discourses. This is because cyber bullying typically occurs outside supervision boundaries, and this raises important legal questions about the extent to which schools can be expected to intervene when their students cyber bully off campus, outside school hours, and from home computers. Currently, the legal boundaries regarding freedom of expression, student privacy, and protection in cyberspace remain unresolved (Wallace 1999; Shariff and Johnny 2007). Meanwhile, frus- trated parents are beginning to sue schools for failing to protect their children from online harassment and abuse.

CYBER BULLYING: THE INTERNATIONAL SCENARIO

Numerous surveys of students have found that face-to-face bullying by peers in school is a frequent experience for many children (Genta et al. 1996; Kumpulainen et al. 1998; Whitney and Smith 1993). It has been found that one in six children reported having being bullied at least once a week (Rigby 1997; Zubrick et al. 1997) although that figure was as high as 50 percent if the duration of the bullying is taken as lasting only one week (Smith and Shu 2000). In another study, 40 percent of adolescents reported having been bullied at some time during their schooling (Mynard, Joseph, and Alexander 2000). However, the percentage of students who have reported long-term bullying of 6 months or more decreases between 15 and 17 percent (Slee 1995; Slee and Rigby 1993).

A cursory review of cyber bullying internationally discloses the following statistical realities. Twelve percent of Australian children under age 10 use text messaging daily, increasing to 49 percent of 10- to 14-year-olds and 80 percent of 15- to 17-year-olds. Sixty-one percent of Australian homes have computers and 46 percent of those have Internet access. Finally, 46 percent of 14-year-old Australian youth, 55 percent of 15-year-olds, and 73 percent of 16-year-olds have their own cell phones (Lee 2005). In Japan, children are exposed to digital gadgets at a very early age but only 20 percent are regular users (Dickie et al. 2004). In Great Britain, over 80 percent of children and teens access home computers, and 75 percent of 11-year-olds own a cell phone (Dickie et al. 2004). Of these, 16 percent reported receiving threatening text mes- sages or Internet threats (NCH 2002). In the United States, approximately 70 percent of chil- dren, aged 4–6 have used computers, and 68 percent under the age 2 have used screen media. A United States survey of 3,700 middle-school students found that 18 percent of students were cyber bullied (Chu 2005). Finally, Canadian statistics confirm that 99 percent of Canadian teens use the Internet. An Alberta middle-school study, disclosed that 23 percent of

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the 177 respondents were bullied by e-mail, 35 percent in chat rooms, 41 percent by cell phone text messaging, 32 percent by known schoolmates, 11 percent by people outside school, and 16 percent by multiple sources including schoolmates (Li 2005).

United States

In the year 2000, a University of New Hampshire study found that one out of every 17, or 6 percent of kids in the United States, had been threatened or harassed online. However, in March 2006, statistics showed that 75–80 percent of 12- to 14-year-olds had been cyber bul- lied. Furthermore, 20 percent of kids under 18 have received a sexual solicitation. Therefore, cyber bullying is clearly on the rise, and it affects both genders. An American Educational Research Association study shows that female bullies preferred the use of text messaging harassment versus face-to-face bullying by two to one (Toppo 2006).

Ybarra and Mitchell (2004) in the United States reported that 15 percent of their sample identified themselves as Internet bullies while 7 percent said they had been targeted online. It also seems that cyber bullying is a growing problem. The growth of cyberspace harassment has been recognized as far back as 1999 with a report from the U.S. Attorney General (Janet Reno) to the former Vice President, Al Gore, suggesting that incidents were an increasing problem for law enforcement officials (Beckerman and Nocero 2002). An American Web site I-Safe reports research on cyber bullying, from a survey of 1,500 students from grades 4 to 8 (aged 9 to 13 years). The main findings (cited from www.mmu.k12.vt.us) determined that 42 percent of children claimed to have been bullied while online, that 35 percent had been threatened online, and that 21 percent had received threatening e-mails or other messages. Fifty-three percent of students surveyed admitted being mean or hurtful online, and 58 percent had said nothing to their parents if they had been threatened online. Again, how respondents were recruited is not specified.

Another organization in the United States that monitors young peoples’ use of the Internet is Wirekids.org, which asserts that 1,500 youth report either being bullied, are guilty of cyber bullying, or know someone who was bullied. In fact, the Portsmouth Herald (2005) reports that cyber bullies or perpetrators, averaging 9 to 14 years of age, use anonymity to cyber bully. In Westchester County, New York, school officials invited 600 students, parents, educators, and law-enforcement officials to a one-half day conference on cyber bullying. When officials asked approximately 200 students if they had personally been a cyber victim or perpetrator, or knew a friend who was either, 194 students raised their hands (Swartz 2005).

Hinduja and Patchin’s (2005) study of 1,500 Internet-using adolescents found that over one-third of youth reported being victimized online and over 16 percent of respondents admitted to cyber bullying others. While most of the instances of cyber bullying involved relatively minor behavior (40 percent were disrespected and 18 percent were called names), over 12 percent were physically threatened and about 5 percent were scared for their safety. Notably, less than 15 per- cent of victims told an adult about the incident. Additional research by Hinduja and Patchin (2007) found that online bullying victimization is related to offline problem behaviors. That is, youth who report being victims of cyber bullying also experience stress or strain that is related to offline problem behaviors (an index of 11 deviant behaviors includes running away from home, cheating on a school test, skipping school, using alcohol or marijuana, among others). However, both of these studies provide only preliminary information about the nature and consequences of online bullying, owing to the methodological challenges associated with an online survey.

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Cyber Bullying: The International Scenario 73

A recent poll commissioned by Fight Crime: Invest in Kids (2007) found that more than 13 million children in the United States, aged 6–17, are victims of cyber bullying. One-third of all teens and one-sixth of all pre-teens have had mean, threatening, or embarrassing things written about them online.

Canada

Canadian research on cyber bullying is currently emerging in a major way (Shariff 2005, 2006a, b; Shariff and Gouin 2005; Shariff and Johnny 2007; Shariff and Strong-Wilson 2005). Although there have been studies on students’ Internet use over the last few years, few have focused on cyber bullying (Li 2005, 2006, 2007; Shariff 2003, 2005; Shariff and Hoff, 2007). A Canadian study researched the legal obligations of Canadian schools to address cyber bul- lying in Quebec and British Columbia (Shariff 2005).

Li’s (2006) study in Canada investigates the nature and the extent of adolescents’ expe- rience of cyber bullying. A survey study of 264 students from three junior high schools was conducted. The results shows that close to half of the students were bully victims and about one in four had been cyber bullied. Over half of the students reported that they knew someone being cyber bullied. Almost half of the cyber bullies used electronic means to harass others more than three times. The majority of the cyber bully victims and bystanders did not report the incidents to adults. When gender was considered, significant differences were identified in terms of bullying and cyber bullying. Males were more likely to be bullies and cyber bullies when compared with their female counterparts. In addition, female cyber bully victims were more likely to inform adults than their male counterparts. Another study by Li (2005) was a comparative analysis of the nature and extent of Canadian and Chinese Adolescent school stu- dents’ cyber bullying experiences. This study found some similar patterns as well as different trends between Canadian and Chinese adolescents’ experiences in cyber bullying.

United Kingdom

The National Children’s Home (2002) study in Great Britain found that one in four children reported being bullied by mobile phone or on the Internet. According to a survey by the National Children’s Home charity and Tesco Mobile (NCH 2005) of 770 youth between the ages of 11 and 19, 20 percent of respondents revealed that they had been bullied via electronic means. Almost three-quarters (73 percent) stated that they knew the bully, while 26 percent stated that the offender was a stranger. Another interesting finding was that 10 percent indi- cated that another person had taken a picture of them via a cellular phone camera, conse- quently making them feel uncomfortable, embarrassed, or threatened. Many youths were reluctant to tell an authority figure about their cyber bullying victimization; while 24 percent and 14 percent told a parent or teacher, respectively, 28 percent did not tell anyone while 41 percent told a friend. A survey by the Crimes against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire in 2000 found that 6 percent of the young people in the sur- vey had experienced some form of harassment including threats and negative rumors and 2 percent had suffered distressing harassment (Finkelhor, Mitchell, and Wolak 2000).

A survey of over 500 British 12- to 15-year-olds has found that 1 in 10 has experi- enced cyber bullying, most commonly through threatening e-mails, exclusion from online

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conversations, or through the spread of rumors about them on the Internet. The MSN cyber bullying report, Blogging, instant messaging and email bullying amongst today’s teens, was published by MSN using data from a British market research company, YouGov that conducted a study on 518 young people and their parents in January 2006. The major findings from the report are as follows:

• More than twice as many girls (18 percent) as boys (7 percent) reported that they had been “cyber bullied,” while twice as many girls (34 percent) as boys (17 percent) knew someone who had experienced cyber bullying.

• One in 20 respondents admitted their involvement in bullying someone online. One in eight reported sending threats to others, while one in 12 admitted to posting fabri- cated information about someone on a blog (online diary).

• Thirteen percent of respondents judged cyber bullying to be “worse than physical bullying.”

• Seventy-four percent of respondents did not approach anyone for help after experi- encing cyber bullying.

• Forty-eight percent of parents were “unaware of the phenomenon of cyber bullying.”

• Over half of the young people surveyed had Instant Messenger (IM) conversations at least once daily, while 33 percent chatted on IM several times a day.

• One in 10 respondents reported visiting online blogs (diaries) daily, and 48 percent of those surveyed said that they checked their e-mail at least once daily. (MSN UK 2006)

Australia

An article in www.theinquirer.net, an Australian news Web site, provides brief statistics on cyber bullying, taken from a study by the Queensland University of Technology. The statistics given are that 13 percent of students have already experienced cyber bullying by age 8, and that 25 percent of students knew somebody who had experienced cyber bullying. This article also reports that more than half the students of the study thought that the phenomenon was on the rise. There is an unspecified time frame or sample size for this study, and the method of collecting data is not known from the article provided.

Campbell (2005) conducted a study of 120 Australian students in Grade 8. Her results indicate that over one-quarter reveal they know someone who had been bullied using technol- ogy. Further, 11 percent of the students admit that they have cyber bullied, and 14 percent reveal that they were targets. Campbell’s (2005) study also reveals that most of the targets are bullied through text messaging, followed closely by chat rooms and then by e-mail.

A recent case (2007) of cyber bullying led an Australian state to ban the popular Internet film-sharing Web site “YouTube” from school computers (Bartlett 2007; Smith 2007). A group of school boys had filmed themselves sexually abusing and degrading a female classmate and then uploaded the video onto YouTube. The film showed a group of 12 youths surrounding the 17-year-old girl, who has a mild mental disability, bullying her to perform sex acts, urinating on her, and setting her hair alight. The education minister in Southern Victoria State, where the attack took place, said the state’s 1,600 public schools

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would block access to YouTube. “The government has never tolerated bullying in schools and this zero tolerance approach extends to the online world,” said the minister. The director of the Australian police’s High Tech Crime Centre, Kevin Zuccato, said at the time of the attack on the girl late last year that it was a disturbing example of cyber bullying. “Cyber bul- lying between children online is on the rise,” he said. “Social networking sites are also putting children at risk. The dark side is too dark” (Bartlett 2007).

India

Bullying is predominantly considered as a serious issue in Western countries. In India, bully- ing is part of certain cultures. Even though school bullying or college bullying is prevalent in the name of ragging, the connotation of bullying is not present in the Indian context. Even though there are new laws regarding ragging in schools and colleges, bullying per se has not been condoned. The use of modern technologies such as Internet and mobile phones has increased the prevalence of bullying by school and college students. Today, Internet and mobile phones have become part of everybody’s lives, including school students.

If u think they r hot . . . Well, let me tell u they’re not. They’re ugly, they’re fat, they look like ratz!!!! Even alienz look better dan dat!!!!! This was an e-mail sent out by the 10th stan- dard class students of a respected Mumbai school, about the students of a rival school. While this may seem to be more of a playful prank than a serious offense, it is only the beginning of a trend that can escalate into a serious problem in the near future. In this case, the teachers intervened and the problem was eventually resolved. In India, where younger and younger kids are discovering the power of the Internet, cyber bullying has already started trapping Indian teenagers in its insidious Web (Kapoor 2003).

Apart from the cyber bullying by school students, a cursory look in to www.orkut.com (a social networking site) will show how much cyber bullying is occurring in India. Orkut came to India only in February 2006 with a mission statement claiming to help people to cre- ate a closer, more intimate network of friends and hoping to put them on the path to social bliss. It is apparent from the mission statement that it was established to enable people to interact with each other across the globe by bridging geographical distances. However, it has since been used for superfluous activities leading to moral degradation and upheaval (Rahul 2007). A 19-year-old student has been accused of making a fake account of a girl. The police arrested a management student from Mumbai following a girl’s complaint about tarnishing her image in Orkut. The boy was trying to entice the girl for some time. He threatened her with dire consequences when she resisted his advances. Later, he posted an obscene profile of her in Orkut portal along with her mobile number. The profile has been sketched in such a way that it draws lewd comments from many who visit her profile. Later, the boy was arrested under section 67 of Information Technology Act, 2000 (India has no separate law for cyber bullying). A brief search in the Orkut profile will reveal many such profiles with pictures of beautiful girls (Sengupta 2006).

In another case of Orkut cyber bullying, a malicious profile of a Delhi school girl was uploaded on the site. The mischief mongers have actually posted obscene photographs and contact details such as her home address and telephone numbers on the profile, using sugges- tive names like “sex teacher” for her. Authorities knew about the matter after the girl’s family started receiving vulgar calls; thereafter, her father contacted the Cyber Cell of Delhi Police’s Economic Offences Wing. According to the Delhi police sources, the girl is a student in a

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South Delhi school. Her father told the police that somebody had misused the social network- ing Web site to falsify her profile and circulate obscene pictures and information on her pro- file. The family received the first call almost a month back when the caller wanted to speak to her, following a series of similar calls, referring to Orkut. Two strangers knocked at the girl’s door, thinking that the girl had invited them for sex through Internet. This is the second inci- dent demonstrating Orkut’s misuse in New Delhi. Earlier, an airhostess alleged that someone has opened an account in her name on the Web site, in which she was described as a “sex struck woman.”

In another interesting case of school cyber bullying in Orkut, a few students from Bombay Scottish School, angered over a few things, started a discussion, “All those who hate DPN” (DPN here are the initials of the principal DPN Prasad). Many students seem to have a grouse against the authorities, and the post flourished with quite uncharitable comments. The school authorities noticed it, and the students were made to apologize and delete their offen- sive posts. Quite on the heels of this incident, another similarly unpleasant incident was reported in the papers in Mumbai. A few Students at MMK College in Mumbai started a forum, “Give your opinion about the principal” on Orkut. In the forum, reportedly, five stu- dents posted comments that were not only uncharitable but also derogatory and slanderous in nature. Once again, college officials made the students apologize and edit their posts. These are only tip of the iceberg of Orkut cyber bullying in India. There are hundreds of communi- ties involving hate against students, teachers, actors, politicians, etc.

Though there are many Western studies related to cyber bullying, there are no empirical researches in India to unearth this modern phenomenon. One study by Anil Kumar and Jaishankar (2007) found that mobile bullying is common among the school students. This study investigated the nature and the extent of school students’ experience of cyber bullying using mobile phones. The results showed that 65 percent of the students were victims of cyber bullying using mobile phones. Interestingly, 60 percent of the respondents have also involved in bullying others using mobile phones. This study is a pioneering one in this area, even though a sweeping generalization was not determined. This survey is the only of its kind so far conducted in India at Tirunelveli city.

In the United States, United Kingdom, and Canada, antibullying sites and support groups have mushroomed to redress this problem. For example, Bullying.ca, Be Safe Online, and Bully Online are just some of the hundreds of sites that offer advice, support, and resources to counter cyber bullying; however, there are no such organizations in India, as the concept of cyber bullying is still not widespread in India (Kapoor 2003).

Japan

In Japan, a country considered to be digitally ahead of the rest of the world by at least two generations (Mitchell 2004), children are exposed to digital gadgets at a very early age. Approximately half of Japanese children aged 11 use the Internet; however, only about 20 percent of them are regular users (Dickie et al. 2004). As Internet use by children is on the rise, cases of cyber bullying have also increased.

In a brief study, Julie d’Eon and Senoo (2007) tried to analyze the prevalence of cyber bullying in Japan and provided insights on some cases. In what is believed to be the first case of cyber bullying in Japan, a few 9th grade girls bullied a 7th grade girl using a cell phone camera. Several girls took the girl to a restroom in one shopping mall, took off her clothing,

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and proceeded to take naked pictures of her with two-group member’s cell phones. These two bullies showed the pictures to some friends and threatened the victim that they would spread her picture around the school if she reported the incident to teachers. One of them sent the pic- ture to friends by cell phone. In this case, the school interfered, deleted the picture, and stopped the picture from being circulated further (Hasegawa 2007; Senoo 2007).

In another case in Japan, one young girl resorted to murdering her classmate over a con- tentious Web site (New York Times 2004). According to a University of Adelaide academic, “In Japan, 80% of bullying or cyber bullying is carried out by a group, rather than an individ- ual. It happens in close friendships where the victim is not excluded from the group, but harassed for a period before it is someone else’s turn. ‘Good students’ are involved in bully- ing, instead of ‘problem kids’ ” (Gibson 2006).

There is also a new trend in Japan involving mobile bullying, which is steadily increas- ing. Accessed mainly via mobile phones, these so-called “gakko ura saito” (clandestine school sites), have created a new form of group bullying that is spurring a whole generation of anonymous slanderers who make old-fashioned bullies seem almost preferable by comparison. After all, in old-style “ijime” (bullying in Japanese), at least you know who the tormentor is. The electronic version is just as vicious, if not more so, because electronic communications afford complete anonymity. And of course, it is far more difficult for school authorities to intervene, let alone identify the instigators, or implement disciplinary measures. In November 2006, a first-year high-school student in Sapporo was discovered to have posted moving images of himself undergoing physical bullying by several classmates. Two of the offenders, one boy and one girl, were subsequently suspended from the school. In December 2006, eight members of a high-school baseball team in Nagano Prefecture were found to have slandered a teammate on a bulletin board. Six offenders were ordered restricted to their homes, and the team was banned from competition for 3 months. In February 2007, six middle-school girls in Kobe used their cell phones’ digital cameras to photograph one another nude. They posted the photos on a bulletin board, with an invitation for visitors to rank their favorites. The Kobe Prefectural Police filed charges for engaging in obscene acts (Aera 2007).

China

Li’s comparative study (2005) on the nature and extent of Canadian and Chinese adolescents’ cyber bullying experiences gives some insights into Chinese cyber bullying. However, more studies are needed on China to understand the true extent of cyber bullying. There are some cases of cyber bullying in China worth noting. A noteworthy case of cyber bullying developed in April 2006, when a man posted information about another man who allegedly had an affair with his wife. He identified his wife’s suspected lover by his Web name, which led to a series of postings that revealed the man’s name, phone number, and address. Thousands of Web postings denounced the lover, while Internet users telephoned or showed up at his home to verbally abuse him and his family. Lawyers are now calling on the government to protect peo- ple from having their personal information made public on the Internet (Bartlett 2007).

In one case involving a young student in China, someone posted a very common and normal picture of the student on the Internet. Nobody could have anticipated that his picture would attract so many hackers who would eventually alter the picture for fun. Many consid- ered the pictures as being funny, and everybody liked the protagonist and they call him “Little Fat Boy” (Yan 2005). In a recent case of cyber bullying in China, a video was posted on

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YouTube involving students bullying a teacher. The students were cursing at the teacher and taking other hurtful actions that were intended to belittle their teacher. Many protested this incident (Belew 2007).

South Korea

In South Korea, a law aimed at cracking down on Internet misuse is intended to stop cyber bullies who were previously able to hide behind false identities. When the new law takes effect in July 2007, the “Internet real-name system” will mean that cyber bullies can be traced because major portals and news media Web sites will be compelled to record the real IDs of users when they post entries. Portal operators will be obliged to disclose personal information such as names and addresses of cyber attackers when their victims want to sue them for libel or infringement upon privacy. “South Korea is an Internet powerhouse and it is probably the most wired country in the world. But sadly, the dark side is too dark,” ministry director Lee Ta-Hee told AFP. “Victims have so far been unable to trace cyber attackers when the attackers use false IDs,” he said (Bartlett 2007).

Online mobs first demonize those they disagree with, and then the victims’ home address, credit card details, and even their boss’s phone numbers are circulated around. All of Korea’s police stations now have a cyber terror unit to help deal with the problem. The num- ber of cases referred to Korea’s Internet Commission tripled last year. “Often using other peo- ple’s login to a website, these people spread bad rumors aimed at affecting the victim’s social status,” said Chun Seong Lee, Liaison Officer at the Cyber Terror Response Centre. “It’s hap- pening a lot. In these situations, people could lose their job, or it could affect their social life, even causing mental distress. That’s all happening because of the development of the Internet, of course.” Next year a new law will come into effect which will force the Koreans to reveal their name and ID number before they share their opinions online (Simmons 2006).

Thailand

Sending cruel and sometimes threatening messages, racial, or ethnic slurs online are frequent. Because computer proficiency is second nature to many of today’s youngsters, it is not sur- prising that many create Web sites that have audio-based stories, cartoons, and pictures that ridicule others. Dave Knight, a Canadian, was told to check out a certain Web site. To his hor- ror, the Web site was titled, “Welcome to the page that makes fun of Dave Knight.’’ At least one similar Web site has ridiculed a Bangkok student, but, understandably, she did not want to share the site address with Learning Post readers. Pictures of classmates are often posted online along with questions asking students to rate the pictured classmate. For example, “Who is the biggest .......... (choose your own derogatory term)?’’ Hacking into an e-mail account and sending vicious or embarrassing material to others are also becoming common practices in Bangkok. Somsak (not his real name), a local 14-year-old student, walked into class to find everyone glaring at him. A boy he barely knew approached him and shouted, “Why did you call me a [disparaging term]?’’ Somsak was as shocked as the boy making the complaint. Eventually, the problem was resolved, but Somsak still has no idea who accessed his account to send the offensive e-mail. Another technique is to engage someone in instant messaging by tricking that person into revealing sensitive personal information, and, in turn,

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forwarding that information to others. The practice of taking a picture of a person in the locker room or toilet using a camera phone and sending that picture to others is another method that is gaining momentum (Payne 2007).

CONCLUSION

Bullying among schoolchildren is certainly a very old phenomenon. However, in recent years, a new form of bullying has emerged that makes use of the diverse range of technology now available. Cyber bullying is a phenomenon that children and adolescents seem to be increasingly using to harm others. Cyber bullying using e-mail, text, chat rooms, mobile phones, mobile phone cameras, and Web sites is surfacing as a new medium used by bullies. Many countries are struggling to stop this form of Internet harassment by establishing new laws and policies. There is an urgent need for researchers to address the policy vacuum on cyber bullying from an interdisciplinary and international perspective. Recently, a project is funded by SSHRC Canada to develop a set of guidelines that inform sustainable and legally defensible international policies on cyber bullying that respect children’s rights, for which the authors Jaishankar and Shaheen Shareef are co-investigator and principal investigator, respectively. This project (2007–2009) will develop an international profile of cyber bullying through a review of multidisciplinary research on its forms, prevalence, and impact in Australia, New Zealand, Great Britain, the United States, Japan, China, and India. This pro- ject (http://www.cyberbullying.co.nr) is expected to address the policy vacuum on cyber bullying internationally.

K EY T E R M S

Adolescents Cyber bullying Text message

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R. K. Raghavan Chairman, Committee on Ragging in Educational Institutions, India

Sheetal Ranjan William Paterson University, New Jersey

and

Vidya Reddy Executive Director, Tulir—Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA), India

DDrr.. RR.. KK.. RRaagghhaavvaann is the former Director of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) in India. He obtained his Ph.D. in 1985 from Karnatak University, Dharwar, and holds a master’s degree in criminal justice from Temple University. In 1994, he was a Visiting Fellow at the School of Criminal Justice, Rutgers University, and in 2001, he was a Visiting Fellow in the Human Rights Program at Harvard Law School. He was recently appointed as Chairman of the Committee on Ragging in Educational Institutions by the Supreme Court of India.

Dr. Raghavan has many publications to his credit, among which are the two books Indian Police: Planning, Personnel and Perspectives (1989, Manohar Publications, New Delhi) and Policing a Democracy: A Comparative Study of India and the U.S. (1999, Manohar Publications, New Delhi). He has contributed a chapter on the Indian Police in Francine Frankel et al.’s (eds) Transforming India: Social and Political Dynamics of Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2000). He is a frequent contributor to The Hindu, one of India’s leading national newspapers. He now writes a column on Law and Order for Frontline, a leading publication of The Hindu group of newspapers, and a fort- nightly column on cyber security for the Business Line, the business daily newspaper of The Hindu group.

Dr. Raghavan’s current interests include human rights, police reforms, cyber security, cyber crime, bank security, counterterrorism and anticorruption in the field of public administration. He is presently an Adviser for Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), India’s largest software company, where he is responsible for corporate security issues spanning the globe. He is also the President of the Indian Society of Victimology and a member of the Board of Governors for the Bharathidasan Institute of Management, Tiruchy, Tamil Nadu.

SShheeeettaall RRaannjjaann holds a master’s degree in criminology from John Jay College of Criminal Justice, New York, and is presently a faculty in the Department of Sociology at William Paterson University, New Jersey. She is also a doctoral student in criminal justice at the Graduate Center—City University of New York. Sheetal’s research interests are diverse, the chief areas being stalking, domestic violence,

Chapter 5

Internet Crimes: Youth and Children

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Introduction 85

and other forms of victimization of women and children. She has presented numerous research papers in the field of victimization of women and children in national and international conferences. She is also interested in comparative international and cross-cultural research and was involved in the “International Crime Data Project” at the John Jay College of Criminal Justice where she evaluated face validity of international crime statistics for the United Nations and Interpol. Sheetal uses crime mapping technologies to study crime patterns in various cities. She has taught numerous courses at John Jay College of Criminal Justice including statistics, research methods, computer applications in criminal justice, corrections in juvenile justice administration, and crime in Asia. She enjoys using various com- puter applications and software both in her research and in her teaching. She is a member of several pro- fessional organizations including the American Society of Criminology.

VViiddyyaa RReeddddyy is executive director of the Tulir—Centre for the Prevention and Healing of Child Sexual Abuse (CPHCSA), Chennai. Tulir—CPHCSA is a nongovernmental, nonprofit organization committed to working against child sexual abuse in India. Its programs range from training and consultancy, advo- cacy and networking, resource development, research and documentation, healing and socio legal assis- tance to the dissemination of personal safety education.

Considering the growth and spread of ICTs in India and with the realization of the impact they have in reshaping the contours of sexual crime against children, Tulir has initiated and is continuing dia- logue with industry, policy makers, law enforcement, educators, and the larger community as well, to ensure that all efforts are made within each of their professional and community responsibilities to ensure that children’s experience with the new technologies is enjoyable.

Abstract

The Internet has both a positive and a negative impact on society. It is known to facilitate crimes of a wide spectrum against children. Bodily harm of children, including sexual assault, using the Internet is an unfortunate modern phenomenon which is widely prevalent. Governments have brought in new law to checkmate this. But legislation has been found to be ineffective in neutralizing pedophile gangs that use the cyberspace to gratify their lust and greed. Law enforcement agencies have also done their bid, but their success has been modest. All these efforts will not succeed unless the community rises in support and relentlessly stands against the wrongdoers.

INTRODUCTION

There is an inconclusive debate across the globe whether the Internet is a blessing or a curse. It would be facile to take a categorical stand in favor of either view. This is because it is hardly possible to exaggerate the positive role played by this powerful medium, which disseminates knowledge and promotes an enduring relationship between nations and communities that are otherwise divided by conflicting political philosophies, economic disparities, and cultural dif- ferences. Perhaps, half the advances made in modern science and medicine would not have been possible without a healthy exchange of views over cyberspace. Having said that, it is a sad fact that the Internet has been grievously misused for promoting hatred and violence, as is evidenced by confirmed reports of terrorists employing this medium to circulate appeals for

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violence against lawfully established governments and peace-loving individuals and groups. Besides this, there is an additional phenomenon in which dubious persons explore the Internet for downright greed and lust. It has been more than well established that the Internet now facilitates crimes against the youth and children. This misuse is not confined to one particular ethnic group or any geographic region. Surprisingly, it is also not poverty that has driven this evil. Many affluent countries in the West have reported a surge in this form of questionable activity. Groups and individuals in the developing countries such as India have also fallen prey to this. The problem is slowly getting out of hand. Governments in these countries are conscious of this trend and have been reasonably sensitive. But what they have done till now has had only a marginal impact. It is disturbing to see the signs of a losing battle and hence we would like to place a few facts before readers in the hope these would help to build world opinion and generate a massive international exercise against perpetrators of online crime against youth and children.

Children access the Internet on a regular basis to learn, to play games, and to net- work with their friends. The Internet is an integral part of childhood learning and growing up. This is good as far as it goes. We need to promote such healthy use of the cyberspace. Along with the benefits of the Internet are the risks associated with it. In this chapter, we explore the benefits and risks of Internet use for children and youth, examine available usage statistics, discuss in brief the legislation in various countries and its consequences for the community, examine the research initiatives undertaken by various governmental and nongovernmental organizations, examine the policing initiatives to combat the problem, and survey the work of NGOs and other agencies. We conclude with a brief dis- cussion about the difficulties involved in the legislation and policing of the Internet and about how educating the parents, teachers, and children can be first steps to combating the problem.

THE INTERNET PENETRATION

As of June 10, 2007, 1.133 billion people use the Internet; North America has the highest pen- etration rate (ratio of Internet usage to population) at about 69 percent. Close to 9 in 10 teens are Internet users (Lenhart 2005). A survey by the Pew Internet & American Life Project in November 2004 finds that 87 percent of teenagers between the ages of 12 and 17 use the Internet—about 21 million youth (Lenhart and Madden 2005). Various other studies have reflected that 75 percent of 9- to 19-year-olds have Internet access at home (ahead of adults), 92 percent have access at school (and few have no access at all), and 84 percent use the Internet at least weekly (Livingstone and Bober 2005). Younger children, 37 percent of 5- to 6-year-olds and 64 percent of 7- to 8-year-olds are also the users of the Internet (Childwise 2006). About half (48 percent) of all children of age 6 and below have used a computer; by the time they are in the 4- to 6-year-old range, 7 out of 10 (70 percent) have used a computer. Those who use a computer spend an average of just over an hour at the keyboard (Rideout, Vandewater, and Wartella 2003). Nearly half (48%) of children aged between 8 and 11 use the Internet at home, and two-thirds (65 percent) of children aged between 12 and 15 do so (OFCOM n.d.). Almost 70 percent of adults (69.6 percent) say that the children in their households spend the right amount of time online (Center for the Digital Future 2007). Solitary usage is also common among kids.

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HOW CHILDREN USE THE INTERNET

Education, entertainment, and communication are amongst the most common uses for chil- dren. Education can involve access to educational Web sites, libraries, globally relevant infor- mation, news Web sites, technological Web sites, and the like. Children may access these Web sites as part of their school education and projects or out of their own curiosity and interest. Internet is a major part of entertainment in the lifestyle of children across the world. Children access the Internet to play (or download) games, download (or listen to) music or movies, view pictures and videos (e.g., YouTube), shop online, visit hobby Web sites, or join fan forums. Internet is one of the primary means of communication for children. E-mail, online chatting, networking sites (e.g., Myspace and Facebook), blogs, message boards, and Internet phones (e.g., Skype) are frequently used not only to communicate with their friends and fam- ily but also to make new friends or network with other people. Some youth and children also host their own Web sites on the Internet. Apart from education, entertainment, and communi- cation, children may use the Internet to seek information or advice about emotional, health, or sexual issues; whereas others may be interested in civic and political participation and find the Internet to be a good medium to connect with other community members.

The OFCOM study found that the top two uses of the Internet for children in each age group are school work and playing games. Children aged between 12 and 15 make a broader use of the Internet than those aged 8–11 (OFCOM n.d.). Children and adults continue to express conflicting views about the importance of the Internet for schoolwork. Of Internet users aged 18 and below, 80.5 percent say that going online is very important or extremely important. However, almost three-quarters of adults say that since their household acquired the Internet, the grades of children in their households had stayed the same (Center for the Digital Future 2007).

Half of the teenagers in a study in Ireland said they had chatted on the Internet, whereas only a quarter of the preteens have ever chatted. A large majority of teens (71 percent) have established online profiles (including those on social networking sites such as MySpace, Friendster, and Xanga), up from 61 percent in 2006; about 47 percent have an Internet profile that is public and viewable by everyone (Cox Communications, NCMEC, and Walsh 2007). It is no surprise that a medium as pervasive as the Internet brings with it certain risks.

INTERNET RISKS

Internet risks for children and youth can broadly be grouped into two categories, offending risks and victimization risks. It is important to understand the specific offending risks that Internet-use can create for young users. Yet, the greater interest and concern worldwide is about the victimization risks for young users. Here, we attempt to understand the different offending and victimization risks. We also examine current statistics and some cases.

Offending Risks

Offending risks are specifically those actions that either completely go against the law or bor- der on the illegal. Children may unwittingly commit such offenses or may knowledgeably involve themselves as a manifestation of the thrill-seeking behavior common among children

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and youth. Very often, children and youth commit such offenses as a reaction to emotional distress or because of psychological problems.

Internet offenses that children commonly get involved in are

• Pirating music and software

• Viewing pornography

• Libel or defamation

• Writing computer codes to create viruses that damage other computers

• Hacking into other people’s computers and networks

• Credit card and other financial abuse

• Online con games

• Gambling

• Cyber bullying

Other very serious forms of offending can include terrorism, self-harm (suicide, anorexia), illegal purchase and distribution of narcotics and weapons, etc. Children might also be perpetrators of sexual exploitation or harassment against other children or adults. More recently, children are becoming perpetrators of cyber bullying (willful and repeated harm inflicted through the medium of electronic text) (Patchin and Hinduja 2006).

In 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America filed 261 copyright infringe- ment lawsuits on behalf of major record labels. Many parents were unaware of the risks involved in sharing music, but they were held responsible for their kids’ actions. In one such case, the mother of a 12-year-old settled the case with a payment of $2,000 (Harmon 2003).

Various research studies have tried to measure the extent of the problem; they have dif- fering methodologies, age groups, and samples; some have questioned parents and others children, some others have questioned both. Here is a brief of what these studies suggest: 12 percent of 12- to 19-year-olds seek porn online on purpose (UCLA 2003); 57 percent Internet users have seen porn online via pop-ups (38 percent), junk mail (25 percent), e-mail from contact (9 percent); 10 percent had visited porn sites on purpose and over half reported “not bothered” by porn, whereas one-fifth were “disgusted” (Livingstone and Bober 2005). A study in Australia reports that 38 percent of boys and 2 percent of girls have searched for sex on Web sites (Flood and Hamilton 2003); 19 percent of children aged 10–17 years were involved in online aggression (Ybarra and Mitchell 2004). A study in Ireland reports that 26 percent of children (mostly boys) had visited hateful sites and about 35 percent had visited pornographic sites (Agebäck 2004).

In a recent online survey of approximately 1,500 Internet-using adolescents, about 16.7 percent of the youth are known to have bullied others online. A nontrivial number have also threatened (4.1 percent) others and made others scared for their own safety (2.7 percent) (Hinduja and Patchin 2007). These findings are reiterated in the MSN bullying survey, where about 5 percent of the children reported bullying other children (MSN 2006). While these sta- tistics provide a basic understanding about violent, sexual, or offensive behavior, there is no study to date that measures the types of pornography that has been viewed. Much information about other Internet offences is not easily available because these are usually prosecuted under general local or central laws.

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Victimization Risks

Just as a child on the street is exposed to risk of accident or kidnapping, a child on the infor- mation superhighway is exposed to certain victimization risks. Victimization risks for chil- dren using the Internet range from mild to severe forms or could be the precursor to other more serious forms of victimization. Victimization risks on the Internet can broadly be divided into content risks and contact risks.

Content Risks Content risks involve exposure to harmful content on Web sites or in e-mail. Common forms of content risks include exposure to nudity and age-inappropriate sexually explicit material; harmful, violent, or offensive content; and promotional material about tobacco, alcohol, or drugs. Other types of content risks include information about satanic, cult, or terrorist groups; recipes for making bombs or other explosives; Web sites that defraud children or commer- cially exploit them; and hacking of personal information, etc.

Eighteen percent of European parents and caregivers of children less than 18 years of age believe that their children had encountered harmful or illegal content on the Internet, the rate being higher for teens than for younger children (Eurobarometer 2005–2006). Sixteen percent of 8- to 15-year-olds have come across “nasty, worrying or frightening” material online (OFCOM n.d.). The Online Victimization of Youth Survey in 2006 reported an increased exposure to sexual material (34 percent vs. 25 percent) compared to its previous survey (Wolak et al. 2006).

Contact Risks Contact risks involve communicating with strangers, pedophiles, hate groups, kidnappers, online bullies, stalkers, harassers, etc. Sometimes, the strangers may misrepresent themselves as children and “groom the children” to gain trust and later lure them into real physical meetings resulting in serious harm to them. The first Youth Internet Safety Survey (YISS-1) using a sam- ple of 10- to17-year-olds indicated that 20 percent of children received sexual solicitation online in the past year, of which 3 percent reported aggressive sexual solicitation. One in 17 children was threatened or harassed online. Depressed teenagers are more likely to receive unwanted sex- ual solicitations and are emotionally distressed by such incidents. Only a few children reported the incident to their parents or any elder (Finkelhor, Mitchell, and Wolak 2000).

The second survey (YISS-2) was conducted between March and June of 2005. It inter- viewed 1,500 youth Internet users, aged 10–17, and reported an increased incidence of online harassment (9 percent vs. 6 percent) and less unwanted sexual solicitations (13 percent vs. 19 percent) in recent years. Four percent of them had been asked for nude or sexually explicit photos of themselves, and the number of children distressed by it increased (9 percent vs. 6 percent). Most of the unwanted solicitations were reported from acquaintances but not from strangers, indicating that the risks were not necessarily associated with exposure to strangers (Wolak et al. 2006).

A study in Ireland of 9- to 16-year-olds reported that 27 percent of the children who met someone new online were asked for their photos, phone number, street address, or the name of the school he or she attended. Most children gave false information or ignored the request. Younger children were much more likely to give all the information they were asked. Ten percent

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of the children gave all the demanded information. The study also found that 23 percent of the children had received unwanted sexual comments on the Internet, with boys receiving twice as much as girls. Nineteen percent of those who use the chat room said that they had been harassed, upset, bothered, threatened, or embarrassed by someone during the process. Seven percent have met someone dangerous in real life that they had first met on the Internet, and a worrying 24 percent of those who met face to face said that someone who introduced himself or herself as a child on the Internet turned out to be an adult (WebWise n.d.).

More recently, social networking has become one of the major uses of Internet for chil- dren. In a large-scale study of teenagers in Holland, about 40 percent reported that they had a social networking profile. Eighty-two percent of boys and 73 percent girls flirted online in the past 6 months, and about 25 percent of boys and 20 percent of girls had cybersexual experi- ences. The Internet has increasingly become the prime media for sexual exposure for 9- to 16-year-olds, about 72 percent boys and 83 percent of girls reported received sexual questions online; 40 percent boys and 57 percent girls were asked to undress on Webcam, and about 33 percent of boys and 10 percent of girls were actually doing it. About 47 percent girls received an unwanted request for a sexual act on the Webcam, with about 2 percent complying. Many girls (62 percent) and fewer boys (13 percent) expressed a dislike for receiving sexual ques- tions online. Thirty-five percent of girls and 12 percent boys claimed a negative experience in receiving sexual questions. Many kids (9 percent girls and 3 percent boys) in this study had posted sexual photos online and later regretted it. It is interesting to note that most of these children were aware of “pedophiles,” but they were unclear about boundaries among teens (Remco Pijpers Foundation 2006). Such contact risks are especially of greater concern to par- ents, as reports about dubious ownership of these sites emerge. Stickam is one such social net- working Web site which has about 600,000 registered users. Recently, a former employee reported that Stickam shares officespace, employees, and computer systems with porno- graphic Web sites. The owner of Stickam is apparently a Japanese businessman who owns at least 49 pornography sites and a pornography film production company (Stone 2007).

Cyber bullying is also emerging as a major form of victimization risk for children. A recent online survey of cyber bullying indicates that over one-third (33.4 percent) of the youth had been victimized through cyber bullying. Among that group, the most frequent types of cyber bullying victimization include being ignored (43.2 percent) and disrespected (39.8 per- cent). The primary cyber locations in which victimization occurs are chat rooms (55.6 percent), instant message (48.9 percent), and email (28.0 percent). More than one-third of the victims felt frustrated, 30.6 percent felt angry, and 21.8 percent felt sad (Patchin and Hinduja 2006). The National Bullying Survey (2006) conducted in the UK reported that 69 percent pupils were bullied in the past year (half of those were physically hurt) of which 7 percent said that they received unpleasant or bullying e-mails/IM/text messages. Per the MSN (2006) cyber bullying report, 11 percent of 12- to 15-year-olds were cyber-bullied (18 percent girls and 7 percent boys), 74 percent told no one, and 62 percent knew someone who has been bullied online.

RELEVANT LEGISLATION

The overwhelming growth of the Internet, high usage among youngsters, and accompanying risks have brought with them a need for regulation and legislation. It is very difficult for regulations and legislations to keep pace with emerging technologies. Yet, almost all major

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governments have tried to regulate it in some form or the other. Legislation and regulations have a variety of objectives:

• protect children

• assist law enforcement

• raise public awareness

• promote basic civil rights

• find solutions within the Internet industry.

Legislation and regulation in most countries involve a two-pronged approach: govern- mental legislation (or rulings) and industry self-regulation attempts. This provides a com- bined effort on the part of both the government and the industries to make the information superhighway a safe place for children of all ages. In the ensuing paragraphs, we will exam- ine the legislation in a few regions of the world, compare them, and discuss their successes and shortcomings.

United States Legislations and Regulations

Many crimes of the Internet are prosecuted under the Criminal Code. Apart from this, specific Congressional Legislations and Federal Agency Rulemakings to combat Internet risks for children in the United States are the following.

Child Online Protection Act (COPA) was designed specifically to provide both criminal and civil penalties for transmitting sexually explicit materials and communications over the World Wide Web that are available to minors and harmful to them (47 U.S.C. § 231). Recently, on March 22, 2007, the Child Online Protection Act was struck down again. U.S. District Judge Reed found that the law on the face of it violates the First and Fifth Amendments of the U. S. Constitution. He issued an order permanently prohibiting the gov- ernment from enforcing COPA.

There is also the Child Abuse Act of 1990, which, after an amendment, included the reporting of child pornography by electronic communication. Section 226 regarding this was added to the act by the 27th January 1998 Amendment.

Government-Mandated Filtering in schools and libraries require schools, libraries, and other places where the computers are bought with public funds, to install blocking and filter- ing technologies. Overall, the American Library Association, educators, and civil liberties groups object to government-mandated filtering. They feel that schools should decide what their students are allowed to view online and the same applies to librarians as well.

The Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act, effective April 21, 2000, pertains to the online collection of personal information from children under the age of 13. The new rules spell out what a Web site operator must include in a privacy policy, when and how to seek ver- ifiable consent from a parent, and what responsibilities an operator has in order to protect chil- dren’s privacy and safety online. The primary objective of the Act is protection of the identity and privacy of children on the Internet. It works on a sliding scale system, in which, if the infor- mation is used for internal purposes, e-mail can be used to get parental consent. When a child’s personal information is made publicly available through a chat room or message board, a more reliable method of consent is required. Some of these methods of consent include: verifying a

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credit card number; getting a signed form from the parent via postal mail or facsimile; accept- ing calls from parents through a toll-free telephone number staffed by trained personnel; receiving e-mail accompanied by digital signature; and receiving e-mail accompanied by a PIN or password obtained through one of the verification methods mentioned above.

Deleting Online Predators Act 2007 is a bill brought before the U.S. House of Representatives and is pending legislation. The bill, if enacted, would amend the Communica- tions Act of 1934, requiring schools and libraries that receive E-rate funding to protect minors from online predators in the absence of parental supervision when using “Commercial Social Networking Websites” and “Chat Rooms.” The Deleting Online Predators Act of 2007 would require schools and libraries that receive federal funding to block children’s access to social networking Web sites or chat rooms unless supervised. The proposed Act also mandates the creation of an online clearinghouse Web site to educate parents, teachers, and students about the potential dangers of social networking sites and chat rooms. It would also require the Federal Trade Commission to issue consumer alerts regarding dangerous sites and suspicious activity, for parents and teachers.

Industry self-regulation efforts provide safety and protection to children on the infor- mation super highway, some of which are briefly explained below.

The Children’s Advertising Review Unit (CARU) is a voluntary organization founded in 1974 to promote advertisements for making children more responsible. It is an alliance of major advertising trade associations working through the National Advertising Review Council. CARU is directed at self-regulation of child-directed advertising in all media and online privacy practices where they affect children. It has created self-regulatory guidelines for children’s advertising. It works through the voluntary cooperation of advertisers.

Trade associations such as the Better Business Bureaus’ online effort known as BBBOnLine and the Direct Marketing Association (DMA) have also taken measures to create programs to make members of their associations comply with privacy standards. The Association of National Advertisers, Inc. and the American Association of Advertising Agencies have also been participating in discussions involving data collection and electronic commerce. Some of these efforts are directed specifically at children, but most of them involve regulations and standards applicable to both adults and children.

Online Privacy Alliance is a group comprising 80 corporations and industry trade asso- ciations in an effort to promote privacy practices among its business members. The Alliance has a specific set of principles around children’s privacy.

The United Kingdom Legislations and Regulations

Like the United States, in the United Kingdom also, the legislation related to Internet and crimes against children is a combination of criminal codes, other acts, and some case laws. Some of the acts that are specifically used to prosecute child abuse images are:

• Protection of Children Act 1978 (England and Wales)

• Civic Government Act, 1982 (Scotland)

• Sexual Offences Act 2003: Key Changes (England and Wales)

• Memorandum of Understanding: Section 46 Sexual Offences Act 2003

• Obscene Publications Act 1959 and 1964.

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Racial hatred content perpetrated over the Internet is prosecuted using the Public Order Act 1986 where Incitement to Racial Hatred was adopted into the Public Order Act in 1986. Directive applicable to the liability of Internet Service Providers is found under the Liability Of Intermediary Service Provider’s Directive 2002.

Some judicial rulings have helped clarify the position of the judiciary on matters relat- ing to victimization of children on the Internet. For instance, R v Oliver, Hartrey & Baldwin clarifies the definitions proposed by the Sentencing Panel in relation to Images of Child Abuse. R v Bowden held that the downloading of an indecent image of a child was an act of “making” under the Protection of Children Act 1978. In R v Fellows & Arnold, the court held that the wording of the Protection of Children Act 1978 covered the use of the Internet to dis- tribute indecent images. R v Jayson concluded that the act of deliberately downloading an image from the Internet was “making an image.” R v Perrin brought residents of the United Kingdom who use offshore servers for distribution, into the jurisdiction of the U.K. Law for obscene content. R v Smith (Wallace Duncan) concluded that a person can be guilty of an offence if a “substantial part of the crime” was committed in the United Kingdom. This was relevant to fraud cases but could be considered for Cases of Incitement to Racial Hatred, as part of the Public Order Act 1986.

INTERNATIONAL CONVENTIONS AND TREATIES

The United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child, entered into force in September 1990, specifically safeguards the interest of children. Article 34 states that the participants of the convention will undertake actions to protect the children from all forms of sexual exploita- tion and sexual abuse. And they shall also take appropriate national, bilateral, and multilateral measures to prevent the inducement or coercion of a child to engage in any unlawful sexual activity; the exploitative use of children in prostitution or other unlawful sexual practices, and the exploitative use of children in pornographic performances and materials.

The United Nations Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child on the Sale of Children, Child Prostitution and Child Pornography, entered into force in January 2002, addresses all issues about the rights of children. Several articles of the convention are specifically relevant to the use of Internet. These pertain to issues such as the right to freedom of expression, obligation to protect their privacy and attacks on their honor or reputation, responsibility of the mass media to partake in protecting these rights and to disseminate information, and commitment of the member states to protect children from all kinds of exploitation, including pornography. The Protocol specifically supports the worldwide crimi- nalization of the “production, distribution, exportation, transmission, importation, intentional possession and advertising of child pornography.” It also stresses the need for cooperation among nations and between the Internet industry and the governments.

The United Nations Convention on Cybercrime came into force in July 2004. The Convention is the first international treaty on crimes committed via the Internet and other computer networks. It deals with a variety of Internet crimes, child pornography being one among them. It also contains a series of powers and procedures such as the search of com- puter networks and interception. Its main objective, set out in the preamble, is to pursue a common criminal policy aimed at the protection of society against cyber crime, especially by adopting appropriate legislation and fostering international cooperation.

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PREVENTION AND ENFORCEMENT INITIATIVES

Internet crimes need specialized law enforcement initiatives. Crimes against children on the Internet need constant monitoring of chat rooms, access to pornographic content, etc. Prevention initiatives are directed to educate the children, parents, and educators about safety on the Internet. In the following section, we will examine the law enforcement initiatives to combat victimization of children in the United States and United Kingdom. We will also dis- cuss initiatives in other parts of the world and the role of governmental and nongovernmental agencies in prevention.

United States Law Enforcement and Prevention Measures

Law enforcement agencies in the West are visibly exercised over the abuse of children through the Internet. A major Federal Bureau of Investigation exercise to fight child pornography is the Innocent Images National Initiative (IINI), which focuses its attention on organizations and individuals engaged in exploiting children to produce and distribute obscene child images for a price. It also keeps a tab on individuals who travel from place to place for the purpose of grati- fying themselves through children. Mere possessors of child pornography also receive the IINI’s attention. Identifying child victims and rendering them assistance falls within its scope. As part of the FBI’s cyber division, this strategic unit has managed to muster substantial inter- national cooperation. An idea of the volume of work turned out is available from the statistics put out by the FBI. More than one-third of all investigations by the Bureau’s cyber division emanates from the IINI. Since 1996, when the Initiative was first set up, the number of cases unearthed has gone up beyond expectations. During the decade that ended in 2006, the increase was more than 1,700 percent. About 18,000 cases were registered during this period, leading to the arrest of 7,700 persons and successful prosecution of 5,840 individuals.

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Its primary mission is to develop and implement effective programs for juveniles. The Office strives to strengthen the efforts of juvenile justice system to protect public, hold offenders accountable, and provide services that address the needs of youth and their families. Programs sponsored by OJJDP to meet its objectives with regards to crimes of the Internet include:

The Crimes Against Children Research Center combats crimes against children by providing high-quality research and statistics to the public, policymakers, law enforcement personnel, and other child welfare practitioners.

i-SAFE America provides Internet safety information to students, parents, and other community members.

Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program helps state and local law enforcement agencies develop an effective response to cyber enticement and child pornography cases.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children collects and distributes data regarding missing and exploited children and operates a national toll-free hotline.

The work of nongovernmental and not-for-profit agencies cannot be discounted either. Some of these agencies maintain comprehensive informational Web sites to educate parents

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and other caregivers about safe use of the Internet. Some agencies in the United States that are doing an excellent work in this area are the Netsmartz and Safeteens.

United Kingdom Law Enforcement and Prevention Measures

The Child Exploitation and Online Protection (CEOP) Centre is a law enforcement agency that works in both online and offline environments. The Centre works across the United Kingdom and uses international links to deal with child sex abuse wherever and whenever it happens. The Center achieves this by providing Internet safety advice for parents and by also offering a virtual police station for reporting abuse on the Internet.

The Internet Watch Foundation (IWF) is a key component in the UK’s industry/ police/government partnership for tackling illegal content online. The IWF is the only recog- nized nonstatutory organization in the United Kingdom operating an Internet “Hotline” for the reporting of exposure to potentially illegal content online. The IWF strives to minimize the availability of potentially illegal Internet content, such as child sexual abuse images hosted anywhere in the world, criminally obscene content hosted in the United Kingdom, and incitement to racial hatred content hosted in the United Kingdom. The IWF has been very successful in the United Kingdom in reducing the percentage of Web sites hosting illegal con- tent; apparently down to 1 percent in 2006 from 18 percent in 1997 according to information on its Web site. The IWF works in collaboration with all police agencies. It achieves its objec- tives by maintaining collaboration with agencies such as the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP), Virtual Global Taskforce, Serious Organized Crime Agency (SOCA), The Metropolitan Police Paedophile Unit, West Midlands Police Hi Tech Crime team, Greater Manchester Police Abusive Images Unit, and The National Hi-Tech Crime Unit Scotland (NHTCUS).

Other nongovernmental and not-for-profit agencies also do a commendable job in cre- ating awareness to keep children safe online. Among these are SafeKids, NCH—the chil- dren’s charity, and the like.

International Law Enforcement and Prevention Measures

The Lyon-based International Criminal Police Organization (ICPO) generally referred to as the Interpol got involved in the investigation of offenses against children in 1989 following the adoption of the UN Convention on Rights of the Child. Interpol works globally with several partners raising awareness. It focuses on the need for international partnerships while empha- sizing a local perspective on the issue. It has a specialist group to tackle crimes against chil- dren. This group focuses on four different arenas; commercial exploitation and trafficking in children, sex offenders, serious violent crimes against children, and child pornography. The Interpol presents itself as a worldwide forum of specialists dealing with these issues. It has activities in different regions of the world to ensure that law enforcement officers understand the need to act upon requests involving children at risk. Interpol creates a global understand- ing to address victim identification and help rescue children being sexually abused and porno- graphically exploited.

Child sexual exploitation on the Internet includes posed photos and video recordings of sex crimes against children. To help police in different countries fight this type of crime, the

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Interpol Child Abuse Image Database (ICAID) was created in 2001. This database consists of thousands of images of child sexual abuse submitted by member countries. This sharing of images by the Interpol with member countries helps in identifying old versus new crimes and is a great aid in tracking down the criminals. The Interpol, as part of its commitment to eradi- cate sexual abuse of children, has passed several resolutions making crimes against children as one of its top international policing priorities.

Operationally, Interpol supports member-states in carrying out large investigative operations involving the commercial exploitation of children by pedophile networks. It also provides support in ongoing cases. The Interpol is authorized to issue Green Notices on offenders who travel to commit their crime.

Virtual Global Task Force (VGT) is another initiative to fight child pornography. This task force forms the basis of forging close relations between law-enforcement agen- cies in the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, and Australia. The VGT brings together officers from the four countries for exchange of information and for collaboration in investigation. VGT was established in 2003, and since then it has set up a 24/7 watch- system where agencies of VGT member-countries operate by turn as an “On-call Internet Police Officer.” This arrangement enables instantaneous response to imminent threats to children. For instance, in a recent case, a man in England was identified to be planning molestation of his children. A joint team of U.S. and U.K. authorities moved in swiftly to arrest him and foil the attempt. Such an initiative need not necessarily come from agencies alone. Suspicious online activity can be reported to the VGT by individual Internet users as well.

In an international meeting held in Washington in February 2007, the VGT launched a 60-second commercial that is being distributed all over the world to a projected audience of 450 million. This conference has proposed a European task force and an educational and awareness program for all Internet users, especially for those in the United Kingdom. A man- ual of good practice for investigators across the globe is also a distinct possibility. The VGT Web site will become more informative in due course so as to facilitate a quicker law enforce- ment response to any report on child abuse.

CONCLUSION

Even though a model legislation for pornography was proposed by the International Center for Missing and Exploited Children (ICEMC), and with a research study indicating there are now fewer dismissals and acquittals for Internet sex crimes against minors than for conven- tional child sexual abuse prosecutions, it cannot be said with confidence that our children are completely protected. This is especially true in light of a recent report according to which state prosecutors have discovered that nearly 141 convicted New Jersey sex offenders were using MySpace (Maddux 2007). Discovering these sex offenders was not very hard for the prosecutors, but bringing them to justice was. The problems in arresting and convicting online predators usually center on issues of masked identities, jurisdiction, problems in gathering evidence and following the electronic trail. Chief of the FBI’s cyber division, Raul O. Roldan (2006) testified to Congress that, “Even after . . . a thorough analysis of all information is conducted, there is rarely enough probable cause established to request a search warrant on the customer’s residence.”

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The Internet is under assault from many quarters, especially from people who have distinct evil intentions. Some of them are downright perverts. What we should be more concerned about are the activities of international gangs who want to earn a living out of child pornography. Such pornography has many dimensions. The most serious ones are physical assaults on children after their pictures had been carried by the Internet and are lured into face-to-face contact with those who peddle images. Governmental authorities can only do a little. The role of parents is much more crucial and effective. They need to monitor surfing by children so that their access to total strangers is denied. Once such access becomes difficult, it will be possible to eliminate from cyberspace those strangers who are out to exploit the chil- dren. Not many parents are clued up on this, and there is a need to educate them.

K EY T E R M S

Child sexual abuse Internet risks Self-regulation

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