Child exploitation cases on the rise
Between 2004 and 2013, the cases of commercial sexual exploitation of children offenses, which include child pornography, increased by 54 percent, according to the US Department of Justice.
The number of defendants in federal court alone nearly doubled during the same period.
Is there an increase in the number of pedophile seeking victims, or have the investigative and detection efforts simply improved with technology?
Dr. Emily Crawford Thompson, a psychologist with Burrell Behavioral Health, said, “I think it’s probably multiple factors. I’d certainly like to think that the detection efforts are getting better and that investigations are increasing in that area. We do live in an increasingly sexualized culture. And second, I think accessibility has increased, particularly with regard to social media.”
Extended interview with Emily Crawford-Thompson
Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force Detective Tracy Perkins warns of online dangers. She said, “That’s the scary part about the internet is that you can be anybody on the internet and kids who feel that they’re in a child’s gaming app, they think they’re talking to somebody their own age, and they can be gullible.”
Perkins said they do their best to fight predators but said, “We don’t have enough of us out there detecting them. We only actually move about 1 to 2% of the actual predators out there. So I think there’s more people out there trying to obtain this kind of data from young kids. And then there’s twofold that the kids are getting these devices quicker than we can educate them or be more proactive with enforcement. And so it’s just, it’s just a mess. I mean, really, it’s there’s there’s no ending of this issue.”
Interview with Boone County sheriff’s Detective Tracy Perkins
The Boone County Cyber Crimes Task Force has team of three full time detectives, a part-time forensic examiner and an FBI agent to fight sex crimes in Mid-Missouri. The Task Force is funded by the state’s Cyber Crimes Task Force. The Department of Public Safety has allocated $2,000,785 to be split among 12 Cyber Crimes Task Forces around the state.
Perkins blames social media apps for 98 percent of her cyber crimes cases. “We when we first started, Joey, we were working with say 90 percent proactive cases. That means that we were going online and then as technology evolved over time, and we saw the birth of Facebook, we saw that kind of the birth of smartphones. The caseload changed and we stopped doing the proactive because the reactive cases (were taking up all our time),” said Perkins.
But there is hope for parents and children.
“I just can’t stress enough about parents being involved with their children and their devices and get some type of monitoring app on their devices now,” said Perkins. “Don’t wait until something happens. Don’t wait for them to be a victim of a crime.”
There are some apps available for parents to monitor their child’s online activity such as Bark and Net Nanny.
There’s even help for potential offenders. People affected with pedophilia can seek counseling and treatment, but only before they cross the line of committing a child sex crime.
Dr. Emily Crawford-Thompson said, “We don’t judge them. We want to help them. We want people to be honest about what they’re struggling with. And this is a safe nonjudgmental place where they can talk about these things and not get met with those reactions of disgust like they might fear because that’s the only way we can help them not act on those desires.”
Who’s most likely to offend? According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics: “Most suspects arrested for CSEC crimes were male (97%) white (82%), U.S. citizens (97%), had no prior felony convictions (79%), not married (70%). More than half (56%) had no more than a high school education. CSEC suspects had a median age of 39 years. Suspects in matters related to the possession, receipt, or distribution of child pornography were overwhelmingly male (99%), white (87%), and U.S. citizens (98%). They were also older (median age of 41 years) than other CSEC suspects, and were more likely to have no prior felony convictions (82%). Among suspects in matters related to child sex trafficking, 60% were white, 25% were black, 12% were Hispanic, 11% were female, and 6% were noncitizens. Suspects in matters of child sex trafficking were younger (median age of 34 years) than other CSEC suspects, and more likely to have a criminal history (30% had a prior felony conviction). In comparison, 18% of suspects in matters related to the possession, receipt, or distribution of child pornography had a prior felony conviction.”
