Online Sexual Predators
Between 2014 and 2020, just over 2,000 charges were tried in court in Canada for online sexual offences against children.[4] Though the total number of cases has risen in the past five years, the number of people actually charged has remained fairly stable.[5]
What strategies do online sexual predators use?
Contrary to the widespread belief that online predators “trick” kids, research shows that they rarely lie about their age or their motives.[6] Instead, predators are most often open about their age and will shower a youth with attention, sympathy, affection and kindness, in order to persuade the victim that they love and understand them.[7] Almost two-thirds of perpetrators are people whom the victim already knows offline, who take advantage of the ability to communicate privately online, though the relationship may be with someone they did not know offline and may happen entirely online, as well.[8]
Once the would-be predator has established a relationship with the victim, they may try to “groom” them in a number of possible ways.[9] In some cases this will be a gradual process of building an emotional bond and the pretense of a romantic relationship,[10] while others quickly introduce sexual themes or content into the conversation.[11] In either case, the predator’s twin goals are desensitization – making the victim accustomed to sexual talk or images – and reframing romantic or sexual relationships between teens and adults as being normal rather than harmful.[12] As the process continues, the predator will often take steps to gauge how the victim is likely to respond to further grooming, to find out whether and in what situations the victim is able to meet or connect without supervision and to ensure that the victim doesn’t talk to anyone about the relationship.[13] As one convicted perpetrator put it, "I targeted children I didn’t think would talk to their parents. I’d talk to a teenager about his sexual identity, saying parents wouldn’t understand such things.”[14] In some cases, however, predators will befriend a victim’s friends and family in order to avoid suspicion,[15] while others use threats to ensure their victims’ silence.[16]
Researchers have identified six common stages in the grooming process, though not all of these will occur in every case:
- Friendship forming; this is typically the longest phase, “contributing up to 40% of messages in a predatory conversation”;
- Trust development, which frequently involves conversations about hobbies and activities, sharing photos, and showing feelings such as love and anger;
- Risk assessment, in which the would-be perpetrator “measures the danger and threat level” such as by asking if a target is alone;
- Exclusivity, in which the perpetrator builds “build a confidential relationship with the victim and try to get [their] trust”;
- Sexual (note that they will often not introduce sexual topics during the exclusivity stage, to avoid losing the target’s trust; and
- Conclusion, in which the predator seeks out their goal of getting sexual images, physical sexual contact, or both.[17]
As one victim describes her experience, "I had Skype downloaded on my phone so we can text during the day, and he would tell me how pretty I was and all this stuff and how I was so special, basically grooming me into believing that we had something so special and so breathtaking... and then he brought up the topic of doing Skype sex, basically, for him and with him. And I remember even being hesitant. But the driving force for me to do this was, this boy likes me and the only way he will continue to like me is if I do this for him."[18]
Predators’ ultimate goals vary, with some seeking an in-person sexual encounter, some hoping to develop an online sexual relationship and some trying to get sexual images or video that can be used for blackmail.[19] There is overlap between these categories as well, and predators are frequently opportunistic, adapting their goals and strategies based on what they feel each victim is willing to do.[20]
[1] Wurtele, S. K. (2017). Preventing cyber sexual solicitation of adolescents. Research and practices in child maltreatment prevention, 1, 363-393.
[2] Salter, M., & Wong, T. (2023). Parental production of child sexual abuse material: a critical review. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15248380231195891.
[3] Wolak, J., Finkelhor, D., Walsh, W., & Treitman, L. (2018). Sextortion of minors: Characteristics and dynamics. Journal of Adolescent Health, 62(1), 72-79.
[4] Ibrahim, D. (2023) Online child sexual exploitation and abuse: Criminal justice pathways of police-reported incidents in Canada, 2014 to 2020. Statistics Canada. https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/n1/pub/85-005-x/2023001/article/00001-eng.htm.
[5] Statistics Canada. (2020). Incident-based crime statistics, by detailed violations, Canada, provinces, territories and Census Metropolitan Areas: Luring a child via a computer, 2015-2019. Retrieved from https://www150.statcan.gc.ca/t1/tbl1/en/tv.action?pid=3510017701&pickMembers%5B0%5D=1.1&pickMembers%5B1%5D=2.21&cubeTimeFrame.startYear=2015&cubeTimeFrame.endYear=2019&referencePeriods=20150101%2C20190101
[6] Finkelhor, D., Walsh, K., Jones, L., Mitchell, K., & Collier, A. (2020). Youth internet safety education: aligning programs with the evidence base. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 1524838020916257.
[7] Kloess, J. A., Beech, A. R., & Harkins, L. (2014). Online child sexual exploitation: Prevalence, process, and offender characteristics. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15(2), 126-139.
[8] Finkelhor, D., Turner, H., & Colburn, D. (2022). Prevalence of online sexual offenses against children in the US. JAMA network open, 5(10), e2234471-e2234471.
[9] Kloess, J. A., Seymour-Smith, S., Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. E., Long, M. L., Shipley, D., & Beech, A. R. (2017). A qualitative analysis of offenders’ modus operandi in sexually exploitative interactions with children online. Sexual Abuse, 29(6), 563-591.
[10] Gámez-Guadix, M., Almendros, C., Calvete, E., & De Santisteban, P. (2018). Persuasion strategies and sexual solicitations and interactions in online sexual grooming of adolescents: Modeling direct and indirect pathways. Journal of Adolescence, 63, 11-18.
[11] Kloess, J. A., Beech, A. R., & Harkins, L. (2014). Online child sexual exploitation: Prevalence, process, and offender characteristics. Trauma, Violence, & Abuse, 15(2), 126-139.
[12] Dus, N., Izura, C. & Perez-Tattam, R. (2016). Understanding Grooming Discourse in Computer Mediated Environments. Discourse, Context & Media
[13] Chiang, E., & Grant, T. (2017). Online grooming: moves and strategies. Language and Law, 4(1), 103-141.
[14] Wurtele, S.K. Understanding and Preventing the Sexual Exploitation of Youth. In Reference Module in Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Psychology, Elsevier, 2017. ISBN 9780128093245
[15] Zammit, J., et al. (2021) Child sexual abuse in contemporary institutional contexts. Independent Inquity Child Sexual Abuse. https://www.iicsa.org.uk/reports-recommendations/publications/research/csa-contemporary-institutional-contexts.
[16] Batool, S. (2020). Exploring vulnerability among children and young people who experience online sexual victimisation (Doctoral dissertation, University of Central Lancashire)
[17] Borj, P. R., Raja, K., & Bours, P. (2023). Online grooming detection: A comprehensive survey of child exploitation in chat logs. Knowledge-Based Systems, 259, 110039.
[18] Pauls, K., & MacIntosh C. (2020). “Woman who spent years scrubbing explicit video from internet urges tech firms to make it easier to remove.” CBC News. Retrieved from https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/manitoba/canada-internet-children-abuse-pornography-1.5822042
[19] DeHart, D., Dwyer, G., Seto, M. C., Moran, R., Letourneau, E., & Schwarz-Watts, D. (2017). Internet sexual solicitation of children: a proposed typology of offenders based on their chats, e-mails, and social network posts. Journal of Sexual Aggression, 23(1), 77-89.
[20] Kloess, J. A., Seymour-Smith, S., Hamilton-Giachritsis, C. E., Long, M. L., Shipley, D., & Beech, A. R. (2017). A qualitative analysis of offenders’ modus operandi in sexually exploitative interactions with children online. Sexual Abuse, 29(6), 563-591.