Internet-initiated Sex Crimes against Minors: Implications for Prevention Based on Findings from a National Study

2004 JOURNAL OF ADOLESCENT HEALTH 2004;35:424.e11– 424.e20

Purpose: To describe the characteristics of episodes in which juveniles became victims of sex crimes committed by people they met through the Internet.

Methods: A national survey of a stratified random sample of 2574 law enforcement agencies conducted between October 2001 and July 2002. Telephone interviews were conducted with local, state, and federal law enforcement investigators concerning 129 sexual offenses against juvenile victims that originated with online encounters.

Results: Victims in these crimes were primarily 13- through 15-year-old teenage girls (75%) who met adult offenders (76% older than 25) in Internet chat rooms. Most offenders did not deceive victims about the fact that they were adults who were interested in sexual relationships. Most victims met and had sex with the
adults on more than one occasion. Half of the victims were described as being in love with or feeling close bonds with the offenders. Almost all cases with male victims involved male offenders. Offenders used violence in 5% of the episodes.

Conclusions: Health care professionals and educators, parents and media need to be aware of the existence, nature and real life dynamics of these online relationships among adolescents. Information about Internet safety should include frank discussion about why these relationships are inappropriate, criminal, and detrimental to the developmental needs of youth. © Society for Adolescent Medicine, 2004


Many young people who use the Internet encounter sexual overtures [1]. Advising families and young people about how to avoid these overtures and how to handle them when they occur has become a new responsibility of health-care professionals, health educators, and child welfare experts. In the absence of more scientific sources, professionals have had to rely on media reports, which have focused attention on Internet-related sex crimes, particularly those involving young victims who meet offenders online.

These media descriptions of Internet-initiated sex offenses against young people have emphasized their predatory nature, stressing how the Internet facilitates deception. Internet molesters have been portrayed as pedophiles who, pretending to be peers or benevolent adults, strike up relationships with children and then stalk or lure them into encounters that end in abduction, rape, or even murder.

This has led to prevention messages that advise youth not to correspond online with strangers, give out identifying information, or go alone to meet individuals they have met only online. Beyond the fact that this advice is widely ignored and seen as unrealistic by many young people [1,2], there are also questions about the accuracy of this characterization of sex offenses that occur as a result of Internet meetings. Basing prevention recommendations on media accounts of egregious crimes can lead to misguided public policy. Sex crime dangers have been particularly prone to mischaracterization [3,4], leading, for example, to an under-emphasis on the roles of family members, acquaintances and other youth in the commission of these offenses.

Also, these standard prevention messages seem to be crafted without taking into account much of what is known about youth social life and Internet practices. In fact, most adolescents who use the Internet converse online, at least casually, with people they haven’t met face-to-face; many form online friendships that become offline friendships; and most of these friendships are with other youth [5,6]. Also, some youth form online relationships with adults that appear to be benign or even beneficial [6]. At the same time, one study has demonstrated that youth were more likely to form online friendships or romances if they were troubled or, depending on gender, had high levels of conflict or low levels of communication with parents [7]. Adolescents with these sorts of problems may be more vulnerable to online victimization.

We designed the present study to examine the characteristics of sex crime victims, ages 17 and younger, who met sex offenders on the Internet and the dynamics of those crimes in an effort to provide a systematic and scientifically based description of Internet-initiated sex offenses committed against young people in the United States. We addressed several questions: (a) What were the demographic characteristics of the victims and offenders? (b) Where and how did online relationships arise? (c) What was the role of deception? (d) How did faceto- face meetings develop? (e) What kinds of sex crimes occurred and how often were violence, coercion
or abduction involved? ..more.. by JANIS WOLAK, J.D., DAVID FINKELHOR, Ph.D., AND KIMBERLY MITCHELL, Ph.D.