Hunting online predators

6-28-2013 Arkansas:

Hunting down online sexual predators has required law enforcement to adapt and to adopt new tools and tactics, according to Dr. J. Michael Wood, Sex Offender Screening and Risk Assessment program psychologist for the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Hunting down online sexual predators has required law enforcement to adapt and to adopt new tools and tactics, according to Dr. J. Michael Wood, Sex Offender Screening and Risk Assessment program psychologist for the Arkansas Department of Corrections.

Wood, who has conducted law enforcement training in sex offender-related crime investigation, explained that the internet has changed everything where the sexual predator is concerned.

“When I first started, it was 13 or 14 years ago,” he said in an extended interview with the Hope Star. “That was back in 1999 or 2000. I don't even know if I was on the internet at that time; so, the only time I saw child pornography sex offenders were the kind that were doing mail order. Those were U. S. Postal Service cases; they were ordering videotapes or magazines in Postal Service kinds of things, going to bookstores with back rooms. You didn't see the casual person on the internet, like we do now.”

Wood said the internet has changed the child pornographer-stalker's tactics from using mail order generated pornography that was primarily anonymous to becoming the pornographer and potential abuser oneself.

“The internet has made it so easy because people feel anonymous,” he said. “People are sitting in their homes and it's very accessible because it's affordable. You can get a computer for a couple hundred dollars, pay your internet fee or go to Wi-Fi at a fast food place.”

But, law enforcement can track computer usage by linking a computer's Internet Provider address with the website browsers that it has frequented, as was the case with Loyton Scott Francis, 31, of Malvern, Ark., who was sentenced June 20 to 10 years in federal prison for possession of child pornography.

According to U. S. Attorney Conner Eldridge's office, Francis was tracked by Fayetteville Police who investigated computer usage in the distribution of child pornography via a software program known as Limewire.

Francis had 38 photographs and 20 videos depicting child pornography on his computer when he was arrested.

“They feel anonymous and that gives them the impetus to cross those boundaries,” Wood said.

That boundary is the one between the world of moral and legal propriety and illicit desire, he explained.

“A lot of times the defense you will hear the sex offender make is: 'I thought it was an adult pretending to be a kid,'” Wood said. “But, in the chat, we always get the chat log. And, so we say, 'In the chat, she says she's 13; she says she's stressed about cheerleading; you're asking her about all the popular movies and songs.' ..continued.. by Ken McLemore, Hope Star Editor