05/25/2012
By O’Ryan Johnson
The Internet has become notorious as a foul playground for child predators, but a top federal sex offender expert said the Web is now an effective if “horrible” tool for law enforcement, helping cops catch suspects who might have once gone undetected.
“There is no doubt that the Internet has facilitated our ability to detect and apprehend sex offenders,” said Michael L. Bourke, chief psychologist of the behavioral analysis unit of the U.S. Marshals Service. “It’s allowed men who believe their actions are anonymous to access material that feeds their fantasies, to engage in chats with like-minded individuals or children, and all these lead to the facilitation of additional crime,” he said. “The Internet has been a tool that helps these men carry out their crime.”
- If a person hasn't been charged with a crime yet, then they are not exactly a "sex offender!"
Sexual violence against children goes unreported by the victim in 84 percent of the cases, making it a difficult crime to prosecute. But predators who view child pornography online leave trails that can help authorities make arrests.
“This allows us to apprehend, through a different medium, actually undetected child molesters,” Bourke said. “It’s a horrible tool in the sense that this material is out there and children are exploited on a daily basis to produce the material, but from a law enforcement context, in an interesting way it’s allowing us to apprehend undetected, hands-on offenders, undetected child molesters.”
Bourke said in 1999, when Internet use was less widespread, there were 3,400 sex offenders in the Federal Bureau of Prisons. “Now there’s 18,000,” he said.
The Marshals Service is responsible under the Adam Walsh Child Protection Act for tracking down sex offenders who are unregistered or have violated the terms of their registration. Bourke profiles predators, outlining interrogation techniques and giving marshals a glimpse into their thinking. He co-authored an award-winning study based on 155 sex offenders serving time in North Carolina that revealed 85 percent of the men arrested for possession of child pornography had also victimized a child.
- I personally think, if you want a more accurate representation, you need to check more than 155 sex offenders.
No comments:
Post a Comment