Sex sting

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A sex sting is a type of sting operation where a person, usually a law enforcement officer, purports to be a child or teenager on the internet in order to engage in sexually explicit activities with an adult. The evidence of the interactions between the two parties is then collected by the undercover agent and used in criminal prosecutions. [1] [2]

Contents

Sex stings are valid for legal purposes in the United States, Australia, Singapore and the United Kingdom.

Characteristics

Law enforcement sex sting operations are operated by a police officer who pretends to be a minor on the internet. The officer contacts a suspected child predator online and subsequently arranges a face-to-face meeting with them at an agreed location, where an arrest will be made. [2]

Online profiles used by undercover officers generally feature sexually suggestive nicknames. The age of the fake minor is usually not featured on the account's public information. Some law enforcement agencies have used authorized pictures to convince the suspect that the person behind the account is a real minor. [2]

Stings by vigilante groups

Sex stings operated by vigilante groups are conducted by chatting with a suspect on the internet and then arranging a real-life meeting with them. During the meeting, the suspect is confronted and detained by the vigilante group. Afterwards, law enforcement is notified and the suspect is taken for questioning. In some cases, online platforms may be used to "name and shame" the suspect. [3] [4]

Some groups reject applying the word "vigilante" to themselves, while others do not. Vigilante groups that conduct sex stings are different from spontaneous vigilante collectives due to the organized methodologies of their operations. [3]

Scholars have concurred that online sex stings conducted by people other than law-enforcement are laden with legal, ethical and moral problems. [1] Although vigilante groups have claimed that many offenders have been convicted due to their operations, law enforcement officers have generally discouraged these groups from engaging in justice-seeking and advised them to leave such matters to the police. Common criticisms of vigilante conduct include that it hinders police work, compromises official investigations and may result in innocent people being misidentified as perpetrators. [3] In some cases, vigilantes have been criminally charged during their own operations. [4]

Compared to real child solicitation cases

Internet sex sting cases differ from cases where a real child is enticed by an adult online. Research has shown that the type of offenders caught in sex stings is different from those caught in real victimization cases. Studies have also reported that there are differences between the behaviors of real children online versus undercover vigilantes and law enforcement officers (LEOs) purporting to be children. Among other differences, undercover law enforcement officers and vigilantes posing as minors are more likely than real victims to be open to online sexual behavior and request real-life meetings. [5]

Researchers have also found that vigilantes and LEOs differ from real victims when reacting to sexual comments and in the overt sexual explicitness of their profiles. Vigilantes and LEOs chats are also shorter and feature more pointed language than victim chats. Furthermore, the eagerness reported in undercover agents does not reflect the distrust or language used by real teenagers. [5]

A high-profile report published by the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University stated that the majority of sexual solicitation that teenagers receive online come from peers and or adults aged 18 to 21. The study also reported that minors are generally able to rebuff unwanted online solicitations while feeling little to no emotional distress. [1]

Similar to offline offenders, online offenders who contacted real teenagers are rarely strangers, but rather people known to the victim in real life. [6]

Offenders

A study published in 2005 classified its sample of online sting offenders as mostly white, male, educated, employed, aged 35 and having no criminal record. Another study from the same year stated that these offenders are older, from a higher socioeconomic status and less likely to have a sexual and non-sexual criminal history. The first study also reported that internet sting offenders are more likely to have hebephilia and ephebophilia than pedophilia. [7]

Compared to offenders who engage in physical sexual abuse, online sting offenders are often whiter, younger, less likely to be married and have higher level of victim empathy and impulse control. [1] A 2017 report that evaluated 334 men convicted of sex stings stated that 87% of the sample had no prior, concurrent or subsequent convictions. [8]

In a study published in the 2020s that examined online sting offenders, the most people in the sample had brought sex paraphernalia to the meeting place. [1]

Offender motivations

Internet sex stings are usually conducted under the premise that an adult who shows up will eventually engage in child sexual abuse. There are, however, empirically validated theories according to which people's judgements about motivations for illegal behaviors are often inaccurate. The fundamental attribution error theory, for example, posits that human beings are more prone to attribute a person's behavior to their intrinsic characteristics rather than the external, situational circumstances they find themselves in. [9]

When applied to sex stings, the fundamental attribution error theory suggests that society is more likely to attribute the behavior of an alleged offender to their personal characteristics (e.g. sexual attraction to minors) rather than situational factors (e.g. the characteristics of the conversation with the undercover agent). As shown in the Stanford prison experiment, where healthy participants began exhibiting immoral and cruel behaviors when placed into situations that fostered such actions, situational factors can play a significant role in influencing a normal person's actions. [9]

In a study of internet sex offenders, in which the majority of the sample were arrested for online stings, researchers suggested that many of the offenders were motivated by a sexual fantasy and would not have progressed to engage in in-person sexual assault (they classified those as "chatroom offenders"). In this study, only 10% of the 51 men who received psychological evaluation were reported to have a sexual interest in children. This finding is consistent with other studies that report that these offenders rarely have any history of sexual offenses. [1]

History

Legality

Sex stings are a legally valid tool for criminal prosecutions in the United States, Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia and Singapore. [1]

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sting operation</span> Deceptive way to catch a person committing a crime

In law enforcement, a sting operation is a deceptive operation designed to catch a person attempting to commit a crime. A typical sting will have an undercover law enforcement officer, detective, or co-operative member of the public play a role as criminal partner or potential victim and go along with a suspect's actions to gather evidence of the suspect's wrongdoing. Mass media journalists occasionally resort to sting operations to record video and broadcast to expose criminal activity.

Child sex tourism (CST) is tourism for the purpose of engaging in the prostitution of children, which is commercially facilitated child sexual abuse. The definition of child in the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child is "every human being below the age of 18 years". Child sex tourism results in both mental and physical consequences for the exploited children, which may include sexually transmitted infections, "drug addiction, pregnancy, malnutrition, social ostracism, and death", according to the State Department of the United States. Child sex tourism, part of the multibillion-dollar global sex tourism industry, is a form of child prostitution within the wider issue of commercial sexual exploitation of children. Child sex tourism victimizes approximately 2 million children around the world. The children who perform as prostitutes in the child sex tourism trade often have been lured or abducted into sexual slavery.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Perverted-Justice</span> Former anti-child porn group in California and Oregon, US

Perverted Justice Foundation, Inc., more commonly known as Perverted-Justice, was an American organization based in California and Oregon which investigated, identified, and publicized the conduct of adults who have used chat rooms and other social media in order to solicit online sexual conversations and in-person meetings with minors. Their website serves as an archive of collected data on these investigations, which they make available in order to assist law enforcement and the public in understanding the behavior and child grooming techniques of online hebephiles.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sexual grooming</span> Child sexual abuse compliance method

Sexual grooming refers to actions or behaviors used to establish an emotional connection with a minor, and sometimes the child's family, to lower the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse. It can occur in various settings, including online, in person, and through other means of communication. Children who are groomed may experience mental health issues, including "anxiety, depression, post-traumatic stress, and suicidal thoughts."

A sex offender is a person who has committed a sex crime. What constitutes a sex crime differs by culture and legal jurisdiction. The majority of convicted sex offenders have convictions for crimes of a sexual nature; however, some sex offenders have simply violated a law contained in a sexual category. Some of the serious crimes which usually result in a mandatory sex-offender classification are sexual assault, statutory rape, bestiality, child sexual abuse, incest, rape, and sexual imposition.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anti-pedophile activism</span> Form of activism

Anti-pedophile activism encompasses opposition to pedophiles, pedophile advocacy groups, child pornography, and child sexual abuse.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">John Atchison</span> American assistant attorney and child molester

John David Roy Atchison was an American assistant U.S. Attorney in Florida's northern district who was arrested on suspicion of soliciting sex with a 5-year-old girl. He was also a volunteer coach for girls' softball and basketball teams, and president of a youth sports association. He was arrested in a sex sting operation, and charged with "enticement of a minor to engage in sexual activity using the Internet", "aggravated sexual abuse," and "traveling across state lines to have sex with someone under the age of 12". Atchison committed suicide by hanging himself in his prison cell in Milan, Michigan, three weeks later.

Task Force Argos is a branch of the Queensland Police Service, responsible for the investigation of online child exploitation and abuse. Founded in 1997, the unit's original charter was to investigate institutional child abuse allegations arising from the Forde Inquiry.

In common law jurisdictions, statutory rape is nonforcible sexual activity in which one of the individuals is below the age of consent. Although it usually refers to adults engaging in sexual contact with minors under the age of consent, it is a generic term, and very few jurisdictions use the actual term statutory rape in the language of statutes. In statutory rape, overt force or threat is usually not present. Statutory rape laws presume coercion because a minor or mentally disabled adult is legally incapable of giving consent to the act.

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The Government of the Republic of Korea does not meet the minimum standards for the elimination of trafficking. The government continues to make improvements but South Korea has been lowered to Tier 2. The government demonstrated serious and sustained efforts by identifying and providing services to a comparable number of victims relative to the previous reporting period, increasing inspections of entertainment businesses, and increasing efforts to reduce the demand for commercial sex acts. Although the government meets the minimum standards, it did not adequately address labor trafficking; the government investigated and prosecuted fewer cases, and penalized and deported trafficking victims due to inadequate identification efforts.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Sex trafficking in the United States</span>

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Creep Catchers are non-affiliated individuals and groups who attempt to prevent child sexual abuse by posing as minors, using chat rooms and dating sites to lure adults willing to meet the minor for sex, and then exposing the adult by publicly posting videos of the ensuing confrontation. Creep Catchers offer the opportunity to make a public statement before posting the video and chat logs to a central website and various social media. Cooperative suspects are typically lectured to in relative privacy, while belligerents or those with particularly explicit conversations are loudly shamed and profanely ridiculed. Public and official reactions to groups of Creep Catchers have been mixed, with some supporting the intent of preventing abuse and others noting dangers of vigilantism by untrained public. In 2017, Vice.com produced Age of Consent, a full-length documentary film following Toronto resident Justin Payne, an independent Creep Catcher unaffiliated with other groups of the movement.

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Cybersex trafficking, live streaming sexual abuse, webcam sex tourism/abuse or ICTs -facilitated sexual exploitation is a cybercrime involving sex trafficking and the live streaming of coerced sexual acts and/or rape on webcam.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 Wright, R. G. (2015). Internet sex offending and the online sting. In R. G. Wright (Ed.), Sex offender laws: Failed policies, new directions (2nd ed., pp. 80–112). Springer Publishing Company.
  2. 1 2 3 Moore, Robert; Lee, Tina; Hunt, Robert (2007-11-01). "Entrapped on the Web? Applying the Entrapment Defense to Cases Involving Online Sting Operations". American Journal of Criminal Justice. 32 (1–2): 87–98. doi:10.1007/s12103-007-9012-0. ISSN   1066-2316.
  3. 1 2 3 Tippett, Anna (2022-11-14). "The rise of paedophile hunters: To what extent are cyber-vigilante groups a productive form of policing, retribution and justice?". Criminology & Criminal Justice: 174889582211368. doi:10.1177/17488958221136845. hdl: 2299/27030 . ISSN   1748-8958.
  4. 1 2 Hussey, Emma; Richards, Kelly; Scott, John (2022-11-02). "Pedophile Hunters and Performing Masculinities Online". Deviant Behavior. 43 (11): 1313–1330. doi:10.1080/01639625.2021.1978278. ISSN   0163-9625.
  5. 1 2 Ringenberg, Tatiana; Seigfried-Spellar, Kathryn; Rayz, Julia (2021). "Implications of Using Internet Sting Corpora to Approximate Underage Victims". Findings of the Association for Computational Linguistics: ACL-IJCNLP 2021. Association for Computational Linguistics: 3645–3656. doi: 10.18653/v1/2021.findings-acl.319 .
  6. ↑ K Wurtele, Sandy (2017). Research and practices in child maltreatment prevention. STM Learning. pp. 361–393.
  7. ↑ Briggs, Peter; Simon, Walter T.; Simonsen, Stacy (2011). "An Exploratory Study of Internet-Initiated Sexual Offenses and the Chat Room Sex Offender: Has the Internet Enabled a New Typology of Sex Offender?". Sexual Abuse. 23 (1): 72–91. doi:10.1177/1079063210384275. ISSN   1079-0632.
  8. ↑ Winerip, Michael (2020). "Sex Offender Operation Net Nanny". New York Times.
  9. 1 2 Drouin, Michelle; Boyd, Ryan L.; Hancock, Jeffrey T.; James, Audrey (2017-07-04). "Linguistic analysis of chat transcripts from child predator undercover sex stings". The Journal of Forensic Psychiatry & Psychology. 28 (4): 437–457. doi:10.1080/14789949.2017.1291707. ISSN   1478-9949.
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