About Me
The WSU Cyber Crime Investigations Unit was established for the sole purpose of protecting children from internet predators. Since 2000 WSU Police Department has put numerous predators behind bars! Recently the WSU Police Department and Pullman Police Department have teamed up to continue working diligently to combat internet predators and have realized that it is a constant uphill battle. If you can provide any assistance to it would be greatly appreciated. And, if we can provide any assistance to you please let us know. The WSU Cyber crime unit is in the process of joining I.C.A.C 'Internet Crimes Against Children' which is another opportunity for us to continue in the fight of catching internet predators. ------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------Sexual Predators Online:
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e of the attractions of the Internet is the anonymity of the user, and this is why it can be so dangerous. A child doesn't always know with whom he or she is interacting. Children may think they know, but unless it's a school friend or a relative, they really can't be sure. Often we think of pedophiles as having access to children out on the playground and other places, but because of the way the Internet works, children can actually be interacting on their home computers with adults who pretend to be children.
Child sexual exploitation occurs in every economic, social, ethnic, and religious group. With the explosion of the Internet into a powerful, worldwide medium, the danger to children, whether they are from New York or New Zealand, has drastically increased. Pedophiles and other sexual predators can use the Internet, with no precautions, to exchange names and addresses of other pedophiles and of potential child victims. Hidden behind screen names that are pseudonyms, they gather online and swap child pornography with amazing speed and in amounts beyond our wildest imagination, which excites them to molest even more.Offline, pedophiles typically operate in isolation. Never before have pedophiles had the opportunity to communicate so freely and directly with each other as they do online. Their communication on the Internet provides validation, or virtual validation, for their behavior. They share their conquests, real and imagined. They discuss ways to contact and lure children online and exchange tips on seduction techniques. They are using the technology of the Internet to train and encourage each other to act out sexually with children. The Internet also serves as a tool for predators to exchange tips on the avoidance of law enforcement detection.The most common means by which sexual predators contact children over the Internet is through chat rooms, instant messages and email. In fact, 89% of sexual solicitations were made in either chat rooms or instant messages and 1 in 5 youth (ages 10-17 years) has been sexually solicited online (JAMA, 2001). Considering that 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and 13 million use instant messaging, the risks of such children, either knowingly or unknowingly, interacting with a predator is alarming. See Parents Safety Guide section.To Report Illegal Online ActivityThe National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) provides excellent resources concerning sexual exploitation of children and related issues for the lay public, counseling community, and law enforcement agencies. NCMEC has created an extensive web presence for its Exploited Child Unit: http://www.missingkids.com. These web pages provide background information on laws and legislation, tips and pointers for parents and children, and lists of preventive resources on the various aspects of child sexual exploitation.In addition to its Web pages, NCMEC, in partnership with the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Customs Service, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, serves as the National CyberTipline. To report possible illegal online activity related to child pornography, predation, or any other type of child sexual exploitation, call the CyberTipline: 800-843-5678
(800-TheLost) or contact their Web site: http://www.missingkids.com----------------------------------
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The numbers for Sexual Predators Online are growing did you know the number of pornographic Web pages jumped from 14 million in 1998 to 260 million in 2003. This represents a nearly 2,000 percent increase of pornography available online in just five years.There are more than 100,000 adult-oriented subscription sites in the United States and about 400,000 sites globally. The U.S. sites are maintained by about 1,000 major firms, with perhaps another 9,000 or so operating as affiliates of other established online adult firms.
Total adult-oriented sites number 4.2 million and comprise about 12 percent of the Internet's total. On a global basis, approximately 70 million different individuals per week view at least one adult site (20 million view sites that appear to be hosted in the U.S. or Canada).Please be careful and know what your children are looking at and who they are talking to on the net and if you are a teen or child talking to someone you don't know and they want to meet you please tell an adult no matter how friendly they seem it can turn deadly.
