December 8, 2011 INTERNET SAFER FOR KIDS THAN CHURCH!

UPDATED APRIL 25, 2008 While at least nine children and teens have been killed in mass shootings and thousands are now documented victims of sexual abuse in churches and religious institutions over the last decade (see below* , new studies find virtuall! no violent dangers to teens stemming from their "nternet use# $he %anic over &"nternet %redators& danger is sorel! mis%laced from the beginning# "f a %redator encounters a !outh via bulletin board ad, do we blame the fiberboard industr!' (ut the biggest iron! is that man! of the sadsack &%redators& tra%%ed b! %olice and media (such as )(*+s Dateline stings turned out to be teachers, %rinci%als, coaches, co%s, ministers, social workers, %arents, even national securit! officers,,that is, %eo%le with %lent! of offline, direct access to kids# $hough the rhetoric issuing from media re%orts and &ex%erts& (most self,serving net,nann! software %eddlers has been relentlessl! alarmist, new studies find the tens of millions of teens who use the "nternet dail! face ver! little real danger# - surve! of 2,./0 law enforcement agencies b! the 1niversit! of )ew 2am%shire+s Crimes agains C!i"#ren Resear$! Cen er found 3ust 124 sexual offenses against teens stemming from %eo%le the! met online in 2001,02# 5f these, 3ust .6 involved an! kind of violence7 the rest were the routine &statutor!& offenses involving sexual encounters between adults and teens that have been going on for thousands of !ears and are much more %revalent in non,"nternet venues toda!# -dults hid their age in onl! a few cases# 8ro3ected from their random sam%le to the 10,000 law enforcement agencies nationwide, the authors estimated %erha%s 2. violent sex crimes against !ouths from online %redators ever! !ear# (! contrast, the 2009 *hild :altreatment stud! re%orts over 80,000 violent crimes, including ;.,000 sex crimes, against teens age 12,1/ ever! !ear %er%etrated b! their %arents or caretakers# $he dangers teens encounter online in a !ear are e<ual to about 9 hours of the danger the! ex%erience at home with their %arents# 5f course, man! crimes against !outh b! internet %redators no doubt go unre%orted, but so do most household crimes# -nother 3ust com%leted %&""&'()* s )#+ b! 1)2 researchers confirmed that online sexual encounters ver! rarel! involved violence, stalking, or dece%tion and form onl! a tin! fraction of statutor! ra%e cases# "n fact, the offenses alleged to result from internet contacts form &a relativel! low number of the sexual offenses committed against minors overall& and &are not %articularl! new or uncommon& elsewhere in societ!7 the concern seems to center onl! on the fact that &a new form of communication is involved#& *ontradicting wides%read %anics s%read in the media, researchers found that &%osting %ersonal information online does not, b! itself, a%%ear

to be a %articularl! risk! behavior,& and &social networking sites such as :!=%ace do not a%%ear to have increased the risk of victimi>ation b! online molesters#& "n %articular, &!outh "nternet users with histories of offline sexual or %h!sical abuse a%%ear to be considerabl! more likel! to receive online aggressive sexual solicitations,& suggesting that reducing adults+ abusive behavior toward children is a ke! to %reventing their later vulnerabilit! to the much rarer dangers online# (ut that isn+t the direction %anick! news media re%orts (de%icting their rising com%etitor medium as a menace to children,,no self,interest there? care to go# )or is the more mundane conclusion evident from these studies and the fact that sex crimes against !oung %eo%le have %lummeted as !outhful internet %atronage has risen b! the billions over the last decade@ teenagers are neither stu%id nor hel%less in handling c!bers%ace# $he!+re not lea%ing through screens to abscond with ha%less old %redators after all# What bad news for the media and %anic nannies# AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA *)otable recent 1#=# church shootings victimi>ing teens (incom%lete list @ Bichmond, C), 2D10D04, 2 teens shot, wounded7 Detroit, 2D2/D09, 2 shot dead (1 teen 7 :ilwaukee, ;D12D0., 8 shot dead (1 teen 7 Eort Worth, 8D1.D44, 8 shot dead, / wounded (0 teens killed 7 Da!ton, 52, /D8D44, . shot dead (; teens killed # Mike Males, Youthfacts.org *o%!right F 200/ Gouth Eacts#org