By: Kristie Nakamura, Liz Campos, Katreina Gamil, & Lawrence Leung Caleb sucks! Online Predation By: Kristie Nakamura, Liz Campos, Katreina Gamil, & Lawrence Leung

Online Predators are a new breed of sexual predators Online Predators are a new breed of sexual predators. The scary people that once roamed playgrounds and waited after school are now able to literally reach out and grab (unsuspecting) children. The internet is a vast resource, and many children are online. About 25% of kids online participate in real time chat and about 13 million use instant messaging, so with those amounts online, sexual predators may go online and prey on some unsuspecting victims. There are so many fish for them to hook up, that it’s frightening. Sexual predators can communicate freely online with children and can earn a child’s trust and manipulate them. As a sexual predator does that, it shows signs of psychopathy. Warning

Psychopaths Sexual predators may think like psychopaths. Psychopathy is a personality disorder that hardly affects the general public. However, somewhere around 25% of the prison population has psychopathy. They are generally egocentric, and they have a lack of ability to love and/or establish meaningful relationships. They may also be amoral and may be antisocial. Psychopaths may be impulsive with only a small capacity for guilt, fear, or remorse. They enjoy manipulating and exploiting other people to get what they want.

Pedophilia Temporal Lobe? Another brain thing is pedophilia. There are numerous ways for it to start, but the various paths to it seem to go though one specific part of the brain. Temporal Lobe? The temporal lobe is just above the ears, and it controls face recognition, musical ability, personality, and sexual behavior. If something causes damage such to the brain such as epilepsy, a person can become sexually attracted to “wrong things” and may even be attracted to inanimate objects. Pedophiles seem to have below normal activity in the temporal lobe, as a few studies showed. Also, there have been rare cases of men who began molesting children with tumors in the temporal lobe, but when the tumor was removed, the pedophilia subsided. (semi-taken from article) Igor Galynker and a few colleagues did brain scans on 22 pedophiles, and they discovered that they have below normal activity in the temporal lobe. “Other studies have found a similar pattern. And medical journals describe rare cases of men who began molesting children when tumors invaded the same part of their brains; when the tumors were removed, their pedophilia subsided.” From http://www.nctimes.com/articles/2005/09/11/news/californian/20_47_359_10_05.txt

More on the Temporal Lobe The temporal lobe transforms as a boy’s interest in sex develops during puberty. The experience of being molested stalls the transformation in some way, which might be the reason why 10% of the boys who reported being sexually abused as children grow up to be pedophiles.

The Science of the Brain A lot, if not all of the most dangerous sexual predators possess more than one, or even more brain abnormalities. Those defects usually drive them to their extreme criminality. The defects can be caused by many thing such as traumatic childhood experiences, genetics, and even things that happen in a person’s brain as they develop in the womb during birth.

CLICK away. Pedophiles are just a Now that we know what child predators think like, we can look at the technologies that they use to prey on children.

& how technology benefits them. Online predation. & how technology benefits them.

Internet gives online predators advantages. - By being online makes them completely anonymous, giving them the opportunity to pretend to be someone else. - Also, by being online as well as many teenagers wanting to meet & to talk to others makes it easier to talk to them, acting like just another one of their friends without them knowing.

Passing the first steps of online predation. After getting in touch with their minors and becoming their “friend”, their next stages are: Keeping in touch *& it’s the teen’s own decision to figure out that what they’re doing is dangerous. 2. Being flirtatious to them 3. Meet up with them.

So children, BE SAFE & know who you’re talking to!!! Preventing Online Predation.                                                                      These programs shown here are examples of what parents&guardians can use to protect their children from online predation. It monitors the sites they go to, blocks the inappropriate sites, and prevents certain words/phrases from being exchanged in chat rooms. So children, BE SAFE & know who you’re talking to!!!

Statistics One in five teens who regularly log on to the Internet say they have received an unwanted sexual solicitation from the internet. Solicitations were defined as requests to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk, or to give personal sexual information.

Scary Statistics One in 33 children received an aggressive sexual solicitation in the past year. This means a predator asked a child to meet somewhere, called a child on the phone, and/or sent the child correspondence, money, or gifts. 75% of children are willing to share personal information online about themselves and their family in exchange for goods and services. 77% of the targets for online predators were age 14 or older.  Another 22% were users from the of ages 10 to 13. With all the dangers from the Internet only 1/3 of households with Internet access are actively protecting their children with filtering or blocking software.

Do’s & Don’ts... Do block suspicious strangers. Do use your brain when making choices. Don’t talk to strangers. Don’t share your personal info. Don’t post pictures of yourself (especially the explicit ones) online. Not everyone online is who you think

Discussion Questions: How many of you have been solicited by an online predator? How many of you that raised your hands told your parents about it? What do you think teens are risking when talking to a person online that they have never met? What can you do to prevent online predators?