With the click of a computer mouse, people in other parts of the state, country or the world can steal, threaten and lure people into dangerous and sometimes even fatal situations. Children and teenagers very often fall victim to online predators who trick them into a false sense of friendship and subsequently lure them into circumstances that can change their lives forever.
The Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office is coming to the aid of the public by not only catching and prosecuting these criminals, but by empowering residents with knowledge about precautions that can protect young people and deter potential Internet predators.
Detective Robert M. Angelini of the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Computer Crimes Unit visited the Manalapan Englishtown Middle School (MEMS) Jan. 30 to present a program for parents about Internet safety.
MEMS Principal Robert Williams informed the parents that earlier that day Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Clark visited the school and presented a program on Internet safety to the students.
The problem of Internet predators is something most parents have heard about and most children believe cannot affect them. Angelini’s presentation opened the eyes of the 35 or so parents who attended the program.
“Technology is here to stay,”Williams said. “It’s a great tool in business offices and at home, but you must use it wisely because it’s very easy for kids to navigate into treacherous waters. This is the seventh year we’ve invited the prosecutor’s office here to talk to the kids and it’s always interesting to see the light go off in the students’ heads as they listen very attentively to the program.”
Angelini prefaced his presentation by saying, “There are terrible instances that can occur via the Internet or using technology, but it’s also the best tool your kids can have. It’s going to help them immensely in their education and their lives.”
He mentioned how students have access to the Internet even when they are not home. Many phones and video games now have Internet access and some allow players to actually hear each other’s voices and to speak to each other during the game with no control over the language used.
Angelini said children “don’t think about the dangers because mostly every one of them feels like they are invincible and nothing can ever happen to them and no one could ever hurt them because they’re smart enough that they would never get hurt by a predator.”
He described some of the cases the prosecutor’s office has investigated. Endangering the welfare of children is one of the most frequently investigated crimes over the Internet. This includes the distribution, manufacturing or possession of child pornography; children getting seduced into meetings for sexual reasons; kidnapping; homicide; terroristic threats and bullying.
Angelini presented statistics which showed that one in five children received sexual solicitations and one in 33 received aggressive sexual solicitations.
An aggressive sexual solicitation means the person who contacted the youngster wanted more from them such as an in-person meeting, a phone call or a photo. One in four children had unwanted exposure to pornography and one in 17 were threatened or harassed. Less than 10 percent of those solicitations were reported to police and less than 25 percent were reported to parents. The majority of incidents occurred in Internet chat rooms.
There is blocking software that can help, but youngsters learn how to get around the blocks by going online and
finding directions on how to do that.
He also discussed the dangers of chat rooms and explained how detectives monitor chat rooms by posing as 14-year-olds. Many predators just go from one child to another asking to meet with them.
Teenagers are particularly at risk when they chat with people they do not know, he said.
Angelini said predators may prey on children who feel their parents are too busy with their own lives to take the time to talk to them. The predator befriends them and gains their trust, becomes a confidant and eventually sets up a meeting. They even tell them lies to tell their parents such as, “Tell them your friend’s father is taking you to the ball game.”
Angelini also mentioned incidents in which teenage girls take illicit photographs of themselves and forward them to a boyfriend. When the couple breaks up the photos often end up circulating throughout the Internet. Parents plead with detectives to help them delete the photos from the Internet, but he said there is no way to do that.Amistake made earlier in life can have serious consequences.
He advised parents to be involved in their child’s computer activities and to discuss the dangers. Inappropriate advances should be copied in a separate file and printed and reported to the police or the computer crimes division.
Angelini also discussed the pitfalls of myspace.com and other sites that show profiles that list personal information, hobbies and where people live. There are age requirements to sign up but children under 14 can lie about their age because there is no policing system and no one reads the rules.
Angelini said myspace.com is very helpful when children younger than 14 are reported to be using the site. Parents can call (310) 258-2751 or send an e-mail and tell the operators that the user identification is a child’s and the service will shut them right down.
He said predators use certain methods to contact people through sites such as myspace.com.
One parent in the MEMS audience pointed out another pitfall of those kinds of sites. The parent said a problem can occur when young adults start to apply for jobs and prospective employers do a search on the Internet and find personal profiles that can shine a negative light on the person and influence the employer to hire someone else.
He said anyone can sign on to myspace. com and look at a person’s page without their permission because it is all public knowledge.
Perhaps the most heart-wrenching segment of the seminar was the final one that discussed cyber-bullying. When people are online they are anonymous. No one can see what they look like and very often the smallest children in a class become the cyber bullies. The bully also cannot see his or her victim and does not know if the victim is crying, so they keep going, relentlessly ripping into the other person.
Angelini said some victims strike back at cyber bullying in a violent way. He said attention must be paid to those who have sites that talk of killing people, death or hurting themselves. Those people could be in trouble or cause trouble for others.
Cyber-bullying can come in the form of stealing passwords or a cell phone from an individual and sending insulting messages to people in the address book, impersonating the victim and making untrue statements in the name of that person.
Other forms of cyber bullying include starting online fights, using vulgar language, harassment, and sharing secrets and posting them on the Internet for all to see.
Angelini said cyber stalking is repeated harassment and explained that it is illegal to stalk, harass or terrorize a person. Civil lawsuits can be brought against people who engage in the act of invasion of privacy, defamation of character and intentional infliction of emotional distress.
Sometimes the emotional distress caused by bullying is not always seen until it is too late. Children have been driven to suicide by the vicious actions and words of others.
Angelini played a video of home movies, set to the music of Elton John, about Ryan Patrick Hallihan, a middle school student who killed himself because he was bullied. The video showed photos of the boy with his family. After he killed himself his parents said, “If we only knew.” They blamed bullying and cyber bullying for their son’s death and called his middle school “a toxic environment like so many schools across the nation.” They said no one did anything to stop the problem.
The prosecutor’s office is training teachers to recognize the players in cyber bullying.
Angelini said there is no absolute solution to all of the problems brought to light by Internet use. Forbidding a child from using a computer is not the answer because the child will go to a friend’s house and use that person’s computer.
He said good parenting is the key. Education, youth empowerment and parent involvement is important. Communication and interaction with one’s child is most helpful. Be aware of what they are doing and make them aware of the dangers out there and the places they should avoid, such as open chat rooms. Monitor the information they are putting out there and remind them of what can happen.
Know the warning signs of children heading for trouble. If they refuse to talk about what they are doing online and minimize the screen as soon as you walk in, take a closer look at what is going on. He suggested that parents look at the child’s online profiles and those of their friends.
What parents can do:
• Get involved
talk to kids about the dangers of the Internet • Keep computers out of bedrooms
computers with the Internet should be
in a public area of the house • Monitor your child’s online activities
check your child’s blog learn who is on their buddy list let them know you’ll be checking up on what
they do online consider using a monitoring
program • Restrict who can contact your child online
most instant messaging services can be
set up to reject messages from unknown
names • Check cell phone records
review the monthly billing statement for
unknown names or an increase in text messaging • Choose a generic user or profile name
create a screen or profile name that does not profile their age, sex or location • Block unsafe content
turn off explicit lyrics in iTunes (under Preferences) turn on Google Safe Search
use parental controls on game systems
(PlayStation, Xbox, PSP)
• Ego surf
Look up your name and address and
children’s names on Google, Technorati
and other search engines regularly • Learn the language
learn commonly used phrases such as: BRB (Be Right Back) A/S/L (Age/Sex/Location) POS/P911 (Parents Over Shoulder/Parent Alert)
more abbreviations can be found online
by entering “chat acronyms” into Google • When things get out of hand
contact your local police department or Computer Crimes Unit of the Prosecutor’s Office
Source: Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office Statistics
• 51% of teenage users are online daily • 62% of parents check up on their
child’s Internet usage only 33% of
teens think their parents do so • 65% of parents and 64% of teens
believe that teens are doing things
online that they would not want their
parents to know about • 75% of teens use instant messaging
(IM) • 48% do so on a daily basis • 39% of teens have played a trick on
someone online by pretending to be
someone else on IM • 31% of teens have written something
on IM that they wouldn’t say to
someone in person • 25% of teens who go online daily
have had information meant to be
private be forwarded on by the recipient • 6 in 10 kids online have gotten an
e-mail or IM from a stranger;
more than 1 in 2 have written back • 1 in 33 kids has been aggressively
solicited to meet their “cyber friend”
in person • 1 in 4 kids ages 10-17 has been
exposed to unwanted sexual material online