Juvenile Delinquency

Most American states allow serious juvenile offenders to be charged as adults. Sometimes those decisions are made initially by prosecutors. At other times, prosecutors ask a juvenile or family court judge to allow them to try a juvenile as an adult in proceedings that are called transfer hearings or waiver-of-jurisdiction hearings.

Confronting an Inaccurate Stereotype

The prevalent image of Internet sex crimes against minors is of strangers who are pedophiles and who deceive and lure unsuspecting children, frequently over long distances, into situations where they can be forcibly abducted or sexually assaulted. However, this nationally representative sample of Internet initiated cases known to law enforcement suggests a different predominant scenario with different implications for prevention. First, the offenders in these crimes do not appear to be pedophiles. Pedophilia is a sexual deviation involving sexual attraction to prepubescent children (Venkatesh, 1997, 82-111). The victims in these cases were young adolescents. Ninety-nine percent were age 13 to 17, and none were younger than 12.

Second, although they undoubtedly manipulated juveniles in a variety of ways, the offenders in these Internet-initiated crimes did not generally deceive victims about being older adults who were interested in sexual relationships. Victims usually knew this before their first face-to-face encounters with offenders (Venkatesh, 1997, 82-111).

Third, with a few frightening and dangerous exceptions, the majority of offenders did not use force or coercion to sexually abuse their victims and did not abduct them. Victims, who were predominantly young teenagers, typically agreed to meet these adults, knowing of their sexual interest. They engaged in sexual intercourse, or other sexual activity, with the adults, often on multiple occasions. Fourth, it is misleading to characterize the offenders in these cases as “strangers” to their victims, because in most cases they had communicated extensively with victims, both online and off before they actually met in person (Emily, 2006). Offenders used these interactions to establish romantic or otherwise close relationships before they first met victims face-to-face (Emily, 2006).

Implications for Prevention

These dynamics have important implications for prevention. Current prevention materials about Internet safety emphasize the dangers of deception. They stress that adolescents should not trust people they meet online and urge them to avoid meeting strangers and giving out personal information online (Michael, 2006). Although these may be useful messages to prevent some forms of victimization, they do not address the dynamics of the Internet sexual exploitation found in a majority of actual cases.

Education and Awareness

Appropriate prevention messages can be targeted to the general audience of adolescents. One avenue is to educate teenagers directly about why such relationships are a bad idea. Young teens may not be fully aware that the adults in these relationships are committing crimes and can go to jail. They have probably not considered the publicity, embarrassment, and life disruption likely to accompany a public revelation of such a relationship (Michael, 2006).

They may benefit from understanding the manipulations that adult offenders engage in, and from understanding that adults who care about their well-being would not propose sexual relationships ...