HELP YOUTH SERVICE

Help Youth Service

Help Youth Service

The aim of this paper is to enhance support the 'Help Youth Service', an organization such as HYS that is working to safeguard students' rights. The problem is that the guest speaker for the 25th anniversary banquet, Mr. Billy West is going to arrested for the charges of being involved in soliciting sex with the student. Most of these incidents are likely to be innocent, but the danger develops when an adult takes on the persona of a student for the purpose of developing a trust with that student (Bertone, 2007).

One of the largest concerns is the use of the Internet to involve youth in coercive, illegal, or inappropriate sexual relationships. These solicitations can be thought of in two different ways. Solicitations can take place exclusively on the Internet, meaning that they do not involve face-to-face encounters or even leaving one's computer (Strasburger, 2006). Yet the characteristics of these experiences on the Internet may be more diverse than this image reveals. As is the case with conventional sexual abuse, online solicitations may not always be premeditated, deceptive, or made by an adult male who is unknown to the youth (Hughes, 2006).

Analysis of Standards

Findings from the Youth Internet Safety Survey, funded by the U.S. Congress through the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, suggest that online sexual solicitation of youth is common, with 19 percent of youth (ten-to seventeen-year-old regular Internet users) having experienced an online sexual solicitation or approach in the last year. (“Sexual solicitations and approaches” are defined here as requests to engage in sexual activities or sexual talk, or to give personal sexual information, that are unwanted or, whether wanted or not, that are made by an adult.) These solicitations were diverse in nature, ranging from fairly benign requests about bra size to more troublesome requests and attempts for offline contact (Anthias, 2008).

Three percent of youth experienced an “aggressive solicitation,” in which the solicitor had made offline contact through regular mail or by telephone, or had made attempts or requests for offline contact. Most youth were not bothered by the solicitations, but there was a core group of youth, approximately one out of every four solicited and one out of every three aggressively solicited, who were very or extremely upset or afraid.

Characteristics

Research has also provided some insight into the characteristics of the victim, offender, and location involved in these incidents. Sexual solicitations are more common among older teens (fourteen to seventeen years) and females. Solicitors were generally male (67 percent), but, contrary to the expectation, there were 19 percent perceived as being female. The majority of solicitors were other youth (48 percent), with 24 percent thought to be adults (eighteen and older). Almost all solicitors were people the youth did not know in person. But, as noted above, people on the Internet can easily alter their identities (Albert, 2008).

The majority of solicitations happened while youth were using the Internet at home (70 percent) or at someone else's home (22 ...