Self-Reported Contact Sexual Offenses by Participants in the

November 2000:

Sex Offender Treatment Program: Implications for Internet Sex Offenders

Introduction
With the explosion of the Internet as a medium of communication and commerce, there has been an increasing number of individuals using cyberspace to commit sexual crimes in recent years. These crimes include downloading, trading, and distributing child pornography, as well as luring children via the Internet for the purpose of sexual abuse and exploitation. Until recently, the Internet has been largely unregulated and unmonitored by law enforcement. This has enabled many individuals to access cyberspace for various illicit purposes with perceived anonymity.


Child pornography, relatively unavailable to many individuals until recently, is now readily available through the Internet. Individuals accessing child pornography typically do so through electronic communications in chat rooms and bulletin boards. They collect and trade child pornography with other individuals with similar interests. They may amass collections of several thousand images depicting children in sexually explicit poses or in the act of being sexually abused by adults. These offenders target children in cyberspace in a similar manner as offenders who prey on children in their neighborhood or nearby park. They seek vulnerable children, gradually groom them, and eventually contact them to perpetrate sexual abuse.

For the remainder of this paper: by Andres E. Hernandez, Psy.D., Director, Sex Offender Treatment Program, Federal Bureau of Prisons