Why Child Exploitation Occurs Online Is The Social Learning Theory

Finally, there is nothing easier or faster than making connections with someone who you knew long time ago through social media. Many social media sites are being created regularly that allow people to connect and interact over the Internet. However, the advancement of today’s social media has also increased the activities of pedophiles due to the communication that social media allows. Online predators have gained access to youngsters, ever since people started using social media extensively. According to Fox News, “The world’s largest pro-pedophilia advocacy group uses Facebook to connect with its members throughout the world; to find and exchange photos of children; to hone its members' predatory behaviour; and to identify,

Of the many problems faced by children and adolescents, few provoke such moral outrage as childhood sexual abuse. Many times, as on the television show “To Catch a Predator”, such abuse can be inflicted by strangers who may gradually become familiar with the child online. Sadly, however, often times the perpetrator of sexual abuse on children is someone much more familiar to the child- someone the child may even love.

Child sex abusers find the internet or mobile phones a convenient place to participate in a range of child sexual

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the social learning theory of crime, and how it relates to certain criminal acts. Ronald Akers would say that a person’s desire to engage in crime is learned “through exposure to and the adoption of definitions favorable to crime” (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014, p. 140). When an individual commits a crime they are acting on impulse because of actions they saw others engage in primarily during childhood, and therefore mimic those actions. Akers saw the need to extend Sutherland’s Differential association theory therefore creating a modern viewpoint known as Social learning theory (Cullen, Agnew, & Wilcox 2014). Social learning theory has four main mechanism of learning to describe how crime is learned.

One study found that over half of children with access the internet on a weekly basis have been exposed to online pornography and almost a third receive unwanted sexual comments via email, chat, instant message or text. (Livingstone, s and Bober M 2004). There is no one way that CSE is perpetrated (CEOP, 2011; Berelowitz et al. 2013). Grooming is common in some forms of CSE, but it is not always present (Beckett, 2011; Melrose, 2013). Online and offline exploitation can overlap (Fox and Kalkan, 2016). Although CSE can presented itself in different forms youth workers and educators should be clear that CSE is abuse and in whatever form it presents itself , it still is child abuse. One thing that is clear, definitions of CSE emphasises exchange and power imbalance. It is explicit about the power the perpetrator has over the young person or persons they are exploiting, either through forceful acts or through persuasive techniques that might convince a young person they are making a ‘choice’, it is therefore important that practitioners use language that reiterates the need to look beyond apparent consent, especially as young people may describe exploitative relationships as consensual or withdraw claims as a result of coercion (Green et al, 2014).

Traffickers and pimps are looking for vulnerable, “at risk” young girls to come join the black market of sex trafficking. Whether this means the girls are in a foster care system, a group home, an already abusive home situation, or simply living in a family below the poverty line and struggling to make ends meet. These types of victims are easy to convince that a life of prostitution which seemingly offers protection and opportunities is what they deserve. Before the widespread use of the internet, traffickers had to send out pimps to “scope out” their potential victims, gather information, and determine whether or not they fit the criteria of the black market. But with the rise of the technological era and easily accessible personal info, traffickers simply require their pimps to scour online profiles, find vulnerable targets, and send out a message or set up an online ad that appeals to their

Sex trafficking is becoming more of a problem as time moves on. Sex trafficking is the recruitment, harbouring, transportation, provision, or obtaining of a person for the purpose of a commercial sex act, in which the commercial sex act is induced by force, fraud, or coercion [Internet Safety 101]. Sex trafficking is increasing due to the evolution of modern day social services and sources. From safety sources, it is the second fastest growing criminal industry, [Internet Safety 101]. Increasingly, sex trafficking is coming about due to the evolution of the internet and the improved ability of GPS tracking. On social media, many people find other people and try to be their friend, even if they don't know who they are. This provides opportunities for fake people to create more of a problem. The internet is providing different advertising places that can increase the effect of sex trafficking and lure in citizens to becoming victims. Sex trafficking has to come to an end for the safety of citizens, for the safety of their pride and dignity.

There are a vast number of issues concerning child exploitation from the actions of the offender and the victim. Child exploitation is a complex issue that does not have one simple solution; this crime is nothing new, but technology is allowing it to evolve. Child exploitation is moving from sending child pornography through the postal service and targeting only children an offender has close proximity to. Technology and the Internet have widened the opportunities for offenders and have allowed for potentially ay juvenile to become victimized. The recommendations will focus on targeting key issues presented in the Routine Activities Theory; limiting a motivated offender, making targets unsuitable, and creating capable guardians online.

One of the main hazards that Social Networking can bring is Sexual Predators. Vicki Haddock a journalist for the San Francisco Chronicle believes, “the internet was once seen as a Golden information superhighway” (Document C). In which people were able to see the next generation of what was called the promise

With the creation of computers and Internet, high-tech crimes are occurring more frequently than few decades ago. According to a report made by the U.S. Department of Justice; “one in five children (10 to 17 years old) receives unwanted sexual solicitations online” (Knetzger & Muraski, 2008). One of this online sex-crime against children is known as child enticement. The Florida statute 847.0135 states that an individual is involved in online child enticement when “[…] utilizes a computer on-line service, Internet service, or […] to seduce, solicit, lure, or entice, or attempt to […] a child or another person believed by a person to be a child to commit any illegal act […] relating to sexual battery […]” (Knetzger & Muraski, 2008). Therefore, online sex-crime investigators must use the appropriate protocols during an investigation to avoid a lawful criminal defense based on law enforcement entrapment.

With the Pandora’s Box opened, we may find ourselves forced to rediscover morality due to our natural tendencies. This does not mean accepting adult-child relationships. Figure 3 indicates if we are serious about protecting children, then that ultimately requires some level of understanding, which is a problem for most because that is dangerously close to compassion. On the contrary, the risk they pose is the very reason why we need to support pedophiles who do not want to become sex offenders. We all want the same thing. We do not want them to offend nor their potential victims to offend. In 2008, Michael Seto, a forensic psychologist, published a book stating that the onset of pedophilia is right around the stages of puberty, as with any other sexual orientation. I believe we can prevent a greater number of victims if we put more energy into early detection and providing support before the first offense occurs, rather than solely relying on punishment after the fact. We need to be thinking about the children that pedophiles once were and catch them at their vulnerable stages, which are during puberty. There we can find a sense of compassion and support to want to help. In 2014, Margo Kaplan, an associate professor at Rutgers School of Law, wrote an op-ed in New York Times stating that pedophilia is neurologically rooted, supporting Cantor’s research.

Sex offending can occur a lot of places for example, in schools, at friends houses, but a lot of sex crimes occur through internet solicitation today. According to Mitchell, Wolak, and Finkelhor (2005) found that each year approximately one in five minors receive sexual solicitation from people they talk to online whether it be via chatrooms, or instant messages. Internet solicitation is so popular amongst sex offenders because it gives them anonymity to commit their crimes. This gives law enforcement a chance to proactive in investigating sex crimes that they could previously not, and could allow law enforcement to detect sex offenders before the actual victimization (Mitchell, Wolak, Finkelhor, 2005). There are two types of investigations law enforcement can

In the article written by Tom Jackman of the Washington Post and published in the Brockton Enterprise on May 14, 2016 titled College students being targeted for ‘sextortion’ the author explores the idea that organized exploitation of children is taking place. He states that sextortion is most often committed by organized groups who pay monthly incentives to “agents” to seduce victims into providing explicit material from victims. Investigations revel a sextortion offender can have thousands of digital folders containing documentation of their contact with minors, sometimes around the world.

The Internet is a global network of vast information. With a few clicks, an individual can have access to up to 200 million web-sites filled with educational and recreational information. The Internet is not regulated in anyway (Carnegie Library 1). It is accessible throughout the entire world from the North to the South, to the early morning sunrise and dark sunsets. Different ethnicity and backgrounds come together linked upon this network resembling a connection of one body in unity. Sadly, issues arise creating concern for users, focusing particularly on minors. Pornography is one of the inappropriate materials on the Internet for minors. This material is harmful to young impressionable minds. Pornography is tearing and

Child pornography has been present in society for centuries, but has only recently become more accessible through the development of the printing press and subsequently, the technology of the Internet. Until the mid-1990s, "illegal child pornography [had only] involved depictions of actual children engaged in sexually explicit