Scenes from the Dateline NBC series "To Catch a Predator" have become familiar in television-viewing households across America since the series first aired in the middle of this decade. Viewers' stomachs turn as they watch would-be sexual predators lured via the Internet to households where they expect to find defenseless children, only to be exposed to a national audience and then arrested. They've seen the surprise on these criminals' faces when they meet Dateline correspondent Chris Hansen instead of the children they expected to assault.
Hansen's 2007 book To Catch a Predator: Protecting Your Kids from Online Enemies Already in Your Home (Penguin Group) tells the story behind the series.
The subtitle says it all: if you have a computer, then the type of people Dateline exposes are already in your house. They already have access to your kids. Even if you don't have a computer, your kids will find one somewhere else. Be it at school, the library or a friend's house, if your kids are using the Internet (and they are) they are at risk of being victimized by sexual predators.
If you have kids, or even if you don't but meet people via the Internet yourself, you must read this book.
"In the old days our parents taught us not to talk to strangers at the playground or at the movie theater," Hansen writes in the introduction. "They warned us not to take rides from strangers. This advice is still good today; however the term 'stranger' when applied to the Internet takes on a new dynamic."
Hansen sums up the dangers that face today's high-tech teens in the book's opening paragraph:
"If you had told me before our first "To Catch a Predator" investigation that a) so many men would be willing to risk their careers, lives and families to meet a young person for sex; b) that so many people have apparently uncontrollable addictions and compulsions involving Internet chat rooms and porn sites; and c) that these investigations, when broadcast, would resonate with our viewers as they have, I would have seriously doubted you. But that is exactly what is happening every day in chat rooms and social networking sites throughout the country. And when you consider that many of these cyber meeting places are popular with curious, boundary-pushing teens, it should surprise no one that the potential for a child to be approached by a predator is high."
In the book, Hansen chronicles Dateline stings that took place in New York, Virginia, Ohio, Florida and Georgia. He writes about how the series got started, how it joined forces with the watchdog group Perverted Justice and later law enforcement and about what went right and what went wrong in each investigation. Some of the investigations brought in so many potential predators that it would have been impossible for Hansen to write specifically about each one. But each chapter focuses on the some of the men who were lured to the sting house. It's interesting to note how many of them, when caught, claim they wouldn't really have done anything to the child. This claim gets tougher to back up though when Hansen produces the transcript of the sexually explicit conversations the subjects have had with the online decoy.
But perhaps the most chilling part of the book is the chapter about the young girl from Arkansas who wasn't a decoy. Kacie Rene Woody, 13, of Holland, Arkansas was found dead, chained to the floor of a van in December 2002. The man who had kidnapped, raped and murdered her was dead as well. He shot himself as police burst into the storage unit where the van was located.
Dave Fuller, the man who committed these horrifying acts, was no stranger though; not to Kacie or her friends. They'd been chatting online with him for months and had even spoken to him on the phone. Only they thought he was a teenager like them. It was another online friend, this one a real teen from Georgia, who had aroused the girls' suspicion in the past. As far as they knew, their "friend" Dave was just a cool kid from California.
This tactic, pretending to be someone else, is one way predators build trust with the children they plan to victimize. They work slowly and cautiously, "grooming" their victims before suggesting a sexual encounter or, in the case of Kacie Rene Woody, simply breaking into the child's house and abducting her.
Hansen also devotes a chapter to sexual predators' other victims: their own families. In many cases, it comes as a complete shock to these people when their husbands or fathers are caught in a sting by Dateline or the police. Imagine having to go back to school the day after your father is featured on "To Catch a Predator."
Some of Hansen's points are surprising. He says that loss of the computer should never be used as a threat against teens who meet people online. According to Hansen and experts he interviewed for the book, that threat will only make kids afraid to tell their parents if they think something is not right with a person they've met online or if that person has suggested something inappropriate.
Hansen also points to studies that indicate the rate of recidivism is not nearly as high among sexual predators as many people believe. He devotes one chapter to discussion of treatment of people with sexual "disorders," including pedophiles. One police officer Hansen interviewed, who had been a victim of sexual abuse as a child himself, even believes that child molesters should not be imprisoned for life after their first offense. The officer says that this could make children afraid to report abuse if the offender is someone close to them.
Hansen comes across as a little soft on pedophiles in these chapters, which could be a turnoff to readers with a conservative, law and order, eye-for-an-eye worldview. Still no one can take away what this man has done to put sexual predators in the public eye and behind bars. He's also done a lot to raise awareness of the dangers lurking behind the computers screens in homes throughout America, and his book is a must-read for anyone who is not already an expert on the issue.
For more information on Internet Safety, visit WiredSafety.org, a website Hansen mentions several times in the book.
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