Since the early days of the internet, with AOL chatrooms and online bulletin boards, there have been unhealthy, dangerous, and predatory individuals who used these electronic environments to act inappropriately towards minors. Children and adolescents have received disturbing sexual comments and solicitations from online creeps. Sometimes, these individuals would attempt to meet up with the children, even sometimes traveling across the country to meet the child in person.

To attempt to prevent these behaviors and make the internet safer, most modern online environments ban such behavior, encourage reporting of it, and terminate accounts when such behavior is detected. Law enforcement is involved as well, at all levels, from the FBI to state and local law enforcement, as well as internationally, through Interpol task forces. One strategy used by various law enforcement groups is to go online and create fake personas of children, operated by law enforcement officers. If an online predator approaches the pseudo-child, solicits them, sends inappropriate sexual images or comments, or attempts to meet the child, they meet the law enforcement officers instead.

In 2005, researchers at the Crimes Against Children Research Center (CARC) conducted research on these law enforcement practices and found that the individuals arrested in such stings were generally less deviant in adult sexual behavior, compared to other offenders against youth. They were less likely to have a past arrest record of any kind, including for criminal sexual behaviors, were more likely to be employed, and were generally judged to be less dangerous than other sexual offenders. Nevertheless, once detected and arrested, around 13 percent of these individuals were found to be engaging in active sexual abuse of a minor, and 41 percent were found to possess criminal child sexual abuse material. All individuals arrested in this research were male, and in 63 percent of the cases where the predator attempted to meet the child, they brought sex-related items........

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