Dangers on the Internet

To those who are regular consumers of the news, another story about how easy it is to catch child predators online might seem a bit redundant. But this is a huge and growing problem in the United States, and particularly in Utah, where a task force set up to catch the predators arrests more people per capita than anywhere else in the nation. Reports such as the one in this paper on Sunday ("Policing the predators") are a valuable public service.

A lot of parents don't seem to be getting the message, and a large population of vulnerable children and teenagers aren't getting it, either. Everyone who does get it needs to do all they can to warn the others. One of the main messages is that children, preteens and teenagers need to stay away from chat rooms of all kinds.

A chat room — any chat room on any subject, including ones advertised as religiously themed — can be a trap. Investigators find that predators lurk everywhere, eager to turn even an innocent conversation about sports or music into an invitation to meet and engage in sex. Investigators are expert at going online and pretending to be someone between the ages of 10 and 17. They never seem to have trouble attracting men who want to molest them. Last year, the attorney general's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force arrested 71 people statewide in connection with these crimes.

Young people are particularly vulnerable as they begin to try to define themselves in an adult world and often are easily influenced by grown-ups who give them attention. But a mistake online, which includes giving out personal information that may lead a predator to them, can be devastating, or even deadly.

In a previous era, people invented fairy tales to warn children about dangers. Today, big bad wolves and wicked witches lurk in places where they can change shapes instantly and attack almost without warning.

Parents can't be too careful. Computers with Internet access must be placed in well-traveled areas of the home where parents easily can see what their children are viewing. Parents should have access to the children's passwords and should feel no qualms about double checking downloads or other things their children do online.

Some predators are patient and take months to erode the trust children have with their parents before they strike. Clearly, warning bells must be repeated again and again.