What is kind of disturbing is how easy it is to pretend to be younger on the internet. I think most kids don't realize it because they all want to be older that they can't imagine people wanting to be younger.

For instance, I didn't want my students to see my myspace profile so I made it friends only. In order to make it friends only, I had to change my year of birth to make me under 18. With some quick subtraction, I was 14. I went from 23 to 14 in less than a minute. And now I can see the profiles of people under 18, where as before I couldn't. That really kinda distrubed me. Along with what some of these kids are wearing in the pictures!!!

I saw Dateline last night (Corona CA edition) and they did have the police waiting outside. I also saw the VA one a few months ago and was disappointed the pedophiles got away. Perhaps Dateline and the advocacy group Perverted Justice (?) learned something.

In terms of pedophiles accessing myspace and facebook. many people I know monitor their kids' Myspace sites. When I allowed my kids to set MySpace up, we changed the ages to be older and have no identifying data on them whatsoever. This may not protect them completely but it is a start. Neither of them are allowed to belong to Myspace groups that would aid in identifying them either. Mr. Alum and I also monitor internet use at our house.

I want to echo this because no matter how careful your daughter/son/sister/brother is, they put themselves at risk just by participating in chat rooms/message boards/Myspace, etc.

I started playing on the Internet over 10 years ago when I was still a sophomore in HS (remember BBS?). I belonged to an AOL Hawaii Chat room and despite only revealing my age and name, a sicko somehow found out what school I went to and even my old pager number. How he was able to find that out, we still don't know. After stalking me afterschool my family eventually had to put out a restraining order on him. We never heard from him again. Nevertheless, it was really scary. Back then not too many people were familiar with BBS, chat rooms, etc. so it wasn't a big deal.

I'm glad that brother and sisters are strict with their kids' internet usage. Most of my nieces and nephews have their own laptops, but they can only log on to the Internet in the living room. It's good to know that many middle and high schools have blocked out MySpace at the same time!

At my older child's hs, the only email accessible through the school is the school-based email account. The younger one can't email anyone through the school.

I think the perverts are getting screwed. If a guy has sex with an underage girl that lies about her age, he gets locked up because the girl was actually underage. If a guy goes to have sex with an underage girl that is actually a 40 year old cybercop posing as an underage girl then he still gets locked up.

It should be one or the other. Either intent or the actual age, not both.

And the downside of that is?

Maybe that's one of the reasons they get arrested.

i was checking out this site:

http://www12.familywatchdog.us/

there are 357 offenders around where i am, but 2 are like a stone throws away.

at my parents place, 202 are in the area but there is 1 person right down the road. scary!

My mom teaches 4th grade. Every time she switches schools I'll plug the new school's address in... there are usually four or five within a block of the elementary school.


Here's me saying something no one's going to agree with:

I think the system we have going now is unconstitutional. Either you're a pedophile and you should be locked away from society for life (and I think we probably have enough statistics to support this) or you've done your time in jail and you're cured and you shouldn't be on these registries.

I (partially) agree - either we're going to keep up the illusion that the legal system is for rehabilitation and that the person has performed their debt to society, or we have to actually address the problem with stiffer sentences/alternative punishments.

To wit, laws that prevent sex offenders from living within xxxx miles of a church/school/whatever are actually horrendous ideas.

First, most sex offenses are commited by a relative or other known person - and not at church or school. It doesn't address the actual problem very well.

Second, by regulating where sex offenders CAN'T live, you push them into one of two scenarios - either concentrated into the few 'allowed' areas (thus screwing, figuratively, those that live in that area), or they lie and/or don't put themselves on the sex offender list.

Third, it's most likely not viable under the law of the United States to prevent someone from living in a town because of their status as a (former?) criminal, and many laws move offenders so far from a church/school that essentially the entire town is off-limits.

I like what a well-thought out argument this is.

Especially considering you totally called me a Hep C pos hooka in another thread.

Want to be best friends?

:( Those men really need help ! I couldn't believe how pathetic they looked -and how their sickness so consumed them! One was even a rabbi at a temple!

Re: Pedophiles on Dateline NBC
 

Hmmph. Ironic, no?

Wearing t-shirts depicting Mohammed wearing a bomb on his head.