Background

Following technological developments, there has been increasing interest in online offenders' use of digital communication technology to sexually groom and abuse children. However, research has thus far primarily explored offenders' interactions with decoys instead of actual children, and initial evidence indicates that conversations with actual children may include more overt persuasion and extortion than conversations with decoys.

Objective

This study aims to describe online offenders' interactions with actual children when inciting them to engage in online sexual activity.

Participants and setting

Swedish court judgements including 50 offenders (aged 16–69, median = 28.9) and 122 child victims (aged 7–17, median = 13.0) were analyzed.

Methods

By using an explorative mixed-methods approach, we thematically analyzed what strategies the children were exposed to, and looked for patterns between the strategy used and the characteristics of the abuse, victim, or offender.

Results

We identified two types of strategies that the children were exposed to: pressure (threats, bribes, or nagging, N = 56), and sweet-talk (flattery, acting as a friend, or expressing love, N = 25). Overall, the offenders who used pressure were younger and targeted older children than the offenders who used sweet-talk.

Conclusions

This study expands the existing knowledge about the variety of manipulative strategies used by online offenders and adds support to the initial literature showing substantially more pressure and coercion in online offenders' interactions with actual children. The study also identifies some patterns between the strategy used and the age of the offender and victim that warrant further investigation in future studies.

中文翻译：

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让儿童参与在线性活动的犯罪者策略

背景

随着技术的发展，人们越来越关注网络犯罪者使用数字通信技术对儿童进行性诱骗和虐待。然而，迄今为止的研究主要探讨了罪犯与诱饵而不是真实儿童的互动，初步证据表明，与真实儿童的对话可能比与诱饵的对话包含更多的公开说服和勒索。

客观的

本研究旨在描述在线犯罪者在煽动他们进行在线性活动时与实际儿童的互动。

参与者和设置

瑞典法院的判决包括 50 名罪犯（16-69 岁，中位数 = 28.9）和 122 名儿童受害者（7-17 岁，中位数 = 13.0）。

方法

通过使用探索性的混合方法，我们对孩子们接触到的策略进行了主题分析，并在所使用的策略与虐待、受害者或犯罪者的特征之间寻找模式。

结果

我们确定了儿童接触到的两种策略：压力（威胁、贿赂或唠叨，N  = 56）和甜言蜜语（奉承、充当朋友或表达爱意，N  = 25）。总体而言，使用压力的犯罪者比使用甜言蜜语的犯罪者更年轻且针对年龄较大的儿童。

结论

这项研究扩展了关于网络罪犯使用的各种操纵策略的现有知识，并增加了对最初文献的支持，表明网络罪犯与实际儿童的互动中存在更大的压力和胁迫。该研究还确定了所用策略与犯罪者和受害者年龄之间的一些模式，这些模式值得在未来的研究中进一步调查。