Police chief: Pedophiles on Net won't disappear

There's no price tag on a child's innocence, the chief said.
By D.A. WILKINSON
VINDICATOR SALEM BUREAU
NEW WATERFORD -- Police call the pedophiles "travelers" because they're willing to go far to have sex with children they meet on the Internet.
New Waterford Police Chief Dan Hauter said the travelers may come from as far away as Wyoming or Hawaii.
Hauter has prosecuted a number of cases of older men who thought they had arranged a tryst online with a girl. They were actually chatting to Hauter.
Pictures the men sent range from a buff middle-aged professional to an old man with wispy hair and thick glasses.
Hauter knows what's going on online and what parents should do to protect their children. The problem, he said, is not going away.
Men are looking for girls ages 12-15 and a similar number of men are looking for boys in the same age range. Some pedophiles are looking for either, he said.
There are pedophiles who seek children as young as 5, but children that young aren't online.
Almost exclusively men
For the most part, women do not seem to troll the Internet for children.
"I've heard of only one case of a woman looking for a young boy," Hauter said,
Some pedophiles are seeking women with young children -- ages 5 or 6 -- to ask them to have sex with the child.
"Mothers do pimp their children," Hauter said.
The chatting begins in online chat rooms after 3 p.m. when classes end. Chat during the day, Hauter said, "and they figure you're a cop."
The chats don't occur in some dark corner of the Internet but on America Online, Yahoo, chat rooms in Ohio or for pop singers. AOL recently closed some rooms, Hauter said.
Chat rooms may attract kids with a cool name or a suggestive one, such as, "Daddy and Daughters."
Many youths will chat with a pedophile and never know it, Hauter said. But others do, and they know it. He thinks it's unlikely the children will tell their parents about the sexual content of the chat conversations.
"Their sexual curiosity is starting to peak" in their early teens, Hauter said.
At risk
Children from single-parent homes may have low self-esteem and may be likely targets. Children from more stable homes may be attracted to older men, which is common in society.
Still, Hauter said, when he says he's a 14-year-old girl, many men message back that that age is too young.
Despite the arrests and prosecutions, Hauter said the pedophiles haven't slowed down. But the chief hopes the local arrests will make pedophiles think twice and stay out of the area.
"Law enforcement has a vested interest in protecting children until they can make good decisions," Hauter said.
He suggests that parents talk to their children about the dangers of the Internet or move the computer into the living room or family room.
But Hauter said parents must know their child's computer password. Parents also should install software that saves the full text of every message their child sends and gets. Hauter uses the transcripts as evidence.
America Online and Yahoo provide such software for a small fee or for free, the chief said.
"There is no price tag on your kid's innocence, because once it's gone, it's gone," Hauter said.
wilkinson@vindy.com