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Parents used to worry about strangers coming through the door. Now they need to worry about them entering online. It’s time to take control His name was John; he was 22. He had a special interest, Katie Canton, 15, who became spellbound by her persistent, instant boyfriend. She met him in a chat room on AOL, in the early days of the Internet person-to-person communication boom. Six years ago, instant messaging and chat rooms were the modes of anonymous hooking up. The ability to reach across a city, a county, a state and a country, to meet, talk and befriend anyone, 24/7, with nothing more than a computer screen, changed the dynamic of how we meet. Historically, befriending a person meant seeing them first, and sizing them up slowly, with parents in the way. For young people, though, anxious by nature to reach out and often filled with a false sense of security, by the new millennium they had access to a world beyond bedroom dreaming and private diaries. They could tell the world who they were, and meet perfect strangers who, like a Hollywood opening, were more than willing to adore them. A mere six years ago, email was coming into vogue, before the onslaught of social clubs that now involve millions of young online users. It was a time when webcams were reaching a level that allowed youngsters to easily, and graphically, image themselves to cyberspace – to friends and foes alike. It was a time, the New York Times reported last year in a front-page story, when predators saw the perfect storm – technology that would bring them into the bedrooms of young people, with young bodies. “It was the age of innocence,” says Canton, now 20, of Northern California, who is an ambassador for Orange County-based Web Wise Kids. OC Family guidelines OC Family Magazine guidelines for Internet use by children and teens may be the strictest parents have come across. Because of the exploding use of technology, this is an uncertain time, which means you should err on the side of caution: • All computers need to be in an open area where family members typically congregate. No computers are allowed in bedrooms, including brief Wi-Fi usage. • Consider purchasing a laptop that you can take with you when the child is left home alone. • Don’t expect child protection software to work. In most cases, your child knows much more than you about computers, making what seems like a safety measure in fact ineffective. • No interactivity is allowed without direct parental participation. This means: • No instant messaging. • No email except for the one family account. • No online accounts to send or receive money. • No online chatrooms or social websites. • No interactive accessories, such as webcams. In terms of your daily role: • Your child needs to understand the Internet, both for its usefulness for education, and its danger in today’s world. Explain the Internet to the child before it becomes a habit; fifth or sixth grade is not too soon. • Work hard to gain a child’s confidence that she can come to you whenever something inappropriate occurs online. Adopt a no-penalty policy of honesty. • Ask parents to keep computers turned off when your child visits another’s home. The real John John is really not who he said he was. He was an expert with the medium, but a liar with a plan. More to the point, he was a deviant. “He ended up being really bad news,” Canton recalled in a wide-ranging interview about today’s Internet and the dangers that lurk from one of its most expert users – predators in search of sex with children and teens. John was later convicted and is serving 20 years in the South. As he was enticing Canton with daily onslaughts sprinkled with predator strategy – bring them close by working them endlessly, “grooming” as it is known – he had already succeeded with a 13-year-old girl, with whom he had sex. Katie Canton may be the exception to the rule: More than 80 million American youth have Internet access, according to the U.S. Justice Department, Office for Victims of Crime. Most children escape the online traps. And she is one of the lucky ones whose parents intervened almost at the moment that John was hopping on a plane from his home in North Carolina to her home in San Francisco. Lucky, because by one study’s estimate, 33% of 13- to 17-year-olds say their parents know very little or nothing of what they do online. “The one issue we’ve always had trouble with is that kids don’t tell their parents,” says Shirley Goins, executive director of the West Coast office of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, in Tustin. “And even worse than that, very few of these incidences are reported to law enforcement. We have to be very vigilant, particularly if you are a parent.” Today is a new era of competing interests – technology that benefits predators and a growing despair about how to protect the children. “’Surfing’ is no longer like a splash in a pool,” observes Michael Webb, a marriage and family therapist who addresses this topic with families. “It is dangerous.” Television shows such as “Dateline: To Catch a Predator” host stings in which unsuspecting men are enticed to come to a home of a decoy who, online, posed as a teen. There is no shortage of knocks on the door. Elsewhere, newspapers are filled with articles about the crimes. And MySpace.com, the world’s most popular social networking website with its 100 millionth member signing up this past August, is getting bad publicity as a place in which predators roam. The site’s first chief security officer, Hemanshu Nigam, hired in May, was unavailable to comment on the subject, OC Family Magazine was told. The numbers are enticing, because the Internet is such a perfect tool. “I think (the Internet) is one of the easiest ways for predators to build up a rapport, maybe even long-term rapport in a relationship, with a child that would be impossible for them to do if they had to do this by meeting the child physically in person,” says Orange County Assistant District Attorney Rosanne Froeberg. “It allows them virtually unlimited access…” Predators also can work the numbers. According to a Teen Internet Survey this year by Cox Communications and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, 61% of 13- to 17-year-olds have a personal profile on an online social website. Half have posted pictures of themselves. Katie’s story Katie Canton was romanced for about two months. “I started chatting online when I was 13. My dad signed me up for an AOL account. My friends taught me how to instant message. It wasn’t until I was 14 or so when I started going into chat rooms and talking to people I didn’t know. It was just something to do when you were bored, when you were home alone, or your friends weren’t online to talk to. And, it was fun; I didn’t think much of it. “When I was 15, I met a man in a chat room.” They both exchanged ages (at first he said he was 21; at first, she said she was 16); and chatted online for about 10 minutes. He asked for her phone number, gave her a phone card, and she talked with him until it ran out. Is your child at risk? Here are signs that computer activity may be heading in the wrong direction: • Your child spends a long time online, often at night. • You find pornographic material in his computer. • Your child is receiving or making calls to people you do not know. • Your child receives mail, gifts or packages from someone you do not know. • Your child works overtime to keep you from seeing what’s on his computer. • Your child becomes withdrawn. • Your child uses an online account belonging to someone else. Source: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children “That first night, we talked for 4-5 hours.” The next day, while she was in school, he left a message on her voice mail. This would begin a habit of 10 or 11 messages a day, all from John. “After a week, he told me he loved me, and wanted to marry me, and it didn’t matter if he had to travel across the country. “We talked a lot; if I wasn’t at school or asleep, I was basically on the phone with John.” He became obsessive, once angered that she took two days off to travel to Disneyland with a friend. Her words to describe him: “controlling, protective and manipulative.” And, he wanted her to tell her parents about him. Plans for a get-together were sprung. “The main reason my parents didn’t react too much at first was because of naivete; they didn’t process it as a threat. They also were really wary of restoring trust; the year before, I had had a rough year (at school). I was really happy when John and I started talking; they were happy that I was happy. That’s why they gave me a little more breathing room than they normally would have.” But the visit awakened them to the urgency. “My dad knew something was wrong; there was only one reason a twentysomething was coming out to see a 15-year-old. But he knew he couldn’t say, ‘Katie, you can’t see this man,’ because he (feared) that I would just do it. “I was completely sucked into this world, where it was John, John, John. A lot of the allure was that he gave me so much attention; it was attractive; he was interested in me; he wanted to know about me; he loved me. It was sort of something that I was really craving; this very specific sort of attention. It got me into a very dangerous place.” Her father worked for the city of San Francisco and bumped into an officer overseeing a new program called ICAC, or Internet Crimes Against Children. The officer immediately called the parents in, handed them a computer game called Missing, and ordered them to play it with their daughter that night. It mimics an online predator’s plan of action. Canton saw the similarities. “Little things, like phrases, almost word for word that John had said to me. Little red flags started going up. I was about ready to say it was just a coincidence, that if he was a predator, then everything he said to me was a lie. “After the game, my parents sat me down and said, ‘We love you; we’re not trying to ruin your life; we’re not trying to be the bad guys but it’s not safe to meet John’…That was all I needed to accept it. I said, OK.” Special tips for the child Tips parents should pass along if children use the Internet: • DO spend more time with real life friends than virtual friends. • DO tell an adult if someone online harasses you or wants to talk about sex. • DO cut off contact with anyone who pressures you for your personal information (name, age, size, photo, address, family information). • DO be careful of strangers who try to turn you against your family while promising to be your best friend (they may send you gifts and give you lots of compliments, but at the same time, they are possessive of your time and critical of your parents). • Do NOT exchange pictures with strangers through the Internet. • Do NOT open emails/instant messages or download attachments from people you don’t know. • Do NOT fill out your information to win free stuff. • Do NOT go to meet someone you don’t already know in real life. Source: Web Wise Kids Canton met with the police officer and broke it off with John in an email. “He emailed me back once and said, ‘I haven’t done anything wrong.’ That was it; he was scared.” Police determined that John was on a most-wanted list, tracked him down and he was put on trial about six months later in West Virginia for having sex with the 13-year-old girl. Canton testified against him, seeing him in person for the first time. “It was surreal,” she admits. Online lives, the reality show “Dateline” this year released a survey conducted for NBC by The Intelligence Group that shows a pattern of usage, and danger, among teens ages 14-18. Some 500 were surveyed and 58% have at least sometimes talked to people that they have only met online. The same percentage says that someone they have met online has asked to meet in person. And 29% say they’ve had a scary online experience. Most importantly, there are two statistics that don’t match up and define the inability of this young age group to often make the right decisions, or understand right from wrong: Some 91% say they use the computer responsibly, but 70% believe most people their age do not. “There are steps that parents and kids can take to protect themselves,” urges Canton. “It’s not about no-use at all, because kids can get on the Internet any time, anywhere. But it is education; (parents and children) need to talk to each other about what is safe to do and what is not safe to do.” Erin Runnion lost her 5-year-old daughter, Samantha, in 2002 in a way most feared by most parents: The little girl was snatched from the streets of Orange County and found dead in Riverside County. Erin has started a nonprofit to help protect children, and she is aware of the difference in predators’ abilities to reach children in the past decade. “Vigilance,” she says, is the key. “We have to be really clear about explaining to kids NOT to put any identifying information out there.” She adds: “The thing about MySpace…it’s great if you’re an adult.” Perhaps no online predator story has received as much attention as that of Justin, who bought a computer-accessible webcam at 13 in an effort to meet teen friends. Instead, predators descended, prompting years-long relationships and personal contact with adults, who convinced him to, at first, disrobe, and later commit sex acts for their pleasure. Justin, now 19, was profiled in the New York Times and in March appeared on “Oprah.” Justin became an Internet commodity, working out of his bedroom, with the door closed and his mother unaware. According to the Times, at one point he had 1,000 adult pedophiles paying monthly fees. The Times reporter, Kurt Eichenwald, tracked the identifications of 300 customers. Some were pediatricians, teachers and lawyers. They're there FAST FACTS Information that you need to know to understand the impact of the Internet: MySpace signed up its 100 millionth member this past August. The News Corp.-owned site is reportedly the fourth most popular English-language website. Some 61% of 13- to 17-year-olds have a personal profile on such sites; half have posted pictures of themselves online. Some 58% of teens ages 14-18 say that someone they’ve met online has wanted to meet them in person. And 29% say they’ve had a “scary” experience online. Some 34% of youth talk to someone they only know online. This same group of surveyed youth, ages 10-17, reported a high number of unwanted sexual solicitations (1-in-7 youth), unwanted exposure to sexual material (1-in-3), and harassment (1-in-11). Sex offenders are being put in jail, but what happens when they get out? Assemblymen Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, and Rudy Bermudez, D-Norwalk, are overseeing a High Risk Sex Offender Task Force that, in part, will monitor offenders when they are paroled. Warn your children not to participate in any online activity that may be degrading, offensive and the like. Police departments have stepped up arrests for alleged hate crimes, and schools are beginning to throw students out of school for online hate. These range from doctored photos (putting a student’s head on top of a nude body, for example) to creating faked social websites that are both libelous and may put unsuspecting children at risk of being approached by a predator. Readers may want to follow HR 5319, which passed the House of Representatives in late July and is now in a U.S. Senate committee. Known as Deleting Online Predators Act, it would ban public schools and libraries from offering social networking websites and chat rooms. Also for Federal Trade Commission testimony about these sites, go to: ftc.gov/opa/2006/06/socialnetworking.htm Sources: Wikipedia; Teen Internet Study by Cox Communications and the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children; The Intelligence Group survey of 500 teens conducted for “Dateline”; National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, “Online Victimization of Youth” survey of 1,500 youth ages 10-17; Orange County Register (Aug. 16); Library of Congress; Federal Trade Commission The mixture of computer time used up by children and teens and the onslaught of predators looking for scores is an unsettling one. Some 49% of one group of surveyed youth are online 5-7 days a week, and 54% of them say they spend more than 1 hour online each time. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children recently released an updated survey, “Online Victimization of Youth,” gathered from 1,500 youth, ages 10-17. True, 92% say they are using at least part of that Internet time to do school projects (the Internet’s vast educational reach can be compared in the 21st century to the Gutenberg press that in 1436 brought the printing press, and thus vast amounts of printed information, to the masses for the first time). Others (38%) download music. And certainly the vast majority of emailers (79% use this form of communication) are sending innocent notes to close friends. But a careful reading shows disturbing trends earmarked by the center’s first survey in 2000: 1-in-7 youth (about 200 of the 1,500) reported unwanted sexual solicitations; 1-in-3 received unwanted exposure to sexual material; and 1-in-11 were harassed. Online sexual solicitations were down from 1-in-5 from the first survey, the center reports, in part because youth are more savvy – and thus cautious – about who they meet online. Still, parents should be aware that 34% of this group talks to people they only know online, and 69% have at least once in the past year used the Internet at a friend’s home. Used to be that the loaded gun was the most dangerous item in a home. Today, the computer may rank at the top of the list. Four percent, or 60 of those 1,500 surveyed, reported an aggressive solicitation in which an adult made or attempted to make real contact. “We learned that teens don’t tell mom or dad when they receive an inappropriate message or photo because they fear their parents will blame them for receiving the communication,” remarked John Walsh in a press statement, following a Teen Summit on Internet Safety held this summer in Washington, D.C. Walsh, who created “America’s Most Wanted,” moderated the event for high school students and their parents. Cox Communications, in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, was host. Among the recommendations from teens to their parents: Become an experienced Internet user; keep the lines of communication open and do not overreact; and talk about Internet safety, beginning in the elementary years. The biggest surprise for Kaytlin Visca, 14, a ninth-grader in San Clemente, is how just a little information on the Internet can be enough to find out too much. She was one of 10 students who participated in June in the Teen Summit. She also worries that her age group has yet to truly grasp the dangers. “They think, ‘It can’t happen to me, I’m just sitting in my room.’” Here are a few local examples culled from Orange County Register news reports this year: • A 41-year-old Las Vegas man drove to Orange County to hook up with who he thought was a 13-year-old boy. He was arrested. The boy was a decoy of Perverted-Justice.com, an organization of adults that works with police to nab online predators. • A man in the midst of being prosecuted for molesting a girl in Arizona, contacted a Fullerton girl in a chat room. The man, Edward Carter Swanstrom, 49, was sentenced to 15 years to life, for sexual relations with a 13-year-old. He met her in an Internet chat room. Before sentencing, he allegedly came to Fullerton and had sex with the junior high girl, also under age 14. • Thirteen men, including a California Highway Patrol officer, were charged with attempted child molestation in a sting in Laguna Beach. The men were expecting to meet 12- and 13-year-old girls they thought they had befriended on the Internet. In late August, the first of the men, who range in age from 19-51, admitted guilt. Ryan Arnell Mount, 30, of North Hollywood, plead guilty in Santa Ana court to attempted lewd acts on a child under the age of 14 and misdemeanor possession of a methamphetamine pipe. He faced four years in prison; in a plea agreement, he will serve no more than 18 months. • A Newport-Mesa Unified School District middle-schooler faced expulsion and 20 students who viewed his threatening MySpace.com website against a female student were suspended in February. • Perverted-Justice.com helped Riverside County police arrest 49 people in a sting in January. • Sometimes, even teens end up being sleuths. In March, the Inland Valley Daily Bulletin reported that a 48-year-old man who thought he had met a teen girl on MySpace.com went to a Fontana park, Hunter’s Ridge, for a rendezvous. Instead, five teen boys who had created a fake profile of a 15-year-old were there., They called police and he was arrested. Hold your child close Michael Webb, a Newport Beach-based licensed marriage and family therapist, advises parents to walk the walk in terms of being upfront about the dangers. “Talk to your kids about situations, real situations,” he says, adding that it is taking a longtime, familiar conversation such as “if you go to a party and people are drinking and someone (offers you one), what will you say?” to another level. To the Internet level. “What if you find yourself on a particular site, or you are online and someone IMs you and seems very nice. What if they ask you to do this? I would encourage parents to walk through specific scenarios, so the (the children) are more apt to know what to do, so they are more proactive rather than reactive.” For example, he says, ask this question: “What if someone asks to meet you somewhere. What would you do?” That is simply an updated version of the stranger-in-the car speech: “When someone metaphorically invites you into their car, are you going to get in?” By being upfront with your child, Webb says, you can gain a trust that comes into play when something inappropriate pops on the computer screen. It is important, he says. “for parents to be connected with their kids when they are so connected with the rest of the world.” In fact, the parents need to be the brains – the mature mind – behind this new online era. “Kids do not have the sophistication and knowledge to understand what they are getting themselves into,” reminds executive Goins, of The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. “The…Internet is forever, and people out there are not their friends.” She asks: “Would you ever let your child go out at night with someone you have never met? Of course you wouldn’t.” Why social networking sites? Katie Canton is asked the burning parental question: Why are sites that pose so much danger, so popular? Why are kids narcissists (spilling everything about themselves, often with photos) and voyeuristic (online with strangers) at the same time? “Part of it is just being a teenager and trying to find out who you are, and what you feel and what you are about. And a lot of it is naivete; they don’t stop to think about who is reading this. “There is just that appeal; it’s part of the age, this Internet culture. I think social networking sites are cool for our generation, a place where you can really meet people and keep in touch with friends. It has a hip factor that parents don’t understand. It’s on our level. But it’s dangerous; it’s one-stop shopping for Internet predators. They’ll find out everything they need to know. (Predators) know what (their victims) look like from their pictures; they know how old they are; where they live; where they go to school; what they do for fun; who their friends are; how their friends talk to them; their favorite music and TV shows. With that information, a predator has everything they need to be a teen’s ‘best friend.’” Adds Teen Summit participant Kaytlin Visca: “You can’t really get bored on the Internet.” Capt. Christine Murray, a division commander with the Orange County Sheriff’s Department, is a volunteer with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. She urges parents to educate their children before the Internet becomes a habit. Fifth or sixth grade is a good starting point. “As their maturity and life experience and their computer savviness increases with time, then the message needs to get more detailed and broader about what some of the these issues are,” Murray says. “It’s been said before but I can’t say it enough: The computer needs to be where the child doesn’t feel that he or she has privacy. The computer, the monitor, the child needs to know that at any given moment, mom or dad can walk by.” Says Rosanne Froeberg, Orange County assistant district attorney: “I think everybody – children, parents – needs to be aware that unless there are safeguards placed on a computer that there is really little, if any, way of preventing people from, as we say, inserting themselves into a child’s computer for lewd and lascivious reasons.” “Teens and parents need to come up with their own safety plans,” says Katie Canton. “It is an issue that touches everybody; it’s something that everyone needs to recognize.” The 20-year-old Canton has a boyfriend, is in college and like many students, working two jobs at once – at a restaurant and with teens in a youth group at church. And, like many college students, while she has chosen a major – communications – she is uncertain what she will do with the degree. But first things first. Today, she is an adult, and she is safe. Managing Editor Sandy Bennett provided research and reporting for this report, as did senior writers Kimberly A. Porrazzo and Lynn Armitage. Interns Carlin Schneider and Alyssa Urish researched online sites. Social websites Social websites continue to proliferate. However, these are among the biggest, most popular, and edgiest to date: MySpace.com, launched in July 2003, has more than 100 million members and allows you to create a network of mutual friends by inviting friends to join or searching the site to add friends who are already members. Users create their own profiles to share photos, journals and personal information. The website caters to people who want to talk to their friends online, singles who want to meet other singles, businesspeople and co-workers interested in networking, even people looking to reconnect with old friends. Minimum age of 14 required, though there is no sure way to prevent younger children from creating a profile. Bebo.com is a newer social networking website that allows members to “stay in touch with their college friends, connect with friends, share photos, discover new interests, and just hang out.” Users can also post blogs or draw on each others’ “white boards.” The website is for elementary, junior high, high school and college students. (Users are supposed to be at least 13 years old.) Includes members from the U.S., the U.K., Australia, Canada, Ireland and New Zealand. Facebook.com is an online social directory started in 2004. It was originally only open to college students, but is now open to people with email addresses from valid high schools or companies registered with Facebook. There are more than 8 million users. The fact that companies can register with Facebook means that your employer or potential employer can view your profile. Basic uses include creating a profile, inviting other users to be your friend, posting pictures, and posting something on another user’s “wall.” Xanga.com calls itself a “weblog community” consisting of online diaries and journals. One can start his or her own journal for free to share thoughts with friends and meet new friends. Xanga.com is free, but members can upgrade for a fee. The upgraded versions allow for more storage space, uploads, and pictures. Xanga posts a “Top 50 List” consisting of the users’ most frequently used songs, books, movies, or television shows. Minimum age is supposed to be 13 years old. Buzznet.com, founded in 2003, is a social community centered around content created by its users including video, photos and journals. The site has resources including tools to help users create their own content. Buzznet also works with the media to highlight certain users’ content. The website allows users to view the content created by others, makecomments about it, and make friends all over the world. Friendsorenemies.com allows users to search for friends or contacts and choose to make them either their friend or their enemy. Users can browse one another’s profiles and see who they have listed as their friends and enemies. Relationships go one way: If someone has listed a user as an enemy, the other user cannot in turn list them as a friend. Tagworld.com, founded in 2005, provides a set of unified, easy-to-use features and web-based services to allow its more than 2 million users to “engage in more meaningful social experience” including self-expression and communicating and sharing information with others. The five fundamental components of Tagworld are people, photos, blogs, tags, and storage. A tag is a way of identifying and organizing items. The site also allows users to create their own website and maintain a list of friends. – Compiled by intern Carlin Schneider; edited by intern Alyssa Urish Too Close How safe is your neighborhood? Polly. Megan. Jessica. Samantha. Anthony. Danyelle. It’s the roll call of every parent’s worst nightmare. These once darling children, embodiments of all that is good in the world, are gone forever, snatched from the safety of their neighborhoods, homes and even their beds, and brutally murdered. Although victims of extreme cases of child molestation, these sweet souls live on as tragic reminders that there are evil people out there intent on harming our children. And they’re a lot closer than you think. A search by zip code on the Megan’s Law website (meganslaw.ca.gov) will reveal how many registered sex offenders are living around you. It’s unsettling, to say the least. In Orange County, more than 2,700 registered sex offenders blend seamlessly into our lives, says Assemblyman Todd Spitzer. (California has more registered sex offenders than any other state.) You pass them on the streets, stand in line with them at the store and even entrust them with your children as coaches and day-care providers. “It could be anyone. The makeup of an offender is internal, it’s psychological,” says Capt. Christine Murray of the Orange County Sheriff’s Department. “It would be easy if they looked like the evil person that we visualize. But they don’t.” Under California’s Megan’s Law, enacted in 1996, someone convicted of a sex crime must register with local law enforcement after being released from prison or a mental hospital. Megan’s Law was named after a 7-year-old New Jersey girl who was murdered by a convicted child molester, a neighbor, who moved in across the street. Her family never knew he was there. Someone you know and trust Not many understand the dangers of allowing sex offenders to live freely among us more than 31-year-old Erin Runnion, whose 5-year-old daughter Samantha – “my garden fairy” – was kidnapped in 2002 outside her Stanton home and murdered by a man who had recently been tried for child molestation and acquitted. Runnion, who founded the Joyful Child Foundation in Samantha’s honor, has become an outspoken champion for tougher laws on crimes against children. “Sexual abuse of children is the most underreported crime in this country because it’s normally someone the family trusts,” although that was not the case with her daughter. She says people want to forgive those they love, so they don’t prosecute. “What they don’t realize is that they’re creating a string of victims.” According to the U.S. Department of Justice, every year about 58,000 children in this country are abducted by acquaintances, neighbors and family friends. “Over half have been abused before they’re found,” says Runnion. “I almost didn’t believe it when I read that one in four girls and one in six to 10 boys are sexually assaulted before reaching adulthood.” Getting tougher In July, President Bush signed The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, a bill lobbied for heavily by Runnion, Mark Klaus and Mark Lunsford, whose daughters were also murdered by sex offenders. This new law will create a national Internet database of convicted child molesters, making it easier for the public and law enforcement to track the whereabouts of the country’s 500,000 convicted sex offenders (100,000 can’t be found). And this November, California voters will weigh in on the state’s version of Jessica’s law, a measure that closes the loopholes in Megan’s Law by requiring registered sex offenders to wear GPS tracking devices and prohibiting them from living within 2,000 feet of a school or park. Assemblyman Todd Spitzer, R-Orange, is a champion of the measure. To help communities become safer places for children, Runnion started the Samantha’s PRIDE child watch program. The idea is simple: Parent volunteers whose backgrounds have been thoroughly checked take turns watching children before and after school, on weekends, at parks and at public pools. Runnion says vigilance scares sexual predators. “It makes them horribly uncomfortable and they leave.” Since this program was initiated three years ago, more than 500 volunteers have become PRIDE protectors in Southern California. The largest PRIDE is in Riverside County, just three miles from where Samantha’s body was found. “When we started in that neighborhood, there were eight sex offenders. One year later, there are only two left,” reports Runnion. So what do you do if a sex offender moves onto your street? Runnion says the only known deterrent to a predator is the risk of getting caught. “Knock on the door and say: ‘I know you’re a registered sex offender and if I ever see you around any kid EVER, I will call the police.’” To volunteer for a PRIDE watch or to start one in your neighborhood, call 866.7JOYFUL or log onto thejoyfulchild.org.m Lynn Armitage is a senior writer and syndicated columnist. For Letters: ocfamily.com and click on Feedback. |
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