What do a select number of teachers, police officers, mail carriers, firefighters, stay at home parents, truck drivers and other people from related occupations all have in common? Each of these occupations have child predators within their ranks (link requires Internet Explorer).
After watching an episode of Dateline NBC this evening, I was shocked at how dire this problem of men soliciting minors for adult favors has become. During the course of the program there were no less then two teachers, one law enforcement officer (DHS, actually) and even a firefighter who were all caught in a sting operation.
Two of the most shocking (besides the DHS officer and the firefighter) had to be the man who was a “man of god” (I am going to leave out which religion he represented) and the guy who showed up with his own child. I, much like many other viewers I would imagine, was speechless.
So how does this apply to us in the IT field? Simple – education. Those of you that are either in the PC repair field or perhaps instead simply want to help fight back against this epidemic do have some options.
First of all, take some time to become familiar with the i-SAFE program. It is a law enforcement approved program that will allow you to help those clients of yours with kids to understand that this does in fact, happen to real people everyday. Yes, you need to make your clients understand that one in five children online is approached by a sexual predator.
Another program that does work with law enforcement is called Perverted Justice. I have opted not to provide a direct link as some of the content in the provided chat logs may not be suitable for younger audiences. But if you run into parents that still “don’t get it”, a trip to this Website via Google will quite literally blow their minds. Folks, this is beyond disgusting and frankly, it is going to take all of us to bring this filth to an eventual close. If you have questions, you can email me as always. I will be happy to provide any other resources that you feel might help to educate those people out there who are still living in a bubble of denial.
[tags]education,pc repair,child safety,dateline nbc[/tags]