To catch a predator

Online harassment has recently flourished into a trend with the development and popularity of omnipresent portable technology and social networking sites.

People across all demographics are using technology in various forms. But frequent online activity has posed a risk for users: One in every 100 users online today is a victim of harassment.

‘We are seeing a rise in online harassment cases now more than ever,’ said Jayne Hitchcock, president of Working to Halt Online Abuse (WHOA), a volunteer organization dedicated to fighting online harassment. ‘We see more victims of online abuse come to us from college and universities looking for help.’

Approximately 100 million people use the Internet, and 1 million of them have been victims of harassment, Hitchcock said.

A majority of online harassment and cyber-stalking victims are women in their late teens and early twenties, who use technology more often than older age groups.



While the cyber harassment laws vary from state to state, harassment is any behavior that induces fear. Cyber-stalking is harassment repeated after the victim asks the offender to stop.

WHOA reported an average of 50-75 cases per week or 2,600-3,900 cases a year. In a survey taken from 2000-06, the WHOA asked harassment victims to voluntarily fill out a questionnaire before filing their cases online to learn about the victims’ demographics. Of the 2,039 victims who voluntarily filled out the questionnaire, 1,500 were women, 452 were men and 87 were unknown. In the total number of cases, 946 victims ranged between the ages of 18-30.

The harassers were predominantly male, amounting to 1,044 men compared to 571 women, and the remaining 424 unknown in gender. Of the harassers, about one in six previously dated his or her victim.

Among the total number of cases, 1,014 of the 2,039 victims knew their harasser.

WHOA helps educate online harassment victims through the information available on its Web site at haltabuse.org. Victims are encouraged to read the guidelines about harassment before they report to WHOA through e-mail.

‘Some weeks there are more or less, but it’s hard to gauge the actual amount because it varies,’ Hitchcock said.

And the number of unreported cyber harassment cases is also uncertain.

‘If I had an answer to the number of victims who didn’t report to authorities, I would be a millionaire,’ Hitchcock said. ‘That question is like calling the police station and asking how many stalkers didn’t turn themselves in today.’

The Stalking Resource Center, a branch of the National Center for Victims of Crime, which handles stalking both online and offline, reports a similar number of cyber harassment cases reported to them.

‘Among college students, current and former ex-girlfriend and ex-boyfriends are usually the harassers, who in most cases harass through e-mail and social networking sites,’ said Prisca Doh, a counselor at the Stalking Resource Center.

In 2006 and 2007, the Syracuse University Department of Public Safety had a total of 68 reported cases of aggravated harassment. Since the start of this academic year, SU Public Safety investigators have pursued 12 harassment cases. Three out of the 12 cases involved ex-boyfriends harassing their previous girlfriends.

The Stalking Resource Center reported that an estimated 60 percent of the online harassment cases involve a male harassing his ex-girlfriend. Of the 60 percent of cases, 75 percent are ex-boyfriends trying to win back their girlfriends.

A majority of the victims who seek help from the Stalking Resource Center believe they know the identity of their harasser. But it’s very hard to prove, Doh said.

‘Exes can go through someone else’s computer to make it harder for authorities to track,’ Doh said. ‘Or they can block their name in a social networking site or use someone else’s e-mail or social networking account.’

On MySpace, a user can apply the ‘no name’ option to an account to mask his or her identity.

Allan Kush, the executive director of WiredSafety.org, said harassers typically use cyber space as a preferred medium for attacks rather than face-to-face confrontation because the Internet masks the harassers’ identities. WiredSafety.org is a volunteer organization dedicated to helping victims of cyberabuse ranging from online fraud and cyber-stalking to child safety and hacking

‘People feel more comfortable harassing others without their identities out in the open,’ Kush said. ‘The reason people stalk and harass usually has to deal with power and control issues, and that’s the true issue of the predator.’

The harassers seeking revenge against their ex-girlfriend or boyfriend hope to make their victims’ lives miserable, Kush said.

‘The harassers all try to justify their wrath in their minds and believe there are no consequences,’ Kush said.

Kush said he knew of a case in which a young woman in her early twenties was stalked and harassed her by her ex-boyfriend for seven years before she contacted WiredSafety for assistance. The ex-boyfriend repeatedly contacted the victim’s employer and co-workers, sending threatening, inappropriate and invasive messages via e-mail, blogs and Web postings.

‘Finally the guy was put away,’ Kush said. ‘We advised the victim to devise a plan with local law enforcement in the area where the stalker lived to gather evidence there that was later used to convict the guy of violations of federal law which put him in a federal prison.’

Other harassers, however, are not personally linked to their victims and cannot be identified immediately if they use a ‘no name’ e-mail or social networking account, Kush said.

Susan Lipkins, a leading psychologist specializing in hazing on college campuses, said masking occurs when a person does not want their identity apparent.

‘The lack of consequences online leads to immoral, illegal and sadistic behavior,’ she said.

Lipkins said online harassment often damages women emotionally more so than men because they tend to recall words and images more clearly.

Online cyber-stalking expert and author of ‘The Dark Side of the Internet,’ Paul Bocij said there has been an increase in the number of women who meet men online through social networking sites. Though they have never met them face-to-face, more of these online encounters result in cyber-stalking.

‘Now more people meet online to try to start relationships,’ Bocij said. ‘Many of these stalkers, though, are people who want to start a relationship but are too socially awkward to confront the individual in person.’

While some harassers seek relationships, others only seek instant gratification.

Katya Gifford, the program manager for CyberAngels-an online safety education program-helps counsel victims involved in online harassment cases.

‘Most young women don’t think about the 62-year-old man looking at their profiles,’ Gifford said. ‘In most cases, the harassment starts in a social networking site and then goes to e-mail for direct contact.’

In one case, a college woman in her early twenties, whose MySpace profile was made public, received inappropriate, explicit messages about masturbation from an older man after he viewed her public profile, Gifford said.

‘The victim’s picture was not inappropriate in the least,’ Gifford said. ‘It was just cute.’

The victim replied to the harasser, which provoked him to contact her again through personal e-mail and AOL Instant Messenger. The victim finally contacted CyberAngels for assistance.

CyberAngels advised the victim to block her harasser from contacting her through online avenues and to report the harasser’s Internet Server Provider (ISP) number to the authorities.

‘It’s a life changing experience,’ Gifford said. ‘Once you are a victim, it’s hard overcome the situation.’

The offender finally stopped contacting the victim once she asked him to stop, but Gifford said it took this victim time to recover from the emotional trauma her harasser caused.

Predators also look for specific traits detailed in their victim’s profiles.

‘Predators look for vulnerability in their victims,’ Gifford said. ‘They look for the depressed freshman and the sophomore who broke up with her boyfriend. Predators hunt for these profiles.’

While stalkers can easily pick their victims, it’s harder for the victims to pinpoint their culprit.

‘We can help assist victims find local authorities to contact for help,’ Kush said. ‘But a lot of the victims are from local jurisdictions who don’t have dedicated computer forensics to catch the harasser.’

Laws also vary by state, which makes tracking down harassers much harder for law enforcement agencies.

‘The harassment numbers are increasing as more people join social networking sites,’ Kush said. ‘Once technology gets better and easier for everyone to use, harassment will cut across all boundaries of race, gender and age.’





Top Stories