During cyber grooming, sex offenders specifically search for children on the Internet -
University of Regensburg and KFG present a special section in their annual report.

Special section on cyber grooming: The Criminological Research Group (KFG) in the Bavarian State Criminal Police Office publishes the current annual report “Crime and Victimization of Young People in Bavaria 2018”:

A focus of this year's report is on the special section "Cyber ​​Grooming - The Danger from the Internet" , which includes current findings from a dark field study by the University of Regensburg. In addition, the development of crime and victimization of young people in Bavaria is presented in a ten-year comparison based on the police crime statistics (PKS).

41-year-old sought targeted contact with children over a period of four years

Modern communication media have become an integral part of the everyday life of children and young people. The use of the Internet undoubtedly offers many opportunities, but at the same time it entails specific risks that can have a massive impact on the development of young people. One of these risks is the phenomenon of cyber grooming, in which sexual advances are made explicitly with the intention of sexually abusing children.

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As a result of a remarkable increase in cases of cyber grooming in recent years and not least due to a grooming series uncovered in 2018 by a 41-year-old who had specifically sought contact with children across Germany on social networks over four years this topic became the focus of media and political interest. In November of the same year, the then Federal Justice Minister Barley announced more effective prosecution of sex offenders on the Internet.

Michael Laumer examined the phenomenon of cyber grooming in more detail in the special section of the annual report and states that the crime rate of cyber grooming across Bavaria can be viewed as low compared to the total number of cases of child sexual abuse.

Numbers of cases tend to increase

Nevertheless, the numbers have tended to increase over the last eight years. In 2018, the highest level so far was reached with 233 cases (+71.3% compared to the previous year). The Regensburg dark field study also shows that around one in six 14-year-old young people has experienced at least one form of online sexual advance within the last 12 months. In some cases this may be cyber grooming; However, exact case numbers cannot be derived due to the research design of this dark field study.

 

Regarding the general development of crime by young people in Bavaria, it can first be said that 20.8% of young suspects were registered in Bavaria in 2018. As in previous years, around one in five suspects is a child, young person or adolescent. Since 2011, adolescents (18 to 20 year olds) have consistently had higher numbers of suspects than young people (14 to 17 year olds). The number of suspects is lowest among children (8 to 13 year olds).

The number of suspects among adolescents (-12.6%) and especially young people (-33.6%) decreased relatively consistently from 2009 to 2018. There was a significant decline of -49.8% among children from 2009 to 2015, with slight increases in the following three years.

The proportion of young people among all victims in Bavaria in 2018 was 22.6%. This means that around every fourth to fifth victim of a crime is between 6 and 20 years old. In addition, the long-term trend shows that young people are victimized far less frequently in 2018 than in 2009. Adolescents have a quantitatively higher risk of victimization than younger age groups, but the number of child victims increased by +15.2% from 2015 to 2018.

When it comes to violent crime, the number of suspects in 2018 is far below that in 2009 (-32.3%). In this group of crimes, immigration appears to be an influencing factor: from 2015 to 2016, the number of suspects rose briefly by +14.0% before the downward trend of the previous years continued again from 2017. For children, who are significantly underrepresented compared to other age groups, the values ​​will increase from 2015. For 2018 it can be seen that the number of child suspects increased significantly by +15.6% compared to the previous year.

When evaluating the number of cases with “school crime scene” it can be seen that they fell by -32.1% from 2009 to 2015. In the following two years they initially increased again (+16.1%), with a reduction in the number of cases of -3.4% becoming visible from 2017 to 2018.

Source: Bavarian State Criminal Police Office
Article image: Shutterstock / By Burdun Iliya

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