Looking for friends…:” A Case Study of the Grooming Strategies and Victim Responses for one Offender and 500 Potential Victims

• In Event: Grooming and child sexual abuse

Abstract

This case study analyzed the social media direct messages between one contact child sex offender and 500 potential victims based on the offender’s grooming strategies and victims’ responses. Of the 500 chats, 49 chats were selected due to chat length and content, as most chats only included the offender’s opening line (i.e., Hey I’m new on [social media platform] and I’m looking for friends on here whats up?). Next, we mapped each conversation using the six stages of grooming (e.g., Friendship, Relationship, Risk Assessment, Exclusivity, Sexual, and Meet) and coded for the presence of victim high-risk behaviors (e.g., sending an unprompted sext) and offender/victim self-disclosures (e.g., sharing vulnerabilities about oneself). Of the 49 chats, all potential victims were female (Mage = 15), and in 67% (n = 33) of the chats, the offender used the same opening line. In the chats where this opening line was not used, the conversation seemed to have started on a different platform. The offender sent nearly twice as many words as the victims. The potential victims rarely engaged in high-risk behaviors (e.g., requesting a sext first). The offender used aggressive language towards the potential victim in 35% (n = 17) of the chats, usually because the victim did not comply with his demands or gave the offender “attitude.” There were statistically significant correlations between the different grooming stages (e.g., relationship forming and meeting stages). There was also a significant relationship between offender and victim self-disclosures, indicating reciprocation. Finally, the offender appeared to learn from prior unsuccessful chats when he was viewed as “too old,” by asking the victim’s age first then stating his age as 2 years older. Overall, this case study provided a unique opportunity to analyze a contact child sex offender’s grooming strategies and the responses from 500 potential victims.

Authors

• Brycen J Baldwin, Purdue University

• Carrie M Spoonhauer, Purdue University

• Kathryn Seigfried-Spellar, Purdue University