Comment
FALSE | "at any given time, there are 50,000 predators prowling for children on the Internet" |
Comment made by:
Dateline
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FBI Agent
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Attorney General Alberto Gonzales
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Chris Wilkinson (Pensacola police officer)[6-3-06]
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U.S. Rep. Mark Kirk, (R)-Illinois[5-8-06]
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Det. Jeff Franzen of the Marysville Police Department(WA)[5-8-06]
-and originally-
Chris Hansen
(11-10-05] |
| 5-26-2006 National:
PRIME NUMBER |
.BROOKE GLADSTONE: The children. We are all of us frightened for the children. And we have plenty of numbers to justify that fear, like a 20-billion-dollar child porn industry or 50,000 predators prowling for children online, numbers that resound endlessly through the media ether, origins unknown. Take that last number, 50,000 sexual predators logged in at any given time. That appeared late last year in a series for NBC's "Dateline," called "To Catch a Predator." Last week, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales cited it. Legal Times noted that spokespersons for the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Crimes Against Children Research Center say it's not based on any research they're aware of. The A.G.'s Office said it came from "Dateline."
CHRIS HANSEN: It was attributed to, you know, law enforcement, as an estimate, and it was talked about as sort of an extrapolated number.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: Chris Hansen is a reporter for the "Dateline" series, still ongoing.
CHRIS HANSEN: So when we went to interview Ken Lanning, who was the expert we talked to in our first piece, I said, “Look, this number keeps surfacing. Do you think that it's accurate, it's reliable?” And he essentially said to me, “I've heard it, but depending on how you define what is a predator, it could actually be a very low estimate.”
BROOKE GLADSTONE: He took that as confirmation, but maybe he shouldn't have.
KEN LANNING: I didn't know where it came from. I couldn't confirm it, but I couldn't refute it either, but I felt it was a fairly reasonable figure.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: That's Hansen's source, FBI veteran Ken Lanning.
KEN LANNING: I was somewhat curious about the fact [CHUCKLES] that it was 50,000. That number had popped in the past, because I had been an FBI agent for over 30 years. In the early 1980s, this was the number that was most often used to estimate how many children were kidnapped or abducted by strangers every year. But the research that was done in the early 1990s found that somewhere in the neighborhood of 2 to 300 children every year were abducted in this manner.
BROOKE GLADSTONE: It seems bad things don't come in threes – they come in fifty thousand.
KEN LANNING: The other one that I specifically [LAUGHS] remembered kind of came in the late '80s, where there were a lot of people who were talking about satanic cults that were supposedly running around the country engaging in human sacrifices. And when you'd try to say, well, how much of this is going on? - once again, [LAUGHS] the same number popped up – 50,000 a year. ..more..
: by OnTheMedia.org
| 6-2-2006 National:
NEWS MAG DUMPS MOLEST DATA |
.'DATELINE" is backing off claims it's made in several of its reports focusing on online predators. The NBC newsmagazine stated twice that, at any given time, there are 50,000 predators prowling for children on the Internet. "We used it in the first two stories, and we haven't used it in the last three," "Dateline" correspondent Chris Hansen told NPR's "On the Media" when asked about the 50,000 figure. Reporters often use that number to dress up crime-related statistics. In terms of Internet predators and children, the 50,000 number was cited last month by Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who attributed it to "Dateline."
Experts say the only reasonably accurate crime statistics are those released by the Uniform Crime Report, which tracks things like rape, murder and auto theft - but not Internet predators. Meanwhile, the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the Crimes Against Children Research Center say the 50,000 figure is not based on any research of which they're aware. "Maybe the appeal of the number is that it wasn't a real small number," veteran FBI agent Ken Lanning told "On the Media."
"It wasn't like 100 or 200, and it wasn't a ridiculously large number, like 10 million. It was a 'Goldilocks' number - not too hot, not too cold." Hansen says that Lanning basically confirmed the 50,000 number when "Dateline" was working on its first report on the subject last year. Lanning says he's not sure if the 50,000 figure is accurate. ..more..
: by New York Post.
| 5-22-2006 National:
Numbers Game: Gonzales Launches DOJ Project Safe Childhood With Mysterious Figure |
.On May 17, Attorney General Alberto Gonzales announced the launch of the Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood by citing a terrifying statistic: “It has been estimated that, at any given time, 50,000 predators are on the Internet prowling for children.” But where did that figure come from? Spokespersons for the FBI, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshire say it’s not based on any research they’re aware of.
The AG’s press secretary has the answer, though: “That number is actually pulled from [NBC newsmagazine] ‘Dateline’ and other media outlets,” says Tasia Scolinos via e-mail. Indeed, “Dateline” reporter Chris Hansen offered the statistic last fall during one of the show’s popular hidden-camera stings of would-be pedophiles, and other media outlets have since repeated it. Hansen’s source, according to the “Dateline” report: unnamed “law enforcement officials.” Asked who those law enforcement officials were, Hansen told Legal Times that “this is a number that was widely used in law enforcement circles,” though he couldn’t specify by whom or where.
Hansen says he confirmed the figure with Ken Lanning, a former FBI agent who had advised the show and works for a consulting company in Virginia. Lanning, however, isn’t so sure. “I don’t know where that number came from,” says Lanning, adding that it’s possible Hansen could have prompted him to confirm the figure. Lanning, who spent 30 years at the FBI, is skeptical about the stat, whoever originated it. “Was it just a WAG — a wild-assed-guess?” he says. “It could have been.” Lanning theorizes that there may be something special about the number 50,000 and crime scares. In the late 1980s, the figure was cited by the media as an estimate of the number of people slaughtered annually by satanic cults. In the early 1980s, it was similarly cited as the number of children abducted annually by strangers.
“For some reason the number 50,000 keeps popping up,” he says. “Maybe because it’s not small and not large. It’s a Goldilocks number.” ..more..
: by Jason McLure, Legal Times
| 11-10-05 National:
Catching potential Internet sex predators |
.In any home where there are kids with computers, there are parents with concerns. Teenagers can spend hours chatting online, but who are they chatting with? On the other end of that instant message could be a complete stranger — or a sexual predator. It's a dangerous side of the Internet, one that's growing and many children are at risk. So we went undercover, filling a house with hidden cameras. Soon, a long line of visitors came knocking, expecting to find a young teenager they'd been chatting with on the Internet, home alone. Instead, they found Dateline. We want to warn you some of what you'll read is explicit. But parents need to know what their kids can confront when they sit down at the computer.
The problem seems to be getting worse — and the profile of the suspected predators more frightening. Just this past summer, an editor for “Weekly Reader,” a newspaper for school children was arrested for using the Internet to solicit sex with a 14-year-old boy. He pleaded not guilty. And this past spring, a New York City cop, a youth officer, was also caught attempting to meet a child online for sex. He pleaded guilty last month “to attempted use of a child in a sexual performance” and agreed to serve six months in prison.
Law enforcement officials estimate that 50,000 predators are online at any given moment. And the number of reports of children being solicited for sex is growing says Michele Collins of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
..more..
: by Chris Hansen, Correspondent NBC News
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