TUNNEL VISION - Pathology of a pedophile: TUNNEL VISION - Pathology of a pedophile:
Experts say sexual deviants often aren’t deterred by consequences
Seized computers will be analyzed as part of "Operation Trenchcoat" in which 11 alleged sexual predators were nabbed. (GREG DERR/The Patriot Ledger)
By JOHN ZAREMBA
The Patriot Ledger
Nine men had just been paraded in front of a judge and charged with trying to solicit children for sex online. Their faces were all over TV and the newspapers, and so were the prosecutors’ graphic descriptions of their conversations with undercover police.
To top it off, the district attorney made a bold statement that last weekend’s roundup should instill fear in Internet predators: The children they think they are courting may well be police officers.
The warning was ignored.
Within hours of the DA’s statement, men all over Massachusetts were logging on to their computers and falling for the same trap.
Cognitive distortion
Experts say sexual deviants’ desires are so strong that they lapse into a myopic frenzy when they think they’ve found a victim. Either they don’t really believe the person on the other end of the conversation could be a police officer, or they simply don’t care.
‘‘He centers on the individual. His fantasy’s going. His heart’s beating. He has tunnel vision,’’ said Jim McLaughlin, a detective in the Keene, N.H., police department who is a nationally recognized expert on crimes of child exploitation. ‘‘They have what’s called cognitive distortion. Some people call them thinking errors ... where they can basically rationalize or justify behavior.’’
This past week, local police arrested 11 men who they say were intent on having sex with the children they thought they were talking to online. Through the media, the task force did its best to make sure everyone in greater Boston knew about it.
Which has left Melissa Marino, a Plymouth County deputy sheriff who helped execute the busts, puzzled as to why her 13-year-old online alter-ego is still getting so much attention from older men.
‘‘People still approach us,’’ Marino said. ‘‘It’s amazing. It completely is amazing.’’
Impulse over intelligence
McLaughlin does not find that so surprising. In the 10 years he has spent doing online police work, he has rarely found a sexual predator who is scared off by the prospect of arrest, jail time and the ensuing embarrassment.
He recalled a case where he was playing the part of a 14-year-old boy and was being courted by a Minnesota man who was about to make the journey to New Hampshire to meet him.
The man had done some research on the town of Keene and came across Web sites that heralded McLaughlin’s work catching Internet pedophiles. The man mentioned McLaughlin by name and asked the boy to make sure the detective didn’t follow him to their meeting place.
‘‘These are educated people,’’ McLaughlin said. ‘‘But the pathology renders all that education and intelligence useless.’’
Over the years, McLaughlin has used the same online screen name, and some have caught on. Several times, he has been online and a chat-room member recognized him and announced that there was a police officer in the room.
Even that didn’t stop people from approaching him.
‘‘Other people in the room would initiate chat with me and ask if it was true,’’ he said. ‘‘I would tell them it wasn’t, we would engage in conversation and I would arrest them.’’
The limit of scare tactics
Local police say they do not expect to deter legitimately ill men; rather, they say they hope to scare away compulsives and thrill-seekers.
Their efforts will frighten some.
But only some.
‘‘Some people aren’t able to control that impulse - ‘I’m going to be lucky. I’m going to get the one that isn’t (a police officer’),’’ said Craig Latham, a Natick psychologist who treats sex offenders.
For those who can resist, he said, ‘‘the question is whether they’re going to go somewhere else’’ to find a victim.
It’s possible, McLaughlin says. The Internet has afforded sexual deviants a sense of security. In Keene at least, reports of indecent exposure have dropped by about 25 percent in the past 25 years, as home computers have become increasingly more common.
‘‘We’ve seen an incredible shift of behavior that corresponds with the number of people using the Internet,’’ he said.
As police intensify the type of undercover sting that resulted in last weekend’s arrest, they hope to shatter the illusion that the Internet is a safe stalking ground.
Asked at a press conference following the men’s arraignments whether he thinks the sweep will throw a scare into others like them, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy Cruz responded: ‘‘I always hope so. But I think it’s something where you have to persevere.’’
McLaughlin is convinced fear won’t keep any of his offenders away, but he, too, will keep trying.
‘‘I would be willing to do an experiment. We’ll meet with these guys some place and on every entrance of the building we’ll put signs that say pedophiles arrested here,’’ he said.
‘‘They’d drive right by the sign. They’d probably park under it.’’
John Zaremba may be reached at jzaremba@ledger.comhttp://ledger.southofboston.com/articles/2006/07/22/news/news02.txt
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