Cases in the US:
Online Grooming

Online grooming goes through a very structured step to be prosecuted. Groomers most likely use similar tactics to bring the child into their hands. The first step that groomers take is targeting, where groomers would specifically select their targets. They scroll through social media, messaging apps, and chat functions in online games to search for children. They would fake their profile and start to chat with the child and gain a bit of trust by helping and supporting the child. The second step is engaging and gathering information. Online Groomers would listen to the disabilities and problems a victim has in school and will tailor his or her answers and advice. This stage affirms the possibility of online grooming as this stage confirms if the predator will approach the child. Trust building is the main focus in this stage as predators will give lots of compliments, especially about a child’s appearance, to win the child over and to gain their trust. Predators will look to build a give-and-take relationship with the victim by buying them presents. The forms of those presents would be gaming credits and online vouchers that don’t leave any physical paper trail. The third step would be identifying and exploiting needs. Since now the predators know everything they need to know about the child, they begin identifying weaknesses or vulnerabilities to dig into. They would tailor their characteristics for the most effective outcome. For example, if the target is a female teenager, then a predator’s profile would be an attractive young age guy. During this stage, the victims would break down their defenses, possibly allowing the predators to steer the conversation into whatever path they want. The fourth step is testing the boundaries. Before bringing up their pure purpose, the predators go through a stage of testing. They would test whether a child can keep a secret from their parents while diving deeper into more personal questions (as boundaries have been taken down), such as the child’s personal schedule and location. The fifth step is isolation and desensitization. To capture the child in their hands, predators aim to influence conflict or force a distant relationship between the child and those typically closest. (most likely their parents) This makes them more in need of support and care, which the predators would temporarily provide at this stage. This would influence the child to be distant, isolated, and less likely to share information about the predator's actions online. This would be the last stage of filtering out which child to groom. For example, if the child acts out of character and mutes when they typically wouldn’t, this could be a “telltale” sign for the groomer, and they would back off. The sixth step is sexualization. In this stage, groomers enact various tactics to bring the relationship from a friendship to a sexual relationship. They would send inappropriate images to the child to normalize the situation or verify their trustworthiness. Then the groomer would request pictures of the victim’s body parts in return, and once the victim sends the photos, they fall into a trap. From then some predators would ask to meet in person or online. The last step in online grooming is controlling and initiating abuse, where the predator would threaten or blackmail the victim into forcing this relationship to be in secrecy and to ensure that they remain in contact. The victim has given too much to the predator, which indicates they have too much to lose if they tell their parents or the police. If the child does start refusing, the predator reminds them of all the inappropriate materials or conversations that they have shared. These groomers overly go through a very complex step to win over the child and abuse them in many ways.