In response to an incest case in which a man imprisoned, raped and fathered two children with his own daughter, Poland's Lower House of Parliament has approved an amendment to their penal code which makes chemical castration of pedophiles mandatory in certain cases. [more inside]
posted by zarq on Sep 26, 2009 - 127 comments

A group of respected British children's authors and illustrators will stop visiting schools from the start of the next academic year, in protest at a new government scheme that requires them to register on a database in case they pose a danger to children.

"In essence, I'm being asked to pay £64 to prove that I am not a paedophile."
posted by orthogonality on Jul 15, 2009 - 139 comments

Actress Dani Miura talks about what it's like to work as bait on To Catch A Predator. Previously.
posted by miss lynnster on Jan 24, 2008 - 67 comments

Arguing Against Datamining MySpace in search of Pedophiles. In certain circles, MySpace has become the villain de jour for all sorts of debauchery (threatening the President, phishing , dismembered women , etc.), as well as being fertile hunting grounds for the pedophile. Given the huge size of MySpace, reported as 100 million accounts (although estimates of active accounts are far lower, at approximately 43 million ), and an hypothetical and absurdly low natural incidence of pedophiles and pedarasts (let's say just 1%), one could assume that there could be as many as 430,000 to 1,000,000 of them out there. Wired contributor and reformed hacker (Kevin Poulson) has developed a script to weed out the bad seeds [via]. His script was effective, although it took several months of sifting and refining, as well as numerous false positives - 744 registered sex offenders, 497 with convictions for crimes against children. While such an experiment has merit, how much time, resources, and law enforcement manpower will be wasted chasing down the ""high-cost "false positives", and what will be neglected and sacrificed for that effort?
posted by rzklkng on Oct 16, 2006 - 38 comments

Strange Bedfellows: Xavier Von Erck dropped out of college, started a pedophile-hunting vigilante group, and spent months posing as a woman to trick an online enemy to fall in love with him. Meet the new savior of NBC News.
posted by P-Soque on Sep 7, 2006 - 68 comments

What can you do to combat pedophiles who lurk online? Fire up your AIM and cocktease them to death [SFW - just chat logs, nothing graphic].
posted by scarabic on Jun 23, 2004 - 20 comments

Vigilantes troll for pedophiles in chat rooms, set up meetings and videotape them. Then they out them at Perverted-Justice.com. The ensnared men sometimes exercise their "right of reply" to explain their actions. Huh.
posted by Slagman on Mar 18, 2004 - 26 comments

Bill Is Thinking About The Children. MSN has decided to close almost all of it's chatrooms across the world. It cites concerns about paedophiles targeting and grooming children. Some children's charities are delighted. Some of MSN's competitors are less impressed.
posted by Blue Stone on Sep 23, 2003 - 33 comments

"A court found 19 inhabitants of the same village guilty of systematically raping or sexually abusing an eleven-year-old girl who had been prostituted by her own father."

Third-world litany? Try Belgium.
posted by donkeyschlong on Sep 3, 2002 - 42 comments

Aid workers forcing refugees to trade sex for food Over 40 aid agencies including the UNHCR were implicated, and 67 individuals - mostly local staff - named by the children. Some under-age girls said United Nations peacekeepers in the West African region were involved.
posted by nobody_knose on Feb 26, 2002 - 9 comments

37 year old self-appointed detective fools potential pedophiles with usernames like "dadanddaughtersex." Not only is there no victim, there cannot not be a crime because of the woman's true age, and the method of 'baiting' pedophile suspects looks like a violation of one's civil rights. On top of that her pedophile website is quite the money-maker, churning $1,000 a month in advertising revenue. Illegal entrapment or civic minded vigilante? Obviously this is a touchy subject, but I can't see the different between this and a plain-clothed police officer asking everyone on the street if they want to buy illegal drugs or guns just for a quick bust.
posted by skallas on Jan 18, 2002 - 46 comments

Were you ever a member of AVS, the Adult Verification System? If so, the Feds have you on a list of potential pedophiles. I remember AVS from the mid-1990s; they were one of the easiest ways to generate revenue from an adult Web site, using the same business model as AdultCheck does today. A very few of the hundreds of sites AVS "fronted" for contained child porn, and the owners of the service are now in federal prison as a result. Even though they knew differently, federal authorities claimed that they had "dismantled the largest-known commercial child pornography enterprise ever uncovered," and for the past two years have been sending offers of child porn to some of 30,000 people on the AVS membership list, the vast majority of which have no interest in child porn.
posted by tranquileye on Nov 15, 2001 - 19 comments

Contrary to what you may have heard, the new Brass Eye is indeed about paedophiles. And it's got Phil Collins wearing a "Nonce Sense" t-shirt.
posted by Mocata on Jul 19, 2001 - 20 comments

Last night's Brass Eye special was mysteriously pulled from the schedules, seemingly because it concerned "an army of paedophiles". Apparantly, this is not the case
posted by Grangousier on Jul 6, 2001 - 15 comments

The Thoughts of Anonymous Pedophiles While researching an unrelated topic, I found a site called The Pedophilia Survey. This survey asks people who have sexual desires involving children to submit a paragraph or two on their feelings on the topic.
 
One of the respondents said: 'Pedophilia is a legitimate sexual orientation.' But, is it? Pedophilia seems so widespread that should, perhaps, we be researching the causes of pedophilia instead of just condemning it?
posted by wackybrit on Jun 5, 2001 - 46 comments

Government GPS surveillance through your digital camera. A DOJ project to go after pedophiles and obscenity-mongers by regulating digital still and motion cameras is slated to be introduced in Congress:

A DOJ project code-named "Indecent Images" plans to implant technologies developed to automatically recognize hard-core Internet sex images into the next generation of cameras. An II-compliant camera will refuse to take illegal photographs or videos, and could even quietly tip off law enforcement to illicit behavior. . .

The II draft says that "any variant" of digital still or video camera must include a GPS device and a transmitter that is compatible with U.S. pager networks. When a child pornographer takes an illegal photo, the camera recognizes it and transmits an encrypted message containing the image, the date, and the location to the local police -- who would then raid the home and save the child from continued erotic exploitation.

They've got to be kidding. I'm not endorsing exploiting kids, natch, but I can't believe this this kind of surveillance is even being contemplated. . .

Then again, remembering Ashcroft's beady little eyes. . . (via J. Orlin Grabbe)
posted by aflakete on Apr 2, 2001 - 26 comments

Council bans anyone recording school children ...due to possible paedophilia. AHAHAHAaaa hahahahaahaaa haa. Oh where was I? Oh that's right [more inside]
posted by holloway on Dec 17, 2000 - 13 comments