Caught in the Web: Inside the Police Hunt to Rescue Children from Online Predators

by Julian Sher

Award-winning journalist Julian Sher goes behind the headlines about child pornography to describe how police officers, prosecutors, and high-tech analysts are fighting back against a tide of abuse to save victims.
Granted extraordinary access by law enforcement agencies worldwide, Sher talks with FBI investigators, Department of Homeland Security, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Interpol, New Scotland Yard, and sex crimes units in Canada and Australia.
Drawing on candid jailhouse interviews in penitentiaries, court Confessions, and hidden blogs, Sher exposes the dark underbelly of the Web to reveal how predators isolate and groom their victims; how they use secret Internet chat rooms to swap images of abuse and security tips and tricks to foil the police; and how shady entrepreneurs make millions from the trade of child exploitation material.
In riveting detail, we see how clue-by-clue, and image-by-image, investigators use CSI-type techniques and old-fashioned hard detective work to track down the predators. From Microsoft's headquarters in Redmond to a global child protection center in London, England, a new generation of computer technology is being developed to make the web safer for children.
Included are the latest tips and resources for parents, children, and teens wanting to ensure safety online.

Genres: True Crime, Nonfiction, Crime

336 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2007

Reviews

[Tressa · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is a true eye-opener. I've read a lot of true crime, and thought I knew about the depravity of some human beings, but I was nauseated at what goes on behind closed doors in our cities and suburbs. Caught in the Web showed just how many men and woman are using the Internet to prey on children and distribute child porn all over the world.

Some of the stories were hard to digest, but the police work it took to catch the child porn scum and rescue the children was fascinating. Sometimes all the evidence the authorities had to go on in the videos or pictures was a bracelet, a bedspread, the bricks used on the side of a house, the make of a car or motorcyle. The guilty were tracked down by discovering the manufacturers of these items and where in the world they were sold.

Those with a weak stomach and kind heart will have a hard time reading about infants, young boys and girls, and teens raped, sodomized, and treated like animals. But it's so worth it to read about the arrests and trials, especially when the turds are given 100 years in prison. However, I was disappointed to learn just how few years those involved in child porn and child rape are sentenced to in countries like Canada and Australia. Sometimes the sentence is time served, a few months, or at the most, a few years.

I was never a trusting soul to begin with, but my own son will not spend the night away until he's in college! Some of the worst offenders are people that we normally trust with our children: teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, relatives.

Read and learn. I think this book would especially benefit teenagers who use chat rooms and feel like they can trust whatever their online "friends" tell them.

[Jackie Lesch · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because of my work at the Justice Department; we contributed to this book. It will be a real eye-opener to those with little exposure to the rampant nature of child exploitation. Approach with caution.

[Roisin · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book didn't keep my attention.It's all over the place.I wouldn't recommend it to anyone.

[Delight · Rating 5 out of 5]

I saw the author at a MS event months ago and I regret that the book has been sitting on my shelf ever since, because it was such an eye-opening book about the efforts to catch on-line child predators. It really fired me up and reminded me why I went to law school and why I'm passionate about children's advocacy. I think that the public would be horrified and disgusted to know that children are abused in a methodical and organized fashion--and that it has become an entire industry. It also made me proud to have worked for MS (creator of a tracking system that is used by agents worldwide) and to be reminded of the power of software to change the world.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

A must read for all parents who allow their children to play on the Internet unsupervised. I learned that while the Internet has brought the predators more to feed upon it has also taken them out and rescued many children from their abuse. Mircrosoft, AOL and other Internet providers have spent millions of dollars working with law inforcment to catch and put these people away. I was amazed at how smart and creative these predators are when they stalk their prey. They have no boundries or self control. They trade their children with each other, they are the guy next door, they are typically high income earners and more than that, they have no souls. They come from all walks of life.

[andrew y · Rating 3 out of 5]

The same problem almost all true crime books suffer from - pacing. It goes on a little too long, loses its way a couple times. Some intense moments, then followed by information on how Visa trawls the internet for people using its insignia illegally. The back and forth is jarring, and it seems like the book had about three or so chapters just sort of tacked on.

But we don't read true crime for excellent writing anyway. It wasn't bad, I guess.

[Dayna · Rating 5 out of 5]

I picked this book up randomly at the library without so much as a glance and didn't think of how much of an impact it would have on me.

It's very well written, though the content made me cringe and with the book being quite long I was anxious to meet the end of it. Regardless, I recommend this book to other parents like myself who have kids now being it's very informative based on experts' input within the past few decades of the matter regarding sexual abuse intertwined with the Internet.

[Madonna Analla · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a very very interesting book. it took you behind the scenes of investigations into online crime. It was a bit hard to read because it focused on crimes against children but it talked mostly about all the investigations techniques they used to catch criminals. It enlightened me about online crime a lot!

[Chrisi McGlone · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very heart wrenching what some children go through. An important education guide to parents when kids get old enough to use the internet.