‘Sexual grooming’ can be defined as a process in which a potential sexual abuser gains the trust of a targeted child and makes the child submissive to the abuse, subsequently. Sexual grooming occurs through the steps of 1) selection and establishment of a relationship with the victim child, 2) exclusiveness by introducing the idea of secret and isolation, etc., 3) sexual exploitation, and 4) control to maintain the relationship. On the sexual exploitation step, in particular, offenders often use specific strategies, such as (1) gently forming a relationship with the child to be portrayed as a ‘romantic’ liaison, (2) lowering the child's inhibitions with the objective of sexual abuse by exposing the child to obscene materials or by asking the child to send his/her photos to the offender, or (3) reinforcing the reciprocity by encouraging the child to participate in the sexual fantasies or by using a rather coercive or aggressive manner to re-strengthen the fantasies.
The present study aimed to identify in detail the characteristics of sexual grooming of children and juveniles. To achieve this goal, the study analyzed relevant factors, including the offender’s socio-demographic, psychological, victim-related, and sexual grooming factors by reviewing both relevant investigation and trial records.
Some significant characteristics were found as the study explored the characteristics of sex crime against children and juveniles by classifying the cases into general, offline and online sex crimes. First, online sexual grooming had relatively more victims than general sex crime and offline sexual grooming, and the offenders’ ages were slightly younger in online sexual grooming. The age gap between the offender and the victim was also narrower in online sexual grooming than in offline grooming and general sex crimes.
Out of the total 41 offline grooming offenders, 20 (47.6%) were married (remarried) or in a common-law relationship. This was a relatively high percentage than that of both online grooming, which had only 1 married offender (8.3%), and general sex crimes, which had 15 married offenders (27.8%). As for the offenders’ occupation in each type of sex crimes, offline grooming offenders were more evenly spread among various types of employment while general sex offenders showed a relatively high percentage of unemployment (53.7%).
As for the duration of sex crime, a difference was noted among those 3 types of offenses. In terms of sex crime that went on for more than 2 days, offline grooming was clearly the most continuing type by means of misuse of personal trust and manipulation, while offline grooming had approximately 4 times more and online grooming had 3 times more cases than general sex crimes, respectively. Especially, in the cases of the long-term sex crimes which went on for more than 5 years, family or relatives of the victims were often the offenders. With the cases of sexual grooming alone, offline cases showed a higher percentage of relatively long-term grooming than online cases as 40.4% of the offline cases continued for more than 3 years’ grooming process (more specifically, 19.0% of the cases continued for 3-5 years, and 21.4% continued for 5 years and longer), while 41.7% of online grooming continued for 1-3 months, in contrast. This indicates that offline grooming is likely to have the most lasting and damaging effects on the victims.
As for the persons cohabiting with the victims of each sex crime, while most of the offline grooming victims (86.1%) and general sex crime victims (91.5%) were living with their family or relatives, 35.7% of online grooming victims were either a minor living alone or independently without any guardian, let alone family members, or a minor who had run away from home and was in a group living situation with peers. As for the victims’ state of intoxication at the time of the crime committed against them, online grooming presented a relatively high percentage (26.7%). This is probably connected with the fact that the victims under this category were in many cases a runaway youth or a minor living apart from their family with no guardian. It further supports the argument, as O’Connell (2003) and Williams, Elliott, Beech (2013) noted, that children are more inclined to talk or establish an emotional connection with a stranger when there are no adults around to support and accept them in their lives. It can be also interpreted that juveniles such as teenage runaways who live without a guardian are potentially more vulnerable to online grooming.
The latent class analysis utilized by this study on the subject cases revealed that 2 latent classes tended to distinguish general sex crimes from sex crimes of grooming, and 4 latent classes not only distinguished general sex crimes from sex crimes of grooming, but also displayed different types of grooming in details. Therefore, the present study selected the 4-class model and proceeded to analyze and designate the characteristics of sex crime against children and juveniles under each latent class. To summarize the results of the 4-class model analysis, in the [General Sex Crime Type] trust and confidence between the offenders and the victims were not observed, and in most cases the parties were strangers to each other. Moreover, the offenders rarely carried out the grooming steps although they recognized the victims’ age of minority as vulnerability. In the sexual grooming cases, on the other hand, trust and confidence were commonly observed between the offenders and the victims, most of the grooming steps were carried out, and the majority of the parties were acquainted with each other, some of whom knew each other through internet.
To classify the types of grooming more in depth, in the [Typical Grooming Type] the victims were mostly interested in their career development (43.4%) and sexual curiosity (21.7%), followed by hobby, interest, and religion, etc. The majority of the offenders were working in the education field, such as schools/private academies/child-care centers (53.9%). The offenders under this type displayed the most typical grooming pattern as they carried out the 6 steps of grooming in the highest level. Moreover, they were capable of recognizing the needs of children and juveniles concerning sexual curiosity or career advice for future, and tended to target the most vulnerable groups of children and juveniles who were mentally challenged or exposed to loneliness and isolation.
The grooming cases in which the parties were mainly family members (75.3%) were designated as the [Quasi-Grooming Type]. In this category, the offenders often perceived neglect (17.4%), violence (8.7%), or mental disability (17.3%) as the victims’ vulnerability. Also, the quasi-grooming offenders rarely recognized the victims’ needs, and were not keen to establish a trusting relationship with their victims or try to meet the latter’s needs compared to other types of grooming crime. Instead, the quasi-grooming offenders displayed a strong tendency to develop the relationship as a sexual one or keep it under control.
In the [Online Grooming Type], the offenders perceived running away from home (58.8%), poverty (49.3%), violence (17.4%), neglect (17.3%), and loneliness (11.8%) as the victims’ vulnerability. Based on that, it is speculated that the offenders in this category targeted mainly children and/or adolescents who were experiencing economic difficulties or exposed to violence, neglect, or loneliness, etc. Also, the offenders in this category rarely recognized the victims’ needs, while carrying out the steps of gaining trust of the child and/or juvenile victim and meeting their needs in high level. However, their tendency to develop the relationship as a sexual one, or keep it under control appeared relatively weak.
Through the examination of other countries’ legislative cases and precedents in which rules on the grooming-related criminal punishment were applied, the present study was able to confirm that in many countries grooming is criminalized as an adult’s inappropriate approach to a child to engage in an intimate relationship with the child for sexual exploitation. Based on such findings, the present study proposed 2 methods to reduce the grooming of children and juveniles committed with a sexual intent. The first is to revise the current legislation in a manner to criminalize any contact with children by an adult for sexual purposes. Since current bills do not punish the act of sexual grooming itself, this study suggested to amend either the Act on the Protection of Children and Juveniles from Sexual Abuse or the Act on Special Cases Concerning the Punishment, etc. of Sexual Crimes, and have rules concerning punishment of grooming in place just as in the UK law. The second is to institutionalize the technique of decoy (or undercover investigation) with some restrictions, in order to detect sexual grooming of children and juveniles by potential offenders.
Many of the grooming cases that were examined in this study were of a long-term nature which continued for several years. Given that, eradicating sex crimes against children and juveniles is likely to remain a remote possibility unless the process of ‘grooming’ that enables such continuing sexual violence and abuse is criminalized. Therefore, it is imperative that the judiciary and law enforcement authorities now take interests in conducting research and collecting relevant data on sexual grooming, based on which multidisciplinary and multi-agency cooperation should be further exercised to prepare comprehensive measures for investigation and persecution of grooming offenders, sentencing and prevention of recidivism, and support for grooming victims, etc.