Most of the 78 nonconvictions are in cases still pending. The conviction rate is above 95 percent. However, the FBI is distressed by light sentences from some judges who justify their leniency by the fact that the offenders are socially upscale and first-offenders. Agents are trained to avoid entrapment, and predators usually initiate talk about sexual encounters. But children implicitly raise the subject by visiting such chat rooms.
Most children recoil when sexual importunings become overt.
But some importunings, including gifts and sympathetic conversation about the problems of children, are cunning, subtle and effective. Publicity about Innocent Images may deter some predators, but most are driven to risk-taking by obsessions. America Online and other service providers look for suspect chat rooms, and close those they spot, but they exist in such rapidly changing profusion that there are always many menacing ones open. Digital cameras, and the plunging price of computer storage capacity for downloaded photographs, have made this, so to speak, the golden age of child pornography. These include the child being online for protracted periods, particularly at night.