We Must Do Better Assessing Sexual Predators' Levels-of-Risk

This story highlights a huge problem with the current understanding of Sophisticated Sexual Predators. 

Given the current misunderstanding of deviance, this Predator will be scored as Low Risk, because he is 71 years old. That's because researchers have confused hormone levels as being what drives Pedophiles. It is not testosterone, but deviance... which can't be measured via static factors.

This Predator didn't suddenly offend... he finally just got caught. He was a Mandated Reporter, took courses on sexual abuse awareness, and had a clean criminal history. He was not re-enacting his own past abuse, did not suffer from low self-esteem, was not suffering from mental health issues, was not socially awkward, and not depressed, and was NOT a "non-offending" Pedophile, as there is no such thing. 
There are only Pedophiles who have managed to use VPNs to hide their identities and their online activities... so as to avoid law enforcement catching up to them.

What was it that motivated this Predator? Porn... years worth of progressively darkening porn, and lots of it. And, once he became a darkened Predator, he was motivated by the porn-fueled drive to emotionally manipulate, and to sexually defraud defile, despoil, to traumatize, to scar the soul, to leave his mark on their consciousness, to keep them ensnared and emotionally imprisoned lest his victims ever disclosed.


It's the thrill of the hunt, masterfully controlling "the game" that drives him... almost as much as the damage he inflicts on the inner world of his young victims. And, this is why he also could have easily entered into Trans Gender Medicine, as he would have nearly an unlimited supply of vulnerable and confused kids, most of whom have already been sexually violated or are on the autism spectrum, so they lack the intuitive understanding to know when someone is sexually grooming them, sexually manipulating them, and sexually exploiting them.

If a skilled and knowledgable clinician works with him properly, this Predator will finally lay out a very predictable pathway into dark deviance, starting with adult porn, 
then progressing into bondage-type of deviant material, then twisted stuff which includes vile humiliation and degradation (often of exploited trafficked women and teens), then into "barely legal", 
then into malevolent material (often including bestiality), then into child porn. 11+ yrs working with such incarcerated offenders revealed such consistency.

Despite the urban legends which have made their way into academic literature and grad school texts due to poor research methodologies (such as a structured interview for a couple of hours within a prison, or in an outpatient setting once they get out), such predators are not nice men who simply "slipped", "acted out", or were secretly "Minor Attracted" but "made a mistake" and allowed their deep desire for connection and relationship to get the best of them because of their stress. 
No, they became white collar psychopaths (no conscience, remorse, or victim empathy) through their repeated and prolonged violation of their conscience as they accessed more and more porn. The pathway into deviance has always been the same for me. However, Predators simply supercharge the process by means of porn and the internet. 

Once arrested:
* 100% of Pedophiles will be busted with child porn,
* 100% would have denied it up until the moment of arrest, 98% will say it was not their porn, they don't know how it got on their devices, and that they would never look at such material, and
* 95% will maintain that during prison sex offender treatment... unless the therapist forces the issues of their sophisticated methods of grooming and their calculated deception to those around them.

The real question is, where would he have hunted? As the story reports, wherever vulnerable kids were most easily access. Where else might we find Predators just like him? Inevitably in churches and/or on mission agencies, as they know the vast majority of churches can't meaningfully discern between a Prodigal and a Predator, and that most churches have trained their staff to identify the least likely perpetrators to place their children in harm's way... as they believe the biggest threats come from the "snatch & grab" kind of Pedophile. The reality is that is a very low percentage of Predators.