CALGARY – Mount Royal University criminal justice student Norm Lewis said he was “intrigued” when he was asked to work as a research assistant for a study looking at the role the Internet plays for customers of the illegal sex trade.
Funded with a $30,000 grant from Microsoft, and working with The Hindsight Group, Lewis was sent to speak with men across the prairie provinces in Prostitution Offender Programs—also known as “john schools.” He interviewed 51 first-time offenders from Edmonton, Saskatoon and Winnipeg, who confidentially used clicker devices to enter their responses.
“I realized that there was no stereotype,” said Lewis. “There were guys in there younger than me. There were white, ethnic, every background; financially well off and not very well off. There was no stereotype when I went to these john schools for the interviews.”
The men involved had all been actively communicating with someone (an undercover police officer in this case) for the purpose of prostitution. Some were seeking services for the first time; others had been paying for sex for up to ten years.
Susan McIntyre, President and CEO of the Hindsight Group, said it’s a common belief that men involved in sexual exploitation and trafficking are older and foreign—but that’s not the case.
“We were finding that most of the men had started looking at pornography when they were under the age of 14…and many of them had been purchasing for over 10 years,” she said. “A good proportion were Canadian.”
Key findings of the study included:
- 67 per cent of respondents viewed online sites before venturing out to pay for sexual encounters;
- 66 per cent of respondents watched online pornography by the age of 15;
- 58 per cent of respondents said the Internet has made it more difficult for them to quit paying for sex;
- 38 per cent believe the Internet has increased their need to buy sex.
“It was really obvious that pornography played an early role in their lives and almost as a predecessor, or a gateway drug so to speak, for them to end up going out there and purchasing sex.”
“They said street purchasing was their easiest way, so I think this project scratched the surface…but I think the Internet has made it a much easier industry to tap into,” said Lewis.
Mount Royal collected responses between June and December 2012 and released the findings Friday. It was the only Canadian university of six institutions to receive the grant from Microsoft.
“Mount Royal had partnerships in which they could really talk to johns and people who’ve been convicted of the crime and have relationships to really figure out what’s happening and how they use technology,” said Rane Johnson-Stempson, principal research director with Microsoft. “So that was insightful, so we can then dig deeper and have real information from real sources.”
The researchers submitted a report to Microsoft, recommending that a technological-based intervention program be developed for potential sex trade customers. The report suggests targeting prevention efforts at young boys and men.
“We believe we could prevent a number of men from becoming consumers of the sex trade if they understood the reality of the trade, why persons end up in the trade, and how they, as consumers, both affect others and are themselves impacted by the trade,” said McIntyre.
Johnson-Stempson said Microsoft continues to work with researchers and organizations to determine the next steps, and emphasized the importance of creating solutions that don’t do more harm than good.
“It’s not a s simple as closing down advertising sites and this will go away,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out how to better define the magnitude of the problem… how much advertising, soliciting, and different scenarios are happening, so we can effectively create technologies to disrupt it.”
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