Dante's Handcart

Catch me if you can

The news is awash with the launch of the government's Child Exploitation & Online Protection (CEOP) Centre, its latest rubber cosh with which to thwack the unhealthy tumescence of maladaptive internet perverts. Sly-winking supremo, Jim "lath me with unguents" Gamble, is cock of the walk, helming a 24hr team of police officers who will perpetually lurk in chatrooms and the like to monitor and collect paedophiles.

It's difficult to find solid estimates of how much this "bringing together [of] law enforcement officers [and] specialists from children's charities and industry" will cost, but it doesn't seem unfair to assume it won't be cheap. Perhaps what's needed is a little 'outside the (prepubescent) box' thinking...

Our stately internet is full of legal, consenting adults indulging in a variety of frotting, gurgling, pants-down activities which, unless you're a Southern US state, is perfectly reasonable. One of the problems such individuals face is finding meatspace partners to act out their online fantasies. I suggest a grand database of fetishists be constructed, based on Microsoft software running on AOL's hardware resources and leveraging VISA's age-checking facilities (all three being CEOP partners), pairing up the compatible who would pay for such a service by volunteering a chunk of their time to monitor & report child-grooming minxes online. The "charge" would be determined by ease of pairing and uniqueness of proclivity; research estimates that 24% of men and 36% of women have had a rape fantasy, either perpetrating or experiencing, and it seems reasonable to assume that some of these would gladly exchange time for opportunity.

If it works then I fully expect a peerage.

posted by Chris @ 12:33 pm