Brooklyn D.A. Nabs Another Sexual Predator

Another online sex offender is nabbed yet again!

Yesterday, the Brooklyn D.A.'s office arrested James Godwin, a 59-year-old Staten Island resident, for eliciting sex from a minor online.

It turns out Godwin was a registered sex offender for a previous conviction of possessing child pornography. He was caught after three online chats over the course of eight months by an undercover detective who was posing as a 13-year-old, according to the D.A.'s office.

The perp is charged with arranging to meet the 13-year-old in Brooklyn, where he believed she lived. He was carrying a package of condoms at the time of his arrest, after the undercover officer posing as the young girl told him she was afraid of getting pregnant.

It's great news the D.A.'s office was able to knock down yet another sexual predator. But considering he's just one caught (after eight months of being followed), imagine the thousands more who continue to do their dirty work unchecked.

The truth is, the sexual exploitation and trafficking of young girls is a huge problem, not only in New York City, but across the country.

So, where does the problem start, and who exactly is to blame?

In May 2012, U.S. Representatives Carolyn B. Maloney (D-NY) and Jerrold L. Nadler (D-NY) went after one of New York's most influential media giants, Village Voice Media, placing the blame squarely on the alternative weekly for its online "adult services" section, Backpage.com, which they said encouraged the sex trafficking of minors.

Congresswoman Maloney called the section "the single busiest online marketplace for the sexual trafficking of minors and trafficking victims anywhere in the United States." In a letter, the New York representatives called on the Village Voice to shut the section down.

However, aside from a disclaimer, the site still stands and is as easy to enter as is a 7-year-old into a cornerstore bodega.

So what do you think is the best way to tackle the problem of sexual predators?

Is it a lack of parental supervision on the Internet? In other words, should punishment start and end with the parents? Or is it a problem inherent of today's open-source technology, with its unyielding freedom to so easily surf and communicate anonymously? Or is it the complicity of the media and the images it portrays?

Or perhaps, it is simply too late to roll back the hands of technology or even reverse the course of a nation so heavily steeped in hypersexuality?

Share your thoughts in the comments.

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