The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

(13 percent), and posting an embarrassing picture (6 percent). Older teenage girls, ages 15 to 17,were most likely to receive online threats. Teenagers who provided personal information on asocial-networking site were more likely to be the target of harassment (comprising 39 percent ofsocial network users) than those who did not use a social-networking site (23 percent). Fewerthan one in three teenagers (29 percent of those interviewed) said that online bullying is morecommon than offline bullying, but 33 percent of the girls interviewed reported that onlinebullying is more common.Ybarra, Michele L., and Kimberly J. Mitchell. “Prevalence and Frequency of InternetHarassment Instigation: Implications for Adolescent Health.” Journal of Adolescent Health 41,no. 2 (2007): 189–95. http://www.unh.edu/ccrc/pdf/CV157.pdf (accessed March 20, 2009).The authors describe the pervasiveness of mental health problems among youth who harassothers on the Internet. The study is based on data from the Second Youth Safety Internet Survey,which the Crimes Against Children Research Center at the University of New Hampshiredesigned to study youth exposure to sexual content, solicitation, and harassment on the Internet.Between March 2005 and June 2005, researchers conducted telephone interviews of a nationallyrepresentative sample of 1,500 youth ages 10 to 17 years old. The authors of this article analyzedthe survey results to identify the frequency with which the youth engaged in harassment activity,categorizing the offenders as 1) limited harassers who had engaged in harassment one or twotimes in the past year, 2) occasional harassers who had engaged in harassment three to five timesin the past year, and 3) frequent harassers who had engaged in harassment six or more times inthe past year.The survey indicated that youth with behavioral and psychological problems were more likelythan others to engage in online harassment. Frequent harassers were seven times more likely tohave rule-breaking problems and nine times more likely to have aggression problems than thosewho did not harass others online. Boys were three times more likely to be frequent harassers thangirls. Of those youth who harassed other youth online, 82 percent had been harassed online bysomeone else. Survey results also indicated that almost 30 percent of youth had harassed othersonline during the past year: 6 percent of youth had frequently harassed others via the Internet; 6percent had occasionally harassed others online; and 17 percent had harassed others a limitednumber of times in the previous year. Because harassment events increase as psychological orbehavioral problems increase, the frequency with which a youth engages in online harassmentmay be an indicator that mental health professionals can use to identify young people withpsychological and behavioral problems.Ybarra, Michele L., and Kimberly J. Mitchell. “Youth Engaging in Online Harassment:Associations with Caregiver-Child Relationships, Internet Use, and Personal Characteristics.”Journal of Adolescence 27, no 3 (2004): 319–36. http://www.unh.edu/ ccrc/pdf/jvq/CV63.pdf(accessed March 16, 2009).This study examines psychosocial indicators present in preteen and teenage youth who use theInternet to harass their peers. The authors define Internet harassment as an intentional and overtact of aggression toward another person online, citing as examples, rude comments or intentionalembarrassment. Researchers based this study on the First Youth Internet Safety Survey,F-26