Police seek possible young victims of alleged pimp

[Hatuey]

Police seek possible young victims of alleged pimp - Yahoo! News

LOS ANGELES – The case of an alleged pimp suspected of abducting two teenage girls and keeping them captive while forcing them into prostitution could include dozens of other victims, authorities said Monday.
Police urged other possible victims of suspect Leroy Bragg to come forward.
Bragg, 34, was arrested Sept. 28 and charged with trafficking a minor, solicitation and other crimes in the alleged abduction of a 13-year-old girl.
He also is suspected of kidnapping a 14-year-old girl, though charges have not been filed in that case.
"We believe that Mr. Bragg had encounters with many of our young women in Los Angeles," police Capt. Ann Young said. "This is such a hideous crime. These young women ... are babies, basically."

Having a daughter myself, I find this to be a disgusting case but I take issue with describing the victims as "babies". What oversight do you have over your children that they are on the internet talking to grown men? It seems to me that if they don't know that they shouldn't be talking to 30 year old men, then it's because the parents are not teaching them the basic rules of the world. Not only that but they haven't been taught to think of themselves as kids but something more.

I know it's California and coming from there, I know it's hard to watch your kids at all times but there's really no excuse for being unaware of what your kid is doing on the internet or setting preemptive measures so that they don't fall victim to predators. If this pervert has done it to dozens of young girls then it's got to be because not only is it easy to find these girls but there is obviously a lack of parental oversight and it's not just in California as cases like this one pop up all over the U.S. every few months.

Teenage culture in America is not something I claim to understand but to me there seems to be a very serious dichotomy. We tell our kids that they're allowed to drink with their friends at 15. We allow them to get tattoos at 17. We tell them it's fine for them to get abortions at 16. But the minute somebody kidnaps one of them they're seen as babies? Where exactly do we draw the line for when we should stop calling them 'kids'? Does the liberty we, as a society, allow them to have really make them 'children'?

 

[Harry Guerrilla]

Police seek possible young victims of alleged pimp - Yahoo! News



Having a daughter myself, I find this to be a disgusting case but I take issue with describing the victims as "babies". What oversight do you have over your children that they are on the internet talking to grown men? It seems to me that if they don't know that they shouldn't be talking to 30 year old men, then it's because the parents are not teaching them the basic rules of the world.

I know it's California and coming from there, I know it's hard to watch your kids at all times but there's really no excuse for being unaware of what your kid is doing on the internet or setting preemptive measures so that they don't fall victim to predators. If this pervert has done it to dozens of young girls then it's got to be because not only is it easy to find these girls but there is obviously a lack of parental oversight and it's not just in California as cases like this one pop up all over the U.S. every few months.

Not to be old fashion but I don't see how a lot of parents allow their younger kids to have a computer, with an internet connection, in their room.

PC time should be done in the family room with an adult supervising, in my opinion.

 

[Hoplite]

What oversight do you have over your children that they are on the internet talking to grown men? It seems to me that if they don't know that they shouldn't be talking to 30 year old men, then it's because the parents are not teaching them the basic rules of the world. Not only that but they haven't been taught to think of themselves as kids but something more.

To play devil's advocate, many parents are not tech savvy and to be able to control or at least moderate their kid's behavior, they have to be at least on par with their kid's abilities. The younger generation is, without question, far more technically minded than it's predecessor.

Even my own parents can barely stumble through using a computer and they've been trying to learn it for years. I see people younger than me catching on incredibly quick to how computers work and I think it's difficult for an older generation to play catch up. Internet filters are an absolute joke, the vast majority of them can be disabled, crippled, or bypassed with almost no effort.

The best thing you can do is impress upon them the basic rules of the net and have a good system of communication where they feel they can talk to you about something without being crushed under the heel of an angry deity for misbehaving.

Teenage culture in America is not something I claim to understand but to me there seems to be a very serious dichotomy. We tell our kids that they're allowed to drink with their friends at 15. We allow them to get tattoos at 17. We tell them it's fine for them to get abortions at 16. But the minute somebody kidnaps one of them they're seen as babies? Where exactly do we draw the line for when we should stop calling them 'kids'? Does the liberty we, as a society, allow them to have really make them 'children'?

Teens occupy a very precarious situation in our society. It's a fascinating area of sociology. We as a society dont really have a place or purpose for teens; they aren't old enough to work but are too old to be expected to do the same kinds of things that children do. We expect adult behavior from them but we refuse to treat them as adults. We dont cut teens very much slack to make the mistakes they need to make and learn from to become well-balanced adults. We protect them out of fear, but we dont realize that we are inadvertently crippling them by being as protective as many parents tend to be.

Not to be old fashion but I don't see how a lot of parents allow their younger kids to have a computer, with an internet connection, in their room.

PC time should be done in the family room with an adult supervising, in my opinion.

I disagree. The internet is one of the wonders of the modern world, I would argue it's the greatest wonder in the whole of human history and I'm sure we could fill entire servers arguing that point, but it's my opinion.

The internet introduced me to a myriad of new ideas and opinions that I would have probably never found had I not been online. I've learned things and found places I'd never have otherwise found without time invested in learning the way the internet functions.

I would rather allow my children open access to the internet but impress upon them proper rules of conduct and safety on the internet. In their formative years, I wouldn't be opposed to a more public setting for their computer but once they get older I would be fine with a private computer provided it didn't become an all-consuming pastime.

 

[Councilman]

Children are exposed to subject matter on TV that defies logic to me. When I first went into Radio and TV back in what some of you would call the old days there were rules and National Association of Broadcasters Codes of Practices that set too comply with FCC rules and regulations.

A TV show like Two And a Half Men would have landed Writers, Producers, Stars and everyone one else would have been fined into the poor house and thrown in jail in a heart beat.

Today it's no Big Freaking Deal.

All this makes children curious at ages they are not mature enough to deal with it all, and leads to disaster.

I did just fine growing up not hearing a 13 year old talking with his uncle about oral sex, or hearing him being told that his grandmother had a fling as a lesbian , but now she's just a old slut.

Times have changed but parental involvement and control has not kept up and the whole anything goes times.