A scoping review of child grooming strategies: pre-and post-internet

This article reviews grooming strategies used before and after the rise of the Internet. It highlights both similarities and differences across time, showing how technology has changed the grooming process. Pre-Internet strategies included enticement, coercion, isolation, gradual sexualization, and secrecy. Post-Internet, additional strategies emerged, such as trust-building, deception, repetition, fantasy, and media progression. Technology also enabled offenders to more easily isolate victims and arrange in-person meetings. The study shows how online grooming often leads to planned in-person meetings, some of which can put children at risk of disappearing. Even when meetings did not occur, the planning process itself could create risks, including the possibility of children leaving home to meet offenders.