What is the historical context of the novel Mystic River by Dennis Lehane?

Though child kidnapping and rape are not new crimes, the methods predators use to find victims have changed over time. In Mystic River's prologue, set in 1975, Dave is taken by two strange men in a car. The fear of men looking for random victims on the street was a common one in the 1950s and 1960s. In the 1970s came the realization that children were generally sexually abused by people they knew rather than strangers. The focus of public education campaigns gradually changed to reflect this knowledge. Laws were also passed to help protect children. The 1978 Sexual Exploitation of Children Act made illegal obscene materials (primarily sexually explicit magazines and other types of pornography) that feature minors.

In the early 2000s, when Mystic River was written, many children were being lured into sexual situations in a different way: over the Internet. According to an article in CQ Researcher, the FBI investigated at least 1,500 cases of the exploitation of children via the Internet in the early 2000s. While these numbers continued to increase, the same article also stated that "most child sexual abuse occurs with family members or adults known to the child."

Though children are still kidnapped off the street or from their homes, by both strangers and family members, the Internet allows pedophiles and other sexual criminals to build a relationship with their victims. Whenever a child is online, he or she can be easily and unknowingly approached by someone seeking a sexual relationship. A 2000 study by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children revealed that almost one in every five Internet users in the United States between the ages of ten and seventeen has been approached. This means that millions of children have been approached: by 2002, more than twenty-eight million children in the United States have used the Internet.