graphic by Ian Graham The Arlington County Police Department’s MySpace profile.

The department stepped into the world of online social networking on May 1 when it launched a profile page on MySpace.com.

The department hopes that simply having a presence on the Web, a popular site that teens and adults use to interact with ‘‘friends” that they add to a list on their profile, will deter ‘‘anyone with unscrupulous motives” online, such as sexual predators, according to county Police Chief Doug Scott.

Scott said in a press release that the department doesn’t expect that simply creating a profile will make MySpace a safe haven for the police’s MySpace friends.

The profile comes in the wake of incidents involving teens targeted by sexual predators. Two separate investigations ended in March with the arrest of a sexual predator trying to meet a teenager they met online. One traveled from Baltimore, the other from Sweden.

According to statistics kept by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in seven teenagers ages 10-17 have been approached online by a predator.

The department also hopes to deter potential identity thieves and other online con men. But Detective Crystal Nosal said that the department isn’t planning to expand the use of MySpace from an anticipatory measure to active investigation.

‘‘It’s simply a preventative, community policing tool,” Nosal said. ‘‘It’s not going to be used as an investigative tool.”

In fact, she said, the reaction the page has gotten from the department’s new MySpace friends has increased her hope for the new medium of police work. The department’s ‘‘Comment” section — a space where friends can leave messages, including pictures and video — is filled with positive feedback.

‘‘Northern Virginia is perceived as a pretty liberal area,” she said. ‘‘Police are usually viewed as someone who’s stopping you from doing something you want to, not someone who’s there to help and protect you. So I’m really happy at how it’s being received.

Nosal said that when friends are added to the department’s profile, they are screened for evidence of unsuitable material or conduct.

‘‘We make sure that our friends don’t have inappropriate material on their site,” she said. ‘‘We don’t want to have anything bad associated with our department.”

The department’s MySpace page contains links to articles on crime prevention covering topics from harassing phone calls to gangs to rape. It also has links to Arlington’s Most Wanted page, Arlington Crime Solvers and the Arlington County Police Department official Web site. MySpacers interested in pursuing a career in law enforcement will find information there as well.

‘‘I think that in today’s culture, with so many things happening on the Internet, it’s important for use to have tools like this online,” Nosal said. ‘‘People are committing crimes online and detectives are using the internet to solve crimes, so it makes sense that the department should have a presence on the internet.”

The page can also be used to report crimes or suspicious activity. It’s monitored and maintained by interns in the department’s Criminal Investigations Section.