Highlights
– US Attorney General announces inter-agency info-sharing of online child predators
– New legislation to help protect children online passes US Senate
– Indictments of online child predators expected to increase in 2008
At a national conference on September 23, 2008, four federal law enforcement agencies announced the signing of an agreement to share criminal intelligence on child predators. United States (US) Attorney General Michael Mukasey made the announcement to more than 1,400 attendees at the third annual Project Safe Childhood National Conference in Columbus, Ohio.
Catching these predators, according to Mukasey, requires sophisticated tools, technical knowledge, and the partnership and expertise of law enforcement at all levels. Mukasey also stated that the goal of this agreement is to allow these agencies to more effectively detect and respond to online child predator crimes.
In his announcement, Mukasey said that the US Department of Justice (DoJ) will award $800,000 to support cooperative efforts to investigate online child predators. Carolyn Nelson, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, stated that the agreement between the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), the US Postal Inspectors Service (USPIS) and the US Marshals Service (USMS) will allow these agencies to improve coordination of cyber activities and reduce overlapping investigations.
New Legislation Passes US Senate
In addition to this new information sharing agreement forged between four law enforcement agencies, the US Senate passed the Protect Our Children Act on September 25, 2008 which would give new powers and resources to federal law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute online crimes against children. The new legislation seeks to implement a National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, improve the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force, increase resources for regional computer forensic labs, and make other improvements to increase the ability of law enforcement agencies to investigate and prosecute child predators.
If passed by the US House and signed into law, the new legislation will authorize more than $320 million over the next five years for DoJ to investigate and prosecute child predator crimes.
Outlook
It is clear that with the growth of the Internet and the number of children going online to chat with friends, play online games, and post pictures and contact details to web blogs and social networking sites, there is an increasing chance these children could be lured and exploited by an online child predator. According to an April 2007 report issued by the Pew Internet and American Life Project, 93 percent of all Americans between 12 and 17 years old use the Internet, up from 87 percent in 2004. According to another study entitled “Online Victimization of Youth: Five Years Later (2006),” some teens are willing to personally meet people they have only met online. Of those surveyed, 16 percent considered meeting someone they had only communicated with online, and eight percent had actually met someone they had connected to online. In a 2007 report released by the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study (N-JOV), in 73 percent of child sex predator crimes, youth went to meet the offender on multiple occasions for numerous sexual encounters.
In another report issued by the Pew Internet and American Life Project in October 2007, 32 percent of teenagers surveyed said they had been contacted online by someone with no connection to them or any of their friends. In addition, seven percent of those surveyed said they felt scared or uncomfortable as a result of contact by an online stranger.
In his keynote speech at the conference, Mukasey stated that in the past when parents thought about threats to their children’s safety, they feared what might happen on the walk home from school or at the playground. He continued that the home is no longer the sanctuary it used to be and by simply logging on to the Internet, children open themselves to new and hidden threats. Mukasey stated that US attorneys throughout the nation filed more than 2,100 indictments under the Project Safe Childhood program in fiscal 2007, representing a 28 percent increase over the previous year. He also stated the number of indictments is on pace for another increase in 2008.
The Internet offers online child predators an easy means of meeting children while employing a limited amount of anonymity and allows the predator to easily by-pass many of the protections set up by parents in the real world. Strengthening the communication ties and information sharing between federal law enforcement agencies and enacting new legislation to give law enforcement the tools and resources needed to go after online child predators are two productive and necessary steps needed to keep America’s children safe online.
