Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force

While the digital age presents new opportunities, it also poses new threats to young people. The Internet allows predators to make contact with unsuspecting children. It means the exploitation of children in one country can devastate families half a world away. It has turned child pornography into a global crisis.

Pornographic images of children are not exercises in free speech. They are criminal acts of child abuse. The United States is working to end this abuse through the government's Internet Crimes Against Children task forces. With the help of task force members, federal prosecution of child pornography and abuse has increased from 350 cases in 1998 to more than 1,400 cases in 2005."

Umbrella Childrens

-First Lady Laura Bush

Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces

The Internet Crimes Against Children Task force program exists under the umbrella of the U.S. Department of Justice, as a portion of the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP). This program trains individual states and government entities to set up their own task forces to combat cyber crimes against our most vulnerable of citizens, our children.

At its conception, New York Senator Hillary Clinton asked congress for funding of million to get the program rolling. The ICAC Task Force Program was set up to help State and local law enforcement agencies augment and strengthen their investigative response to predators who use the Internet, online communication systems, or other computer technology to sexually exploit children. 46 Regional Task Force Agencies currently make up the program. Those agencies are relatively evenly spread across the nation, and the majority of states are represented.

Law enforcement has long been aware that the naiveté and trusting natures of most children make them easy targets for predators. Teenagers, while older and a few years wiser, remain vulnerable to victimization. These governing agencies know that more than 77 million kids are online today. They also realize that the nature of the Internet presents a never before faced complexity to investigating crimes, collecting evidence, identifying and apprehending offenders, and assisting child victims and their families.

One big reason for this is the anonymity of the Internet. Unless there is viable evidence that a person committed an online crime, the argument could be raised that "someone else" either hacked into the accused person's accounts or used his computer while they were a visitor in the accused person's home. Another reason for this is that the crimes often cross several jurisdictions, and the victim and the perpetrator are often separated geographically.

Predators can and do travel hundreds of miles to different states and countries to engage in sexual acts with children they met over the Internet. Many of these cases involve local, state, federal, and international law enforcement entities in multiple jurisdictions.

The national Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force provides training to the state and local branches of the ICAC, so that they are better equipped to handle this escalating online problem. Some of the training courses include the Investigative Techniques Training Program, the Child Sex Offender Accountability Training Program, and the Undercover Chat Investigations Training Program.

Each local Internet Crimes Against Children task force is composed of federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel. Federal and local prosecution officials participate as well, as do local educators and service providers such as mental health professionals. The local task forces serve as valuable regional resources to assist parents, educators, prosecutors, law enforcement personnel, and others who work on child victimization issues.

Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force

Please visit my site for more information on keeping kids safe online:

[http://www.geocities.com/questionmarque/parents_peace_of_mind.html]