“There are over 100,000 websites dedicated to child porn. It’s a multi-billion dollar industry. Over the past 13 years the number of child pornography offenders has increased by 1,500%.” I wrote this in April of 2009. Things have not gotten a whole lot better on the statistic side of things but finally the Department of Justice announced its first ever National Strategy to Combat Child Porn. Finally! I have posted part of the story about the strategy below.
BEAUMONT – Arrests in Gregg and Smith Counties of men charged with crimes connected to child pornography were featured in an announcement this week of a U.S. Marshals national strategy to address child exploitation.
Attorney General Eric Holder announced Monday the release of the Department of Justice’s first ever National Strategy to Combat Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.
“The strategy also provides the first ever comprehensive threat assessment of the dangers facing children from child pornography, online enticement, child sex tourism, commercial sexual exploitation, and sexual exploitation in Indian Country, and outlines a blueprint to strengthen the fight against these crimes,” said spokeswoman Davilyn Walston.
As part of the overall strategy, the U.S. Marshals Service is launching a nationwide operation targeting the top 500 most dangerous, non-compliant sex offenders in the nation. Additionally, the department will create a national database to allow federal, state, tribal, local and international law enforcement partners to deconflict their cases with each other, engage in undercover operations from a portal facilitated or hosted by the database, share information and intelligence and conduct analysis on dangerous offenders and future threats and trends.
The department also created 38 additional Assistant U.S. Attorney positions to devote to child exploitation cases, and over the coming months will work to fill the vacancies and train the new assistants in this specialized area.
The Eastern District of Texas received a position and hired Christopher T. Tortorice in December 2009 to prosecute Project Safe Childhood cases exclusively.
“Although we’ve made meaningful progress in protecting children across the country, and although we’ve brought a record number of offenders to justice in recent years, it is time to renew our commitment to this work. It is time to intensify our efforts,” said Holder. “This new strategy provides the roadmap necessary to do just that – to streamline our education, prevention and prosecution activities; to improve information sharing and collaboration; and to make the most effective use of limited resources. Together, we are sending an important message – that the U.S. government, and our nation’s Department of Justice, has never been more committed to protecting our children and to bringing offenders to justice.”
Offenders cited in Monday’s announcement included Albert Slatter, Jr., a 59- year-old assistant band director for the Longview ISD, was sentenced to federal prison on Apr. 29 for possessing images of child pornography on his home computer.
Charles Orange, 45, a convicted sex offender from Longview, was indicted on July 14 and charged with possessing, receiving and distributing child pornography.
If convicted, he faces up to 40 years in federal prison.
This is great news as this strategy will help keep our kids safer on-line and off-line. But parents we need to continue to take an active role in being aware of what our kids are doing on the Internet. We are the first line of defense.