Home Portland Press Releases 2010 Department of Justice Releases First National Strategy to Combat Child Exploitation
Info
This is archived material from the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) website. It may contain outdated information and links may no longer function.

Department of Justice Releases First National Strategy to Combat Child Exploitation
U.S. Marshals Service to Launch Nationwide Operation Targeting Top 500 Most Dangerous, Non-Compliant Sex Offenders

U.S. Attorney’s Office August 02, 2010
  • District of Oregon (503) 727-1000

PORTLAND, OR—In conjunction with Attorney General Eric Holder, U.S. Attorney Dwight C. Holton announced today that the Department of Justice released its first ever National Strategy for 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. The strategy builds upon the department’s accomplishments in combating child exploitation by establishing specific, aggressive goals and priorities and increasing cooperation and collaboration at all levels of government and the private sector. 

As part of the overall strategy, the U.S. Marshals Service is launching a nationwide operation targeting the nation’s top 500 most dangerous, non-compliant sex offenders. In Oregon, the U.S. Marshals Service will be adding one full time deputy marshal who will serve as the district’s Sex Offender Investigations Coordinator. Additionally, the Department will create a national database to allow federal, state, tribal, local, and international law enforcement partners to de-conflict 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, future threats, and trends.

“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 Attorney General 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.”

U.S. Attorney Holton emphasized the importance of an aggressive nationwide strategy to combat child sexual exploitation. “These are horrible offenses, committed against our most precious, most vulnerable citizens,” he said. “Sexual exploitation robs children of their innocence and scars them indelibly. Even after the physical trauma of the abuse ends, exploited children deal with psychological trauma that can last a lifetime.” He noted that “the trauma is prolonged and exacerbated when the abuse is permanently recorded in the form of child pornography, and the victims have to live with the terrifying knowledge that images of their abuse are circulating on the Internet.” The U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of Oregon, along with its federal, state, and local law enforcement partners, “is absolutely committed to implementing the national strategy, and to relentlessly pursuing and prosecuting those who commit these unspeakable crimes against children.”

Since 2006, the Department of Justice has filed 8,464 Project Safe Childhood (PSC) cases against 8,637 defendants. The District of Oregon has aggressively pursued a wide array of PSC prosecutions, including cases involving the online enticement of children to engage in unlawful sexual activity; interstate transportation of children to engage in unlawful sexual activity; interstate travel to engage in unlawful sexual activity with a minor; the production, distribution, receipt, and possession of child pornography; sex trafficking of minors; and other offenses. Sentences can be severe.

Despite vigorously fighting all aspects of child exploitation, much work remains to be done. The victims seem to be getting younger and younger, and the acts committed against them more graphic and violent. To that end, the department’s strategy lays out goals to increase coordination among the nation’s investigators, better train investigators and prosecutors, advance law enforcement’s technological capabilities, and enhance research to inform decisions on deterrence, incarceration, and monitoring. The strategy also includes a renewed commitment to public awareness and community outreach. 

As part of its public outreach efforts, the department today re-launched ProjectSafeChildhood.gov, the Project Safe Childhood public website. PSC is a department initiative launched in 2006 that aims to combat the proliferation of technology-facilitated sexual exploitation crimes against children. Led by U.S. Attorneys’ Offices and the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, PSC marshals federal, state, tribal, and local resources to better locate, apprehend, and prosecute individuals who exploit children via the Internet, as well as to identify and rescue victims.

For more information regarding the National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction, please visit www.projectsafechildhood.gov/docs/natstrategyreport.pdf

This content has been reproduced from its original source.