State may boost battle against
online child abuse

By: Dustin Racioppi
Trenton Bureau
USA Today Network - New Jersey

..... New Jersey could join a dozen other states that financially bolster law enforcement investigations of online child abuse to compensate somewhat for a lack of federal funding that has left agencies on defense against an exponentially growing epidemic.
..... Governor Phil Murphy and one of the state's top lawmakers have indicated their support for dedicating state money to New Jersey's Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, a coalition of dozens of law enforcement agencies led by the state police.
..... Their initial backing comes as reports of online abuse and exploitation of children have spiked 75% during the COVID-19 pandemic, as recently detailed by the Trenton bureau of the USA TODAY Network Atlantic Group.
..... "The answer conceptually has to be yes" on state funding, Murphy said Thursday. [11/05/2020] "her incidence of child abuse online, there's no question has gone up; it continues to go up. If we could figure out a smart way to coordinate and approach that with fellow states, you betcha."
..... Kevin McArdle, a spokesman for Assembly Speaker Craig Coughlin, D-Middlesex, said: "The speaker is deeply disturbed by the details contained in the article. He will speak with his caucus about potential legislative action to address this troubling issue."
.... Other states have found ways dedicate revenue to their internet task forces by passing some version of what's known as Alicia's Law, named for Alicia Kozak, the first known child to have been abducted by an online predator.
..... As a teenager, she was sexually abused and tortured for several days after meeting someone on the internet she thought was her age.

STATES EXPAND FUNDING FOR ONLINE CHILD ABUSE INVESTIGATIONS:

..... In Virginia, the first state to pass that law and the place where Kozak was held captive, an additional fee for misdemeanors and penalties is permanently dedicated toward its internet crime task force. Kentucky and Hawaii do the same. Arizona and Texas allocate state lottery funds to investigate online child abuse cases.
..... the state money is used to hire additional staff or resources and to pay for training. And it's needed, advocates said, because no presidential administration has ever fully funded the$60 million allocated by Congress when it passed the PROTECT Our Children Act in 2008. That bill was sponsored by then Senator Joe Biden, who won the presidency Saturday. [11/07/2020]
..... The funding shortfall means task force such as the one New Jersey are left to spread around $500,000 to $600,000 every year to pay for training and investigations. It's just a fraction of what is needed to effectively fight an epidemic in which millions of pieces of child sexual abuse material regularly circulate online, according to experts.
..... The pandemic has only worsened what was a growing problem.
..... There were 5,251 reports of online child exploitation in New Jersey through mid-October, [2020] a 75% increase from 2,996 at the same point last year, [2019] according to state police Those increases mirror the national trend in abuse tips.
..... Arrests have been on a similar upward swing at least in part because not all tips turn out to be legitimate or worth brining charges. As of late October, [2020] New Jersey's task force had made 226 arrests down from a peak of 778 last year, [2019] according to the Department of Justice, which tracks such data.
.... "They're just completely in reactive mode and they're completely overwhelmed," Grier Weeks, senior executive of the National Association to Protect Children, said about sate task forces. "The thing I hear most often from the task force is that proactive investigations are a luxury."

A NEW LOOK AT ONLINE CHILD ABUSE IN NEW JERSEY:

..... New Jersey still conducts stings operations when possible, and on Friday [11/06/2020] the Attorney General's Office announced that a California man was sentenced to seven years in prison after flying to New Jersey with plans to pay $500 to sexually assault someone he believed to be an 11-year-old girl.
..... There has not been a serious discussion in New Jersey of passing its own version of Alicia's Law to prop up law enforcement, but Kozak now lives in Monmouth County and would like to see her adopted home state become the next one to pass her eponymous legislation.
..... She said in a recent interview that it is "unacceptable" for a lack of money to prevent children from being rescued from abuse.
..... But spending money to support rescuing children and babies who are captured on video being sexually abused and tortured tends to get tied up in political deal making, Weeks said.
..... "To get money for anything you have to be willing to horse-trade and spend your now political capital. And at the end of the day - I hate this expression, but children don't vote," Weeks said.
..... "They'll spend $10 million on a trolley line or something like that, and the political perception is there's a bang for the buck there," he said. "But if you spend that money on arresting sexual predators and rescuing kids, there's some kind of disconnect."

GETTING STATE AID DURING AN ECONOMIC DOWNTURN:

..... Finding money in New Jersey is always a struggle, and declining revenues during the pandemic may make it even more difficult.
..... But Senator Linda Greenstein, the Democratic chairwoman of the Law and Public Safety Committee, said at the very least there should be a discussion of the problem and that she would look into scheduling a hearing to learn more .
..... It also seemed to make sense to Greenstein to research financial support for abuse investigations.
..... "Even if we do part of what's needed and we start to do it gradually, it seems like something we need to pay attention to and send money to it," she said.
..... Greenstein added that she hadn't been aware of the depth of the problem of online child abuse. "You see these things on television, it's just hard to believe," she said. "In this case, I think, the reality is horrendous."

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