Internet architecture so the exploitation of children is less efficient, and predators are more easily caught?

Education of children, adding security training to K-12 curricula in every school in the country?

Much tougher penalties, so that predators face discouraging punishment?

*

When we're trying to prioritize, we're faced with decisions like this. What is the most effective thing for children? How can be best use our limited time and budget?

For us, the answer is education, and with that comes empowerment. children who know their value and their rights, and who feel safe enough to report crimes committed against them, will reduce crimes committed against themselves and committed against their children.

We focus our work there, but we strongly support the efforts of others to improve ID security and to come up with ways to monitor where Level 3 offenders go, and with whom they socialize.

• Welcome to Colorado, our newest chapter. Jane from California forwarded us a news story about a man in Western Colorado who needed some help, and a few days later Jason started the process to create a chapter. Really nice people, and already getting a lot done. If you have relatives for friends in Colorado, let them know they have a resource for safety education and advocacy.
• Safe Child Week was a great success. Regional Library systems, the Attorney General's Office, the Governor, the Legislature, the PTA, several pediatric clinics, Moms' clubs, PEACE of Mind... all told, we reached approximately 30,000 people with the message of preventative safety education, using the Take 25 program from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. And that's not counting the people reached with media coverage! Tremendous thanks to everyone who participated, and -if you missed the chance- there is more coming up with the Safe Child Effort:
• Town Hall meetings are scheduled in 7 Legislative Districts so far, starting in September. These Town Halls are in further observance of Missing Children's Day, and will cover children's safety issues and crime prevention.  Local legislators and elected officials, local law enforcement, and experts in crime prevention will be attending as speakers and for Q&A. If you would like to participate in this effort, or would like more information, please contact us.
• Our agenda for 2008-09 is on the website. Our focus this year is on the Safe Child project, Increased Penalties in School Zone legislation, Statute of Limitations on Felony crimes committed against kids, and Predatory Exposure.
• Paula is going on hiatus for the rest of the year.  We wouldn't be here without her dedication and hard work: she spent hundreds of hours getting this non-profit up off the ground, offering support, driving to Olympia to testify, etc., and all the while being a great parent and finding success in her demanding career. This leaves an opening in our organization for a Director. It's an unpaid position, and time commitments range from 10-30 hours per week. Higher-level project management skills are necessary, along with some experience in, or knowledge of, law enforcement, social work, legislation, or fund raising. If you're interested, send in your resume and cover letter.

Enjoy your summer, and keep safe! Here are Summer Safety Rules from NCMEC - a very good read. Print the .pdf and talk to your kids about it.

Summer Safety Rules from NCMEC Go to Site

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Trained volunteers, typically law enforcement officers, take a digital image of the child, fingerprints, and physical descriptions, and place it on a CD. The parents file it so that it can be used to aid a search for the child.

We've focused the ID events for this year in areas of Washington that have higher incidents of crimes against children, such as luring, attempted abduction, and exploitation.

Some of these ID events are sponsored by state agencies that have their own secure notebook computers, but others are handled by volunteers who do not have notebook computers that can be used to assist in making the ID discs.
 
So many people are upgrading their notebook computers to run Vista, I'm hoping that two of our supporters may have XP notebook computers that they can donate to Wash-CAP for use at these events.
 
The FBI will be stripping all the software off of the computers prior to use, so no sensitive data will inadvertantly come our way.
 
We appreciate your generosity, and your continued support of our efforts.
 
Thank you,
 
The folks at Wash-CAP

• Safe Child Week - Organizations and businesses across Washington State are signing up to participate in this week-long effort toward preventative safety education. Town Hall meetings, ID Kit events, community seminars, library story-times, PTA programs, public service announcements... in a week or so, you'll be able to enter your location into [this] event form, and find a participant near you.
• Legislation - Not a single bill that we proposed got through. Thankfully, others have recognized the importance of that legislation, so there are more people working on it and helping it along. Some other legislation that we're working on is the Statute of Limitations on CSA crimes, and researching issues that members have had over the last 18 months, to see if there are systems that need work. Head over to our blog and talk about it!
• PlayGround Watch - is in the works. Have a community area that your family enjoys, like the park, playground at school, or a public pool? You'll be able to talk to others that use that same space, and trade community information and safety issues.
• Introducing Heather, who is our rotating Director of Special Projects. Right now, most of this is a special project! Heather will be working on establishing a seminar program for the state, and on formalizing Safe Child Week. She comes to us with a strong background in management and training, and we really appreciate her help.
• Town Hall meetings - In response to the large number of emails we received expressing disappointment with this session's results, we've talked to our State's Senators and Representatives about scheduling Town Hall meetings in their districts. Some of these may be hosted by community members, some by cities and towns, but all of them will provide a forum for YOU to tell your local government what you think about community and child safety, and also will provide some common-sense safety education. Contact your district office to find out if one is scheduled in your area.

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This year, we're working on this - and it will be a lot of work. Things to consider:

• quality of the victim's memory regarding traumatic events; accuracy of victims' memories after long periods of time.
• why are there statutes of limitation on any felonies? What's the legal basis for statutes of limitation?
• can we do this incrementally? extend the limitation by, say, five years, and separately, work on removing the statutes of limitation on all Class A felonies.
• is there room for comprimise? between legislators, current law, and victims' advocates/activists there are some very varying ideas on what justice looks like.

Email us, or post here, and tell us what you think. We read them all, and we appreciate the responses.

"Though we tend to think of traumatic experiences as rare, in fact, by age 16, seven of 10 children have been exposed to at least one potentially traumatic event—such as a natural disaster, severe car accident, child abuse or the loss of close family member—according to a study of a representative sample of more than 1,400 children living in North Carolina published in 2007."

This article discusses the symptoms of trauma and how they are similar to ADHD or ADD, and so are often mistaken by pediatricians who don't have sufficient training, or who haven't received the information they need to do a proper screening for the REAL cause of the behavioral issues.

This is an area where the parents and care-givers need to be observant and stay attuned to their children: if you see a change in how your child behaves, such as nervousness, a strong startle response, increased aggressive behavior which seems out of character - then you need to look around at the people and circumstances of your child's environment and see if you can find some clues, and you need to get your kid screened by a professional. There are a lot of great child psychologists out there, and a lot of insurance companies cover a certain number of visits per year, especially when you have behavioral disruptions. Many of these psychologists and counselors are available through school districts.

Remember, younger kids have 'magical thinking'. If abuse starts before the kids are more logical thinkers, then they probably assume that you know about it, or that you can pick up on the tiny little clues that they drop, which are often disguised as erratic behavior.

Talk to your kids, follow up on random statements, and don't let erratic or unusual behavior go un-discussed and dealt with.

I'm not a mental health professional, so I won't offer an opinion. I will say that their mental health is not of concern to our org.

What is of concern is that -if they have gotten to the point of being 'sex offenders' - they allowed themselves to impose on another person in a sexually violent manner.

That's what jails are for.

What do you think - should a 19 year old who has intercouse with his 15 year old girl friend stay on a registry forever?

1. Watched the clock as all of our Bills stalled in the final stage of the legislative session. In those final hours, the legislators showed us that they do not share our priorities. Disappointed? Hugely. Dis-spirited? Yeah, a little. And very motivated to get our message heard and our legislation passed in 2008/09.
2. Received word from the Washington State Bar Association that they read our Letter of Request and agree that this is an issue they need to work on. They're forming a committee to figure out the best method of dealing with members accused of sex crimes, so that consumers of legal services in Washington State can have some faith in the integrity of those listed on the WSBA's member pages.
3. Continued work on Missing Children's Week. This will be a week of prevention education in observance of Missing Children's Day. We're working with a rapidly growing number of organizations across Washington State to bring some amount of prevention education to every single child and care-giver in the state, in the hopes of reducing the horrifying number of children preyed upon each year.
4. We still need help! The offers of encouragement are wonderful, and very appreciated,  but all of this work costs a bit of money, and takes a lot of time. $12 pays for the website for a month, and you can donate it by buying a couple of items from our store!  Or, if you'd like to work on a project, please contact us and let us know - a few hours of your time is a wonderful way to help.
5. April 3 is "Blog Against Sexual Violence" day. You can participate over at www.wash-cap.org/blog. We're going to start a few topics, and you can come on over and participate. What topics would you like to see discussed? Let us know, and we'll get them up.

Washington State is 22nd on the list of safest places for your kid to live. 22nd. Anyone feel good about that? Mississippi would feel good about that - they're at the bottom of the list.

 I am very happy that we're not on the list of states with the highest sex offenders per capita, which is comprised of Alaska at 1/143, Oregon at 1/180, Michigan at 1/240, and Vermont at 1/249.

Source

Per this article at the CRN website, CETS use in England has been credited with

"helping to save 138 children from abuse, make 240 arrests and dismantle three international paedophile rings."

Microsoft Senior Vice President Brad Smith says:

“While the internet has contributed many benefits to our lives, one unfortunate downside is that it allows child predators to find one another and form virtual communities around the world through which they exploit and perpetrate heinous crimes against children,” said Smith. "

Sadly, those are very true words.

More information can be found here: http://www.microsoft.com/industry/publicsector/government/programs/CETs.mspx

From the Microsoft site:

"The Child Exploitation Tracking System (CETS) is a unique software tool developed by Canadian police, international law enforcement officials, and Microsoft to help battle child exploitation online. Pronounced "kets," this tool helps law enforcement officials collaborate and share information with other police services based on legal agreements in place. When law enforcement officials turned to Microsoft to help solve a significant challenge they faced, CETS was created to increase the effectiveness of investigators and teams by providing them with software to store, search, share, and analyze large volumes of evidence and match cases across police agencies."

added later: NYC becomes the first to use CETS in the US.

And then we find out that it's a neighbor, a relative, an associate who has committed or participated in these crimes and our perspective shifts.

This 53 year old resident of Spokane, WA is going to jail for participating in an online child pornography ring that supported the most heinous of crimes against children [some as young as 5].

I imagine his community was surprised and horrified.