Opinion: An opportunity to help law enforcement protect children

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By JOHN PIZZURO

Published: 05-10-2024 6:00 AM

John Pizzuro is the CEO of Raven, a 501(c)4 organization dedicated to protecting children from victimization by raising awareness of the threat of online child exploitation, increasing resources and funding to law enforcement, and lobbying for policy changes on the local and federal levels.

Are you perpetually online? Even in the Granite State, where the outdoors is always calling, social media has become all-consuming for many, especially young kids. The increasing innovation in tech has ramifications from work to school, but most pressing, it means children are at risk of online exploitation.

You might think your kids are the exception, but if they are online, they are targets. If your child is surfing the web in Manchester they can be targeted by a bad actor halfway around the world. The perpetrators targeting American kids could be a county over, or a country over; it’s an impossibly large pool of bad actors for law enforcement to keep track of. That is why it’s exceptionally important that law enforcement has all of the resources they need to put guardrails in place to protect children.

But right now, funding is severely lacking; it’s not even enough to allow our officers to carry out the necessary work to investigate child exploitation cases. There are 229 IP addresses downloading and sharing infant and toddler rape videos in New Hampshire right now and only three of those are being investigated.

The funding to provide those resources begins with Congress, specifically, the Senate Appropriations subcommittee that funds the Department of Justice (DOJ) of which New Hampshire Sen. Jeanne Shaheen is the chair.

This year, Congress slashed the funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program, a national network of 61 coordinated task forces, representing over 5,400 federal, state, and local law enforcement. These task forces are charged with investigating, prosecuting and developing effective responses to internet crimes against children. In 2023, the funding for ICAC Task Forces was $40.8 million but this year it’s $2 million less. By making the decision to underfund ICAC Task Forces, Congress is diminishing law enforcement’s ability to bring perpetrators to justice.

As a long time advocate of children, Sen. Shaheen has led the committee to fund Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Programs. In the past, she’s said that, “ensuring the safety and well-being of children in New Hampshire and across the country is one of [her] top priorities.” We believe that is still the case, so we are calling on her to make it a priority now and fully fund ICAC Task Forces by appropriating the Missing Exploited Children Budget to $160 million, which is currently shared between ICAC and NCMEC.

Our law enforcement officers need more resources to ensure our children are kept safe from perpetrators. According to Pew Research Center, “about three-quarters of teens (77%) say they use YouTube daily, while a smaller majority of teens (58%) say the same about TikTok. About half of teens use Instagram (50%) or Snapchat (51%) at least once a day.” That means millions of teens are online every day, and without proper ICAC funding, they are sitting ducks waiting for predators.

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Funding ICAC Task Forces is not the only solution. We need better rules for social media companies and we need parents to take a more active role in what their kids do online. But, for now, Sen. Shaheen has an opportunity to lead action to boost funding for ICAC Task Forces so we aren’t scrambling to keep our children safe. Our law enforcement officers are the first line of defense in protecting children online, and without proper resources, they cannot do their job.