Dr. Frank Kardasz: I was honored to be invited to address a group of law enforcement officers and prosecutors at a seminar sponsored by the National Law Center for Children and Families in Phoenix.
Here is my speech.
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Thank you for inviting me today. The AZ ICAC Task Force is one of 46 similar groups across the country, covering every state. Within AZ we have 44 memorandums of understanding with law enforcement agencies across the state and we will try to assist you with your needs when it comes to cases involving child pornography, luring and community and employee education.
I reviewed the list of subjects that you are learning about during this conference and I saw child pornography, online enticement and obscenity on the agenda. I never had a real appreciation for the importance of those subjects until I first began working in the field six years ago. Like a lot of cops I once had the attitude that I could never work these kinds of crimes and that the criminals who violate against children are the scum of the earth. And while my low opinion of the criminals and the defense attorneys who represent them has not changed, I now have a much higher appreciation of you men and women in law enforcement who investigate and prosecute these difficult crimes.
This type of law enforcement work is still in its infancy. Computers still scare some old-school cops and lawyers. Some seventh graders have more computer skills than we do. So we are constantly trying to catch up. Getting our law enforcement arms around the growing problem of Internet crime is a monumental task. By way of analogy, some days I feel like we are trying to restrain King Kong with a tiny rubber band.
The Internet provides an unparalleled opportunity for criminals to unearth themselves and victimize unsuspecting young people. Research indicates that of the estimated 24 million child Internet users, one in five may have received a unwanted sexual solicitation, but only one in four told a parent.
Curious and innocent youngsters are flocking to the Internet seeking friendship and information but are instead finding sexual deviants and predators. My undercover investigators and I have witnessed no shortage of adults chatting on the Internet with the stated intention of sexually victimizing minors.
There are systemic challenges. Law enforcement resources are often absorbed by those crimes for which there is a public outcry. Overall, there is less of a public outcry for the enforcement of Internet crimes against children than there is for many other crimes. In recent years Federal resources are drawn to terrorism, drug enforcement and border control, all of which have nationwide importance. Local resources are drawn to homicides, sex assaults, gangs, drugs, burglaries, and other offenses of great local importance. Consequently, we who fight Internet crime are often understaffed.
Unlike spectacular crimes and events involving crashes, explosions, shootings and widespread newsworthy bloodletting, the evil crimes against children are committed in dark and private places by offenders who often psychologically control or humiliate their victims into silence. In cases involving predators who use social networking sites, the psychological grooming and control process begins with the offenders carefully constructed web page. They may pose as harmless friendly adults and mentors, or as other children of the same age, or they may just anonymously browse and search and stalk the millions of web pages for hours on end until they find just the right target and gather just enough information to permit them to locate and capture a victim.
I am of the opinion that the quiet crimes committed when an adult sexual predator meets a curious unsupervised teen to engage in sex acts are usually unreported. Often, I suspect, the teen returns without his or her parents ever finding out. We learned of one such case in Arizona when an undercover officer from my task force arrested a predator and learned that the offender had met several actual minors who he had victimized and to whom he had given sexually transmitted diseases. In their shame, the girls had never notified their parents of the crimes. The distraught parents only learned of the offenses when my detectives informed them of the suspects confessions.
We must keep working to protect curious but innocent teens from the predators who quietly entice them. In many cases, the teens who are lured by sexual predators will never come forward due to fear or a misplaced sense of guilt. A few of them, like 13 year old Kasie Woody of Arkansas, and 13 year old Christina Long of Connecticut, were forever silenced by Internet sexual predators who lured them, sexually victimized them and killed them.
Some will say, its not that big a problem, the crime statistics are not large. And that will seem to be true because these crimes are underreported. Defenders of free speech and privacy will demand numbers and statistics to justify change. How many incidents? How many sexual assaults? How many children? How many deaths? But you have to ask yourselves, what is an acceptable number of children lost to Internet sexual predators and child pornography traffickers? For me, the answer is none.
These are not easy investigations to work. Sometimes the child pornography we see is so devastatingly surreal that we cannot wrap our logical minds around the possibility that anyone would do such things to a child.
Some of the most hardened and cynical cops I know cannot work Internet crimes against children because they cannot endure the attendant emotional hardship that comes with witnessing the inhumane suffering of innocent children.
Child Pornography I want to talk a little about child pornography and tell you welcome to Arizona where the mandatory minimum sentencing range for one single image of child pornography is from 10-24 years prison. Probably the toughest sentencing in the country.
One of our AZ ICAC investigations involved an Schoolteacher named Morton Berger. I testified at his trial which was prosecuted by the Maricopa County Attorneys Office. Berger was found guilty and appealed his 200 year child pornography sentence based on arguments of equal protection under the law and cruel and unusual punishment. Attorneys from the Arizona Attorney Generals Office argued the states case.
I want to read some of the comments of Arizona appellate court Justices Susan Ehrlich and Philip Hall that I have taken from the opinion of the court:
It is evident beyond the need for elaboration that a State's interest in safeguarding the physical and psychological well-being of a minor is compelling.
...the possession of child pornography inflames the desires of child molesters, pedophiles and child pornographers.
The State has more than a passing interest in forestalling the damage caused by child pornography: preventing harm to children is one of its most important interests.
...we cannot fault the State for attempting to stamp out this vice at all levels in the distribution chain.
(Morton) Berger downloaded images from the Internet, and every time he visited a website, he demonstrated to the producers and sellers of child pornography that there was a demand for their product. Berger's demand served to drive the industry.
About the images, the justices said, …the victimization of a child continues when (a sexual act) is memorialized in an image. The materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation. The victimization of the children involved does not end when the pornographer's camera is put away.
And about the argument that a mere possessor of child pornography is no danger the justices said, …the possession of child pornography drives that industry and…the production of child pornography will decrease if those who possess the product are punished equally with those who produce it.
Berger maintains also that, because his possession of the pornographic images was passive and because he did not use threats or violence in the commission of his crimes, his sentence is grossly disproportionate. This logic is abstruse. Child pornography is a form of child abuse.
The materials produced are a permanent record of the children's participation and the harm to the child is exacerbated by their circulation.
I am pleased to report that Berger's conviction was affirmed by Arizona Court of Appeals. Morton Berger is scheduled for release in the year 2175. His name now appears at the state sponsored web site at www.azcorrections.gov
Frustration Those of you who have worked on these kinds of crimes know them to be the most frustrating and most rewarding investigations and prosecutions that you can work.
Frustrating on several levels. Frustrating because of the fierce competition we have within our own agencies for the resources to investigate and prosecute these crimes.
Frustrating because the horrors of child pornography are summarily dismissed by some who perceive the images as "just pictures" and unworthy of investigation.
Frustrating because online enticement and Internet related child pornography crimes continue to increase exponentially while our resources dedicated to stopping them do not.
Rewards Now I know you didn't come here to hear me snivel and whine all afternoon about our frustrations so let me tell you about the rewards part of our job. For a cop, the best reward after the hunt is the catch. Getting one of these predators in custody and off the computer is a good thing. And for a prosecutor, I know that closing a file with a predator ending in prison brings a great sense of relief and accomplishment.
Prevention Challenge One of our greatest challenges is to "harden the target", make it tougher for predators to get to the kids by making kids and parents smarter.
When I talk to parents I tell them that if they use the Internet as a babysitter they are placing their child at risk. By analogy, think of the Internet like a big city street. Imagine that you are walking down the street with your child. On one side of the street are libraries, games, legitimate, businesses and kind friendly people. On the other side of the street are illegal enterprises, child molesters, identity thieves, pornographers and bullies. Would you let your child tour that street alone? Probably not! If you fail to closely supervise your child's Internet use, his or her natural curiosity and lack of street smarts may take them to that wrong side of the Internet stupid-highway.
Through the years I have been tasked with giving community presentations about Internet crime prevention to many groups of children and adults. At the end of several such presentations I have been approached and thanked by people who then take me aside and quietly confide in me that they were once victims and they then express their very sincere thanks for the work that we do investigating and prosecuting these cases. These are adults who have never reported their victimization and never will because they do not wish to relive the horror. Those thanks from those victims are the best reward. And it is my thoughts of those victims that keep me coming to work every day.
In Conclusion I want to leave you with this: Please remember that our little victims, the children who you represent, cannot pick up a phone to dial 911 the way many other victims can. They cannot adjust agency manpower, set policy or change regulations for their cause. They cannot call their local elected official. They cannot form a citizen-action group and they cannot vote. All they can do is suffer and hope. Hope that people like you will pick up their cause, and summon the sustained resolve to overcome systemic, societal and psychological hurdles to help them. Its up to you to protect a child's right to grow up happy and innocent.
Please remember, the work that you do is appreciated more than you will ever know. It is appreciated by those victims who you represent who will never come forward, and it is for them that you must continue to labor towards bringing sexual predators and traffickers of child pornography to justice.
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