That originate online. This is just under two hours. And may not be sitabe suitable younger viewers. The committee will come to order, subcommittee on crime, terrorism and investigations. We will have a hearing on crimes against children. I will recognize myself and then the gentleman from michigan. I want to thank each of you for being here today. Todays hearing address the most difficult issues for people of good conscience to contemplate. The exploitation of societys most innocent and vulnerable, our children. Public safety is the preeminent function of government and this function protecting those who cannot fully protect themselves is most important. Today begins our process of permanent laws of exploitation of children and evaluate the effectiveness of these laws and Work Together across every proverbial aisle that exist to make sure our laws are as tough and possible. Amended where needed, strengt n strengthened where needed. I want to thank our witness force being here today more importantly for every day other than today while you were liveig out your commitment and dedication combatting Child Exploitation and abuse. No longer is it simply physical proximity that puts our children in danger, the internet has created an alternative world where suspects can exploit our children through a few strokes on the keyboard and not only are they finding victims they are finding those who share their e depravities leadin ingoing to m egregious behavior targeting even younger children including infants with ever more graphic ima images. Over the past decade, congress has enacted a number of laws to protect children from exploitation. In 1984, congress established the creation of the National Center for missing and exploited children a Nonprofit Organization to help prevent child abduction and Sexual Exploitation, to help find missing children and assist children and their families. It has played a Critical Role in awareness of exploitation on the internet but Law Enforcement facilitatine ining reporting of crimes and identifying and locating children so they can be resc rescued. Tragically more often than not a victims picture is distributed again and again and can be revictimized hundreds of times over and over. This can revictimize victims for the remainder of their lives. If youre a victim of exploitation there is no statute of limitations to your own personal suffering. Because of the missing center for exploited children we ha haveling to identify a child in an image to make sure theyre fully able to seek justice. In 1998 Congress Passed a law against girn regarding violent offenders and the adam walsh law which requires each state to require criteria posting public offender data on the internet. It created an office at the Justice Department to oversee the standards for sex offender registration and requirements. In 1998 the department of justice established task forces to investigate internet crimes against children and has been incredibly successful. In 2015 alone they conducted more than 54,000 investigations and 61,000 forensic exams. These efforts resulted in the arrest of more than 8500 suspects. In the wake of evolving Technology Congress has passed new laws to combat child pornography. We introduced the justice for child victims act creating a Compensation Fund paid for by child pornography defendants for victims to quickly obtain Financial Support needed for recovery. Remarkable progress has been made for committing crimes against children as well as investigating and prosecutors these offenses. There is more to do and preda r predators will do everything to remain undetected and our constitutional duty to implement tools to enable Law Enforcement and investigators to track down these predators. Children are the most vulnerable and innocent victims. They are completely dependent on us. They merit the greatest protections our law allows and merit the severest punishment our law allows from preventing these crimes from occurring and streng strengthening the ability to investigate these crimes and prosecution and pretrial methodologies so children are interviewed as few times as possible by trained professionals who know both how to talk to and listen to children. Assuring victims have access to restitution and support services to fully aid them in the recovery process. With that, i will thank our witnesses and look forward to the conversation and welcome the gentleman on the committee, mr. Conyers. Thank you. May i read three sentences of congressman Sheila Jackson, on another committee. Yes, sir. Thank you. Here is what is said in her behalf. Our Ranking Member congressman, Sheila Jackson lee, is also a member of the House Budget Committee which is currently debating the healthcare bill. She will not be able to attend this hearing today but expresses her passion combatting crimes against children, which is a major problem in her district and the city of houston in the form of human trafficking. As Ranking Member of this subcommittee and founder and chair of the childrens caucus, she pledges her support to Work Together to create a legal system that protects all our children and publishes perpetrators in crimes against children. Now, in my own behalf, i wanted to mention that todays hearings, mr. Chairman, and members by this subcommittee will discuss the serious and disturbing issue of the criminalization of children. With all our efforts to fight the various forms of Child Exploitation, it continues to be a threat to our young people, however, weve developed strategies to prevent and respond to these crimes and to assist the many children who are victims. I trust we will learn about the strategies working and how we can do better. In inaipril of last year, the department of justice reported to us the main threats in this area in the next five years will be child pornography, sex extortion, child sex traff trafficking, sex offender registry violations, and child sex tourism. The response to these crimes involve an intricate network of federal, state and local Law Enforcement an prosecutorial agencies and private Nonprofit Organizations and advocates supported by directfeld funding authorizations and Grant Programs all working together to keep our youngest constituents safe from harm. Today, we will hear from individualized representing some of the entities involved in this necessary mission and their r e roles illustrate the ways we can do more and do better. Were proud to have these four witnesses with us. First, we and the Congress Must recognize while we can enact federal legislation, state and local Law Enforcement are on the front lines and we must support their partnerships with federal agencies. The internet crimes against Children Task force program funded through the Justice Departments office of juvenile justice and delinquency prevention provides training and Technical Assistance and regularly conducts undercover online investigative operations. Since congressman dated creation of this program, 3,500 federal state and local Law Enforcement and prosecutorial agencies have joined to form 61 coordinated Regional Task forces. These task forces are especially important now because were seeing a tremendous increase in crimes perpetrated against children on the internet. Detective Patrick Bieber from the Loudoun County Sheriffs Office will speak to us about his successes his office has enjoyed working with the Northern Virginia internet crimes against Children Task force to conduct an operation targeting internet predators last year. Next, we must provide specialized assistance through families, victims and Law Enforcement, to help prevent child abduction, recover missing children. Identify and assist victims of child pornography and child sex trafficking that is the mission for the National Center for missing and exploited children. Well hear from their representative today about what theyre experiencing and provi e providing this assistance. As a former local and federal prosecutor we will have someone also help us about the challe e challenges at the state and local levels in fighting these crimes and enforcing our laws. All of this will help us consider legislation to amend, reauthorize important statutes such as the adam walsh act and the trafficking victims protection act. Clearly we must do more to prevent and investigate these crime, especially since there are many victims. When we do apprehend and convict offenders we must recognize that most of them will be released back into society at some point. The sex offender registration and notification act is intended to establish a nationwide system of monitoring and trafficking sex offenders, particularly after theyre released from prison. Currently, there are over 850,000 registered sex offenders in this country. If were going to have such a system, we must insure it is used inappropriate circumstances and in the most effective manner, however, only 17 states are in substantial compliance with its requirements. Sta states, policymakers, researchers and advocates continue to object to the requirements established for many reasons. One of the most pervasive criticism of sorna is the inclusion of juveniles on regist registries. Miss nicole pit man is here today to discuss the real impact of juvenile registration on the juveni juveniles, their families and the overall effectiveness of sorna. I thank the chairman for holding this hearing on this important topic. We all wish the Child Exploitation could be eridicated but the proper situations. With what we learn today i hope we can Work Together to come closer to achieving our goal. I thank the chair. Chair thanks the gentleman from michigan and now recognizes the gentleman from california, the chair of the full committee, mr. Goodlatte. Except im from virginia. What did i say . California. Whatever i said, i meant virginia. Mr. Chairman, not withsta withstanding that im very pleased youre holding this hearing and thank you for the opportunity to say a few words about it. Its a very important hearing on combatting crimes against children. Much progress has been made the past few decades preventing and investigating and prosecutoring Child Exploitation crimes. There is still work to be done. The bureau of justice statistics once reported 77 of all victims of Sexual Assault reported to Law Enforcement agencies were juveniles under the age of 18. 34 of all victims were underage 12. These statistics are unacce unacceptable and especially frightening in light of the fact that most child sexual abuse goes unreported. It is for this reason we must remain vigilant protecting the most vulnerable and innocent victims of crime, our children. As a father and grandfather i can think of no more Important Role than Law Enforcement. Over the past couple of Years Congress has taken important steps to prevent criminals from vict victimizing children in the first place including the National Sex Offender registry and passing of the adam walsh Child Protection and safety act and National Guidelines for state sex offender registries. They are crucial in assuring sex offender s are not living off the grid and not evading state and Law Enforcement and most importantly not having unsupervised swakz interactions children. I appreciate the work from the marshall and center for missing and exploited children for this effort. Each assists the Law Enforcement in locating sex offenders, people who pose a very real risk to our children. The u. S. Marshals were originally taxed in the original adam walsh act in 2006 and worked continuously to get sex offender s. More needs to be done for National Standards in every state so Important Information can easily be shared in their intradicti intradictions. I thank mr. Sensenbrenner for this act and the good accompl h accomplished by this act and improving this system to be more efficient and more just. Sex offenders will often go to Great Lengths to get close to children, gain their trust and take advantage of their naivete. That is why it is important organizations that serve children and meant to provide children with mentors be sure their volunteers and employees do not have a history of predatory behavior. I commend the work of bishop and shipp for the work to give them quick information for fbi databases in background investigations. We have a distinguished panel of witnesses here today to discuss this difficult subject, people who dedicated their careers to protecting children and are familiar with these challenges and ending them. I look forward to hearing about the problems being encountered and preventing and investigating these crimes and what congress and the states can do to help further combat them. Congress has passed a number of bills to address the crisis of Child Exploitation in the United States. We must keep up with this ever evolving criminal behavior. What more can be done to ends these terrible crimes. I thank all of you for being here and yield back. Thank you. I thank the gentleman from the commonwealth of virginia and forgiven us again for putting him in state other than the Common Wealth of virginia. We have a very distinguished panel. I will begin by swearing in my witnesses. Please rise and lift your right hands. Do you swear the testimony youre about to give before this committee will be the truth the whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . May the record indicate all witnesses answered in the affirmative. Youre welcome to sit down and introduce you as a group. I will tell you up front all members have accessture Opening Statements and have or will read your Opening Statements. To the extent you can summarize it within the five minute time period so we can get to their questions. Our first witness is mr. John sheian from the National Center for missing and exploited children. Our second witness is miss nancy, a child advocate for Child Exploitation and int interdiction. And detective bieber from the Internet Task force and our fourth witness is miss nicole pit man Vice President of the center for youth registration reform and impact justice. With that, mr. Sheehan, you are recognized for five minutes. Good afternoon. Im the Vice President of the National Center for exploited children. I have been there for 15 years and in my role since 2015. It is a private Nonprofit Organization. Our mission is to help reunite families with missing children and reduce Child Exploitation and prevent revictimization. Our founders are the walshs. It enables us to engage in National Response to the problem of missing children. It has multiple programs to assist families, child victims, families that serve them and Law Enforcement on cases of sexually exploited children. More specifically, we have 2 core programs to support the facilitating of child sexual abuse content and help identify child victims. Those two programs are the child tip line and identification program. We launched the program in 1998 to provide the public with an efficient method of reporting incidence of suspected Child Exploitation including child pornography. Relater expanded it to u. S. Based Electronic Service provid providers. Florida law now requires Electronic Service providers to report any they know of to the tip line. It is reviewed by the staff and use Public Resources for relevant information and make it available to Law Enforcement for potential review by Law Enforcement and investigation. Reports are triaged 24 7 to make sure any children who may be in imminent danger are given first priority. Since creation it has received more than 18 million reports. The number increase exponentially year after year and now average 250,000 reports per week. We received more than 2 million reports into the cyber tip line in the first two months of 2017. It can be attributed to steps taken by the leading u. S. Based Technology Companies who voluntarily choose to proactively find child abuse images on their platforms using digital fingerprints. Many reports come into the cyber tip where the crime occurred overseas. As a result, we have grown into a globally recognized claerg house for information on these issues and makes cyber reports available to more than 194 Police Forces around the world cl including interpol. And while we do not see any slowdown in child pornography reports, the crime of exploitation continues to evolve including Significant Growth in sextorsion and online enti enticement of children for sexual acts. Despite these increasing trends, there is great work being done to fight these crimes. We continue to partner with key leaders new england the technology coalition, Nongovernment Organization and industry and Law Enforcement. I would like to specifically commend the internet for children crimes task force. They do amazing work and work tirelessly to protect children from sexual abuse. Were working with victims families to address their needs going through recovery such as teen hope and the advocacy division. In congress we want to work with you to make sure victims find recovery and support services they need including working with the committee to find a path forward to provide child pornography victims with restitution. We continue to look for ways to best educate our children, their families and the public how to prevent these crimes from happening and respond to them when they do. Our clearinghouse provides us with data for new and emerging trends and leads to the development of new products and Technical Assistance and other services. We provide congress, outside organizations and the public with Technical Assistance and advice on possible legislation to provide safer environments. For example the Child Protection improvement act and adam walsh act. To provide mechanisms to insure the saith of our children as they go about their daily lives. I want to thank the committee for their ongoing work on these initiatives. In closing i want to thank you, mr. Chairman and Ranking Member conyers. We look forward to working with you on these Critical Issues and look forward to any questions you may have. Thank you. Miss hanks. Thank you, chairman gowdy and Ranking Member conyers. Id like to thank you for in inviting me to appear before this subcommittee. Child abuse, Child Exploitation, child sex trafficking, child molestation, child pornography, they all sound a bit clinical to what really happens to children victimized by sex offenders. It is often the Forcible Rape of little boys and little girls and these acts of violence are captured on film, stills and video. The images themselves encapsulate the crime scene and are the permanent evidence of the crime, the humiliation, the pain and often the guilt and shame of the child victim. The first child of my career was of such a victim and criminal. A father spent the first 10 years of his precious daughters life sexually assaulting her even when she was in diapers. And adorable little redhaired little girl we met after she waited years for someone to prosecute her case and save her from her father. Looking into her eyes, i promised her justice. Making my First Closing argument i trembled so anxious i had done everything right for k. W. And so anxious they accept my righteous argument and convict this depraved man and terrified they would not convict him and k. W. Would have to go back to him and endure his assaults. The jury convicted him and he was sentenced to 50 years in prison. There are so many children who will never get the justice k. W. Did. Child sexual abuse is underreported by as much as 90 . So many children, so much abuse, so much pain and so many afraid. I used to think the hardest thing i would ever have to do was look into the eyes of a child and listen to her story about being abused. I was wrong. The hardest thing i ever had to do was watch their abuse, sometimes still photos, sometimes video, sometimes with sound. All heart wrenching and even now impossible to forget. I remember all their faces. Sometimes they had a frozen smile, sometimes they cried, sometimes they screamed. These images included infants and sod lers, also very he helpless. Most of them i would never learn their names, where they lived or who was hurting them. The struggle to cope knowing how many are out there even now will always be with me. No one who has seen these images is untouched by them. I would like to give my heartfelt salute to those analy analysts, officers, detectives, agents and prosecutors who today search for these offenders, rescue these children and endure these images. As the First National coordinator for Child Exploitation at the department of justice i learned about how budgets impact the ability of Law Enforcement like detective bieber to protect children. When last i sat here testifying before this committee i was limited by the rules of doj about what i could or couldnt say. I was asked then if i thought this crime problem needed more resources for agents, cops and prosecut prosecutors. My answer, dictated by doj was we support the president s budget. I now have no such constraints and i can tell you today as i would have liked to then, the answer is a resounding yes. It was yes then and it is yes now, and will always likely be yes. If you all could talk to a child like k. W. , if you all were fo e forced to watch everyday the images and hear the sounds of children being exploited, victimized or raped, you, too, would answer a resounding yes. It is a sad fact police, agents and prosecutors all over this country are drowning in these cases, they are complicated, heart rending and frustrating. While doj may not be able to ask for help i will ask on behalf of all the children whose faces i cannot forget. Like the little girl who when rescued by a u. S. Postal inspector said, i knew youd come. I begged for your help with my eyes when he hurt me and taped it. I knew you would see and come for me. So many others beg us for help with their eyes and we arent coming. So many millions and millions of images of children being sexually assaulted are shared around the world and good guys are losing. You should see the childrens faces and hear their voices, then maybe you would feel the same urgency of Mission Shared by police and prosecutors the world over. What Higher Mission is there . When we prioritize other things we should look into the eyes of k. W. Or others like her and explain why we havent done everything we could to see her father never hurt her again. I know this committee and congress in general is constantly asked for resources for many worthy issues. Nelson mandela said there can be no keener revelation of a societys soul given the way it treats its children. We are living in a society which has lost its soul. We can, we must do better. Thank you. Thank you. Detective. Thank you very much for having me here today. Coming before you today is an honor to really describe what we see through the eyes as a detective, investigator or special agent. Agent. In the complications that we have in our in the complications we have in our investigations and successes we have. With the Loudon County Sheriffs Office, special victims unit and Childrens Task force we aggressively go out each day and hunt down Child Predators, rescue victims, get them services and allow them to go back to a normal lifestyle they deserve. Even this morning before coming here we did a search warrant at t3 30 or 4 30 in the morning. We stay busy everyday and will continue to stay busy fighting the exploitation of children. What i want to cover today is some of the issues we encount encountered investigating these crimes and the Legal Process that hinders us from finding the bad guy, hinders us from finding a child victim whose identity could be stuck in the cloud, encry encrypted. I will go to the details regards to that. The child victim listed online giving you an example and child pornography exploited by a suspect and sent several videos to the child suspect. The child victim has reinforced threats to keep has received threats to keep producing child pornography or he or she will send those to friends. This is a common report we get sometimes two, three times a week in the Northern Virginia d. C. Area. Someone who is trapped in their own home by the exploitation of this Child Predator through the safety of their home. Their home, they can be sitting at the dinner table, the suspect sends them a message, you need to go to the bathroom and produce child pornography now or i will do this this and this, i will send these photo es and videos. A young 10yearold, 11yearold constantly, 11yearold, 10yearold or younger are trapped by this. Theyre not able to reach out to their family because of these threats and can live with this for day, hours or years. By the time we get to the victim there could be hundreds of videos or images submitted. When we submit Legal Process to whatever company they use, you can pick any of them, we run into hurdles. I want to get into some of those hurdles we come across. In the process to companies in the United States we receive email back stating we will notify the user of this account, the Child Predator. Think about that. We will notify the Child Predator. Yes, that is a customer of theirs but also that young victim is a customer of theirs. We fight with them i just wanted to say i think weeks at a time to just get them not to disclose to the predator. While certainly laws in certain states are better than others that allow for nondisclosure sometimes the companies do not accept them and we get another email back, we will give them 10 days to challenge it and it comes back to us, a pingpong back and forth. Meanwhile, that suspect is exploiting other children and is continuine ining with that proc. At times they notified notify the suspect of our legal action. That alone, you dont know how many victims we could save by having an ip address to identify the suspect and hold from not y notifying them for 90 days and we dont have that. Another issue we encounter is Legal Process they do not notify is our legal return. Our legal return at times, theyll say, well, we can give you the content we store on our serves in the United States but we will not give you the consent outside the United States. You get one piece of the pie in your investigation which may be nonsense metadata that exists on our servers in the United States but maybe on a stererver a different country this u. S. Based company no longer follows our Legal Process. I would also say there are other companies outside the United States we send Legal Process to who honor our Legal Process, turn around, give us the response within one or two days to help us rescue a child, help us identify the suspect and be able to move forward with our case. This is the brick wall we hit as investigators and this is a true thing we encounter on a daytoday basis. I know i speak for each agent, detective, investigator, who works these cases and in human decency, how we can notify a suspect of Legal Process before we have executed that search warrant. In closing, i thank you very much for having us here today. Thank you, detective. I promise you i will get into that during the q a. Hold that thought. Thank you for the opportunity to testify on this important issue. My name is Nicole Pittman and run the center on youth registration reform at impact justice. We are all here because we deeply care about children and want to prevent them from being ha harmed. Over the past 20 Years Congress has enacted a series of wellintentioned legislation designed to combat crimes against children. We must ask the question what happens when these laws unintentionally harm the very children we seek to protect . Who are the children caught in the crosshairs of policies to combat crimes against children . Id like to share a story about bobby. Bobby is from texas. He was 11 years old. Lived in an area with a lot of kids playing game and the 13yearold was in charge, lets play this game, i will turn off the lights, everybody take your clothes off and try to get dressed as quickly as possible. Bobby was a class clown, decided to not put any clothes on. The lights went on, bobby was naked. Everyone laughed, bobby put his clothes on they ate pizza, the night was good. The 6yearold girl that was there was picked up by her mother, she said i saw bobbys penis. The mother reacted in a very common sense way. The case went to the police. A couple days later she found out what happened. They said we could proceed without the victim. Bobby was adjudicated a delinquent and went to juvenile treatment 11 to 18 where he received sex offender treatment. He was a registered sex offender where you cant live anywhere near children or younger than 18. Thats punishable by two years. This happened three more times, three felony convictions for failure to register. Bobby couldnt get a job when he got out. At some point he was so desperate to try to make a living he was convicted of receipt of stolen goods. I went down to that hearing the judge said because youre a career sex offender im making you out to 15 years in the state penitentiary. Bobbys story is not unique. This is happening to many of our kids. Its estimated 200,000 kids have been placed on registries in the 20 years weve been registering kids not just by the adam walsh act talking children 8, 9y 10, 11 years old, many on for life. Kids end up on the registry for many things, playing doctors, stre streaking, having sex with teenage classmates, sexting. Im working with a young man 14 on the registry in minnesota for sending a picture to his own classmate hes the victim and perpetrator of this sexting. I went around the country and interviewed 500 people on regist registries, all adjudicated in Juvenile Court not criminal court. I found out 100 of the 500 kids were victims in the Child Welfare system before they went on the registry. Were putting children that are victims on our registries. And the registry doesnt work. There have been 20 years of research from one of the people sitting here, dr. Elizabeth turn no of john hopkins saying research definitively shows registration does not work for children. It doesnt make us safer, kids do not reoffend, the recidivism rate for children is 2. 75 . The harm is great. We see with bobby, unemployment, vigilante attacks, homelessness, stigmatization. Sadly, 1 in 5 attempt suicide. We heard most of the crimes do happen in the home. What we know is a child on the registry, a family on the registry and also a victim on the registry, a victims sibling on the registry. We know what does work. Treatment works. Children respond very well to treatment. We have people that have been working on this issue, patty weatherling doesnt believe children should be on reg industries. And tracy who helped pass the adam walsh act is working with us to help remove children from the adam walsh act. In fact, states from the time the adam walsh act was passed in 2006, states were working to get kids off the registry and now the mandate means they have to leave them on. What are our Lessons Learned . We learned the registries are full of children victims themselves, we learned treatment works. We know a child on the registry faces lots of stigma. Thanks to research from our Street Institute we know it costs 3 billion to register children and could be spechbt on upstream solutions such as interventions that actually stop or prevent harm from happening in the first place. How do we fix this . Look at what the antitraff antitrafficking committee is doing. The same thing with the adam walsh act. Advocates and survivors on both sides of the aisle agree it was a mistake. Time to fix it. I urge you to exclude children adjudicated 20 in Juvenile Court from the adam walsh act. Thank you. The chair will recognize the gentleman from texas, mr. Gomer . Thank you. Mr. Chairman, thank you all for your work as well as being here today. Mr. Sha han, you mentioned you received so many tips you have to triage them. What methods do you use to triage. Whats most important . Thank you. Its an excellent question. We have a ranking system and its based on the information thats received. We have a hotline 24 7 that reviews all these leads that come through. In some cases you may have a Company Aware of an imminent situation to escalate that report and bring it to our attention or a parent calling in and giving key indicators you have a child about to meet someone. Its imminent danger for the child and we escalate those reports. The type of case we will wake up the detective or some other in the middle of the night to address that situation. Every time it comes through its based on imminent risk to the child if their leaf us believed to be a danger . When youre provided with child pornography, do you have a way of assess original giving a rough percentage how often youre able to identify the children . Yes. Thats a key component to the cyber tip line and identification program. We have worked with Companies Like microsoft to develop tools like photo dna to allow for robust Imaging Technologies and the idea is to weed out known ima images. Our Victim Identification Program is keeping track of which children have been identified to focus on new victims and help Law Enforcement insure that victim can be res e rescued from that harmful situation. Im grateful for your work. When you see girls used in sex trafficking and they are victims themselves, do you end up seeing them prosecuted themselves very often . How often, if they are . Mr. Gohmert, thats a great question. A lot of states are struggling with that question when it comes to child sex trafficking. Something called safe harbor w laws are making their way around the country where states are ado adopting, not prosecutoring children who are being forcibly prostitu prostituted. I certainly support those laws. I would like to say, something miss pit man said earlier about all of the 500 former children she spoke to who grew up on the registry had been victimized or in some way prior to that. I just wanted to say on the victims behalf the vast majority of victims never become offenders. I want us to be very careful we dont accuse victims of chiles sexual abuse as having some greater percentage chance of becoming victimizers. They have no greater chance of becoming victimizers than the average population. I know somewhere in california one of the cities there, maybe san francisco, had taken away the illegal galty of someone of a certain age enga engaging in Sexual Activity which i understand motivation was to try to keep from making victims further, but on the other hand, from my experience as a judge and as a prosecutor, there are times thats what gets the child out of the situation theyre in. If its illegal it seems like that would be more motivation for pinches pimps or who ever i the sex trafficking to get more and more kids, detainee, its not illegal gee, its not illegal for them to do it. Detective, you have an observation about whether it should be illegal or not for children to engage in inappropriate Sexual Activity . In regards to that, we find sometimes the only way to get them the services that they need is through the court. We seek voluntary them to voluntarily go and have treatment and to be able to be reentered into society and not have to be in that world. Unfortunately sometimes the only way to do it is through services through the courts. I would argue there should be a multilayered not just a one charge fits all for those situations and a better look at what violation there is that fits their situation. Their sit. Thank you. My times expired but it seems like it may be more appropriate to make sure prosecutors and judges are educated about the role they can play rather than making that kind of activity legal. I yield back. Gentleman now yields back. Mr. Connier. I wanted to thank our witnesses today. This is a very important and sensitive subject. I wanted to ask miss pitman first. You testified that the states are still grappling with the question of juveniles and the sex offender registration and notification act compliance. Can you tell us a little bit more about that and why this situation exists . Absolutely. In 2006, adam warshack was the first juvenile law with delinquent. That happened at the very last minute. So in terms of the interplay of how we put on the registry, theres problems. For example, its supposed to be anything more serious than aggravated sexual abuse. However, certain statutes, south dakota, for instance, does not have a consensual statutory exception, so that a 14yearold with a 13yearold, you cant consent to sex under the age of 14. A 14yearold and 13yearold is convicted, a Forcible Rape. So that is a rape in south dakota. So if we said, hey, we want to get only keep serious children offenders on the registry, we would exclude all of those kids where its a consensual sex offe offense. So the problem is the adam worshack has problems under 14 but not looking at the perpetrator. Its coming out disproportion e disproportionately against children. So the other thing i mentioned is that states were moving in the direction, 2005, 2006, we just had roe v. Simmons. Got rid of the Death Penalty for juveniles and states looked at the research and said, we dont think we need to be kids on registries, but then the mandate came down saying they had to. So states cant follow what they want to do with their own Public Safety because of that mandate. Whats your view of how this could be corrected . In terms of how it could be correct, juveniles were actually included in the act with five words, basically saying for purposes of registration, a conviction includes a juvenile adjudication. Thats never happened in any law where we redefine what juvenile adjudication is. What i think is that we should take juveniles out, the five words out of adam raye shack an allow states to do what they do but also using the 3 billion to register just children for prevention, intervention and treatment services. Ten states that have absolutely never registered children and in fact, there are incidences on child on child sexual harm are lower and in some rates, the resr revisiticism is lower. We need to stop on the front end for things happening. Miss haigs. Aside from prosecuting people with children, can you discuss the importance of a holistic approach or a variety of different disciplines to the problem of child sexual abuse . Yes, sir. Thank you very much. Were never going to prosecute or investigate or prosecute our way out of child sexual abuse. Theres far too much of it to begin with. The National Childrens alliance noted in 2015 alone, 300,000 children were seen by Child Advocacy centers around the country and if you do the math, which i was told there wouldnt be any in this hearing, but if you do the math and extrapolate, thats a year and if its underreported 75 to 90 , anywhere between one in 3 million children a year maybe being abused and were only seeing 300,000 of them through Child Advocacy centers. So one part of the holistic approach, i think, sir, is Child Advocacy centers. These centers are the way to have a childfriendly, as much as is possible, experience for children going through the court system. So this is what happens after theres been a crime committed. These Child Advocacy centers help children sometimes with medical exams. They help children with therapy and treatment. All in a childfriendly atmosphere by people who are specially trained. Many of these Child Advocacy centers including some of those in my own home state of georgia. Im on the board of the Child Advocacy centers of georgia. Many of these centers simply dont have the funds. They have medical personnel and sometimes therapeutic personnel at the Child Advocacy center. A child has to go to a detectives office, to a police station, a hospital for an invasive medical exam. These things contribute to the recantation rates of children who have been sexually abused, once they started experiencing the criminal justice system, they recant. These Child Advocacy centers are critical to helping children through the process because children are not just little adults. And then on the prevention side, prevention is so important. Children are their own first best defense against being abused and they need to be educated. Good touch bad touch isnt working. Weve been doing that in schools for a couple of decades. Its not working. Mr. Sheehan said child pornography reports arent decreasing, so child sexual abuse is not decreasing. What are we not doing . Not arming children with knowledge or parents and coaches and the clergy with knowledge to look for the predator next door. The predator in the next house and the predator in the next classroom and without these kind of, as you noted, holistic approaches, were never going to prevent child abuse and all the detective cases will go to detective beaver to try to nitpick and identify them and prosecutors to try to prosecute the cases and its never going to be enough. Thank you so much. Gentleman yields back. Recognize the gentlelady from alabama, miss rogie. Thank you, piffirst of all, holding this hearing. Its a tough subject matter but its a necessary conversation into all of you that are here today. As a mama, i will tell you, it means a lot for you to share your experiences and your stories and as a new member of this committee, im really just hon mored to ored to be a part legislative body to have an opportunity to fight on behalf of the victims and do what we can to give you the tools need to further prevent these horrific acts against our nations children. So i was struck a bit by your testimony, miss pittman. As i understand it, the numbers i have in front of me and surprised to learn 200 of the roughly 900,000 individuals on the sex offender registries are children and youve made a very strong recommendation that in proposing all children be eliminated. I did watch the faces of the other folks on the panel as you were giving your testimony and i wanted to give you an opportunity to respond to that. I think that there has to be some middle ground on this issue and i think its incumbent upon us, on this committee to hear from the others on the panel with your expertise as well to have an opportunity to respond to that. So i dont care what order, but if you would weigh in, that will be most helpful. Thank you, congresswoman. I appreciate that. It theres no question that it is a troubling topic when you think about children abusing children, but in my practice as a prosecutor, i have handled cases of children abusing children. I had one case that was a gang rape case of an 11yearold girl by 20 men and boys starting at age 11 and ranging all the way up to age 30. This little girl was mentally disabled and was trapped in a closet for 8 hours while these 20 men and boys took turns sexually assaulting her. The one that was under 12 was treated as a juvenile. That was a sex offense. He attacked her in a dark closet while they videotaped it. Theres no question that that child understood what he was doing was wrong. And i will fight to my dying breath to say that the public deserves to be protected from him and that is the purpose of a registry. It is not punitive. It may have punitive consequences, as sex offenses should. But the purpose of it is Public Protection and you, who are a mother, would you or would you not like to know that the man living next door, 5, 8, or 10 years ago, trapped a mentally disabled girl in the closet and sexually assaulted her or do you think its okay not to know and your kids might play in his waurd on h backyard on his trampoline . We have trampolines in the south. Thats why. The adam rayeshack. States deserve to make decisions on this. District attorneys are in the best position to assess whether the 11yearold boy that i prosecuted should be convicted of a registerable defense but ill defend the right of the public to know that they are tors forced to live next door to a sex offender and thats the function of the registries. Well said, francie. Ill be brief because i know your time is tight. No registry is perfect. I think critical voices are important to encourage a review and to help make improvements along the way. I saw some comments and testimonies by a director of the United States Marshall Service last year where he, based on some of these criticisms and quite high numbers, 200,000 statistics. He had the u. S. Marshals dive into the registry, in this data. According to their review last year, it was around 2,000 juveniles are on the registry and theyre for very serious offenses. They must be at least 14 years at the time. What i would consider worst of the worst. So in many ways, i would consider these to reach out to the United States service and get updated information and dig into it more. You may have updated numbers and maybe not as high as some would expect. My time is expired but if you want to respond for the record, id love to hear your perspective, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Quickly, i will. I have dealt with these situations for years working special victims cases where you have a situation where you have to go to the prosecutor and say, we are charging this child, this juvenile for this horrible act that they commit against another juvenile or sometimes against an adult. We weigh heavily on our prosecutors to be educated and assisting us with a kind of mult multidisciplinary approach. Whats best for the child . Whats best for the public and the safety of the public . And we weigh each case heavily on these ndt meetings but i would say we have encountered juvenile sex offenders who, in my career, some of the scariest people ive ever met and in my statement, i place that in there. Gentleman yields back and recognize the gentleman from california. What was the scariest thing . Did you say . Im sorry. Yes. Im happy. Its a case i worked over multiple years involving a juvenile, and my scariest, what the potential of that individual could have done in separate occasions, could have killed four juvenile victims. This was a 16yearold male who attacked two juvenile females on the way to school on a bike trail he sees people walk on every day, attacks them, they fought back. Luckily, another student who walked by as well, they fought back, walled him in the neck and he ran away. When interviewing him after post miranda, after his miranda rights, he stated that he had every intent to take them back to his home or at least one to molest them and then push them in front of a bus. On this further down, we encounter him again after he got off the registry at the age of 19, he was released from djj which is our juvenile justice. Within a year, he attacked younger children while he was on the registry, while he was gps monitored, while allowed to work inside of a restaurant. Okay. I did want to ask you, thank you, and i also want to thank all of the panelists for the work that you do. I wanted to ask you, detective beaver, a couple of questions because you were making reference in your testimony to companies you talked about them notifying essentially the predator and i wanted to know, and you also talked about some barriers and i wanted you to elaborate about that and i dont want to run out of my time because i would like miss pittman to respond as well. Quickly going over the barriers, we do have companies that, several companies that will use verbage as the following. Yahoo will respond to us. They will notify users about governmental requests for their information except when prohibited by law. I submit to you several states lack those laws in order to protect the children in the Legal Process in trying to get the legal returns. They say that this is a policy within their own agency or their own company and for certain circumstances, theyre able to waive that. So we write back and say, were looking. This is a Child Exploitation case and outlined in my affidavit is some of the worst things youll read about the exploitation of a chield, the rape of a child, and a generic response back, saying you need to submit a nondisclosure order or show that the child is in eminent danger. In your written testimony, do you elaborate on the barriers . It sounds like you were making reference to the committee for how to respond to the barriers. Thats correct. A unified approach and maybe even more of a round table to address these issues with the companies and any type of legislation that would enable Law Enforcement with the authority. With the search warrant or subpoena that we have to establish probable cause in front of a judge or magistrate to get that legal paperwork. Mr. Beaver, miss pittman, i think you said enstastates do n allow children on the registry and i wonder, if they hadnt had any problems. Detective beaver in the case and miss haigs. Ten states never registered, some with a constitutional issue and some because they believe they have the secret for how to monitor children. So number one, that children get treatment and juvenile justice system. Second thing we have is when we have a 16 or 15yearold in new york or 14, they can be certified to adult court. The kids im talking about are children adjudicated delinquent where you cant bring cameras in or use the real names. Theres a confidentiality. This is kids in family court. The only children im talking about. We do have certification laws. The other thing is the federal adam, removing the mandate to put children on the registry so states can figure this out themselves. So i believe the adam has it but but in compliance and South Carolina, a child is on the registry for life on the public web site and talking about the mandate. And one of the problems, there is no key to decide who a juvenile is. A juvenile adjudication and goes on as a conviction. Manually search to figure out what people went on as juvenile in Juvenile Court. So the 2,000, i am interested in finding out because in the state of california, its 3,000 and state of texas, 9,000. This is all since 1994. So right there, were already over 2,000 so those were just some of the points. Thauk thank ynk you. And in california, a child under age cannot be considered as a prostitute. But she would be a victim. For my colleague over there. I would pray you have gods favor because its hard to listen to and your written testimonies were something i wish everybody would be aware of but i wouldnt recommend reading for everyone, you know . Look, miss haigs, in your written testimony, you said further is needed and what resources, where they would go or how to enhance training to recognize that . Thank you, mr. Johnson. Yes, what i was referring to was the kind of training that lots of Law Enforcement gives. Im sure detective beaver has done this themselves. Ive trained schools, charity organizations, Law Enforcement all around the world on something called grooming. And that is where you can recognize there are recognizable m methods of grooming children to ensure the conspiracy of silence and the cooperation of their own abuse. There are signs of child victimization that can be recognized and that are known an the world to professionals like those sitting at the table that you can train teachers, parents, children, most importantly, children, whether thats in schools or in churches or Law Enforcement going to visit them at the girl scouts or boy scouts, whatever their activities are, those people should all be receiving that kind of sophisticated training that allows them to observe the signs that an offender c eer is grooming a child. For children abused at home as miss pittman noted earlier, the vast majority at home are sexually abused by someone in their circle of trust and oftentimes, someone at home but not necessarily any grooming signs but may well be signs of child victimization but teachers, coaches, counselors and others and trained to hopefully intervene before that child is victimized for a long period of time. Thank you for that. Dr. Beaver, one complaint i hear back in louisiana is the issue with processing and then instructing sex offenders what their Registration Requirements are and i wonder in your experience if you would have any ideas on how to make that process maybe more streamlined or maac it more clear to those who are registered what the requirements are . I can speak to the commonwealth of virginia for the Virginia State police is in charge of the sex offender registry and keeping checks on the sex offender registry. They meet with them constantly and lay out every bit of what is needed from them. Im not sure if they handed them literature as far as what needs to be done but i recommend if that does not exist, a step by step process and where they fit on the sex offender registry and what their responsibilities are as a now citizen back in society. Yeah, maybe every state differs. In louisiana, in the jurisdictions we looked at, it was a copy of the law which most wont understand what that is. But enhance compliance so if theres a way to streamline that or put it in a vernacular so they know whats required, when were holding them accountable, helps. I know the state troopers often have a round table with the, he sits down with the sex offenders in that respective jurisdiction and have a round table. This is my understanding of what takes place and its that end face approach of explaining where not to go and breaking down to the federal code would help. Thank you, appreciate that. Mr. Sheehan, 50 seconds or so. Does your Organization Currently communicate any information or update the state and local agencies that oversee absconded offenders of your specific efforts in preventing noncompliant sex offenders . In 2006, after adam rashack was there, works with federal, state, tribal Law Enforcement. Primarily Marshal Service as they investigate noncompliant registered sex offenders. Since that time, helped more than 75,000 investigations. Wow. Thank you all. We went to Law School Center and louisiana at two lane. I heard your testimony and the detective. In louisiana, we incarcerate more people per capita anywhere in the world, not the United States, the world. And many of us on both sides of the aisle believe weve gotten past the point of diminishing returns with incarceration, every dollar we spend now on incarceration makes the country less safe because its money and resources that could go into making sure that people who should be on the registry are on the renl industgistry go to make safe. And as i reconcile the miller. Have v. Alabama case life without parole at some point, how do we reconcile one just criminal Justice Reform in terms of mass incarceration and are we utilizing effectively alternatives to incarceration like drug courts and others with the need to have resources to go after predators abthen last question would be, is there middle ground on juveniles being forced to be on the registry in terms of looking at the severity of the case . Because oftentimes when we do mandatory minimums or blanket cases, then you get unintended consequences. If we look at miss pittmans testimony in the first case, i would have to argue thats an unintended consequence most people didnt want. So miss haigs, start with you and then miss pittman and then mr. Sheehan. Thank you. I have to say respectfully, i think were going off,southern hunt when it comes to the juvenile registration issue. First, with respect to the factual scenario that miss pittman laid out, i dont know that particular case, the one in texas. It sounds odd to me. Im a former baby prosecutor an district attorney, if a child had taken off his clothes who had done the same thing. I would not be prosecuting that case. There would be no juvenile adjudication or prosecution. Thats what prosecutorial discretion is about. Im a defense lawyer and im also africanamerican. Ive been in court many times where prosecutorial discretion goes to the more affluent kid and not the other. I wont impugn to you any bias but i have to see the world the way that i see it and in my defense practice and in my life, i have seen where kids are treated differently based on social factors of income. Some kids get pushed to diversion and some kids get tried. So the question is still the same and im not picking a fight but the question is, can you see a case where there should be some middle ground . Lets assume this kid was prosecuted. Could you see a sense where we find middle ground . Yes, the adam rashak doesnt require it. He was under 14. And with the being color blind an biassed, i have a bias. I am absolutely positively 100 biassed against sex offenders and i will always err on the side of incarcerating someone who victimizes a child. I dont think we have an overconviction, ov overincarceration trial. Im not talking about sex offenders. Im talking about drug crimes. I agree with you completely. There are things that need to be talked about. This committee should be having discussions, as you are today, about the best policy with respect to juveniles on the registry but we are at epidemic proportions of child pornography and child sexual abuse but not on the sex offender registry. While i certainly respect your question and understand what youre saying and i cant solve the problems that youve asked me about today, but what i can say is that the bigger problems are about broadly, child sexual abuse an whether or not people like detective beaver and sheehan have resources they need in order to rescue these children and prosecute the offenders and i say the answer is no. And i yeield back, but mr. Chairman, i think a lot of resources they need are going to prisons to house low level drug offenders that we could use that money better. Thank you, mr. Chairman. I yield back. Thank you, the gentleman from louisiana. Recognize the gentlemen from the great state of texas. Judge powe. Thank you all for being here. Thank you for what you do. Im a former prosecutor. Led the d. A. s office in houston as the capital prosecutor and 22 years on the bench in houston and only trying felony cases. 25,000 people coming through the courthouse or the palace of perjury as i like to refer to it. And most specifically, thank you, mr. Sheehan, for what you do. It h it is a wonderful organization and does a lot of good things for our country. Im glad the adam war shack child safety acted passed. And while a lot is going on in the building today and a lot of hearings going on, what are the resource we have. Were in t were not talking about roads and bridges and taxes. Were talking about children. And myself and jim costa, california, were chairs of the victims rights caucus that promotes victims rights. A lot of it has to do with this lady right here. Jessica lunsford. Jessica lunsford in 2005 and 1 2 a rash of kidnappings, Sexual Assaults, and murders of children throughout the country. Lived in florida. She lived with her dad. Mark lunsford, who ive gotten to know very well. He worked for the city. He drove a truck. Shes asleep in her house in the middle of the night, an intruder cop comes in, kidnaps her, takes her to his house and put her main a closet and took her out from time to time when he wanted to abuse her. He did a lot of bad things to Jessica Lunsford. When he learned that the police was after him, he told her what he was going to do to her. And thats what he did. He tied her up with an extension cord and he put her in trash bags and he buried her alive. She was 9 when that happened to her. I guess shed be 21 now. Because of her and what happened to her and who the perpetrator was because he lived in georgia and moved to florida and was a sex offender registered in georgia. Child sex offender, imagine that, across state lines, nobody knew who he was, didnt register and thus Jessica Lunsford ended up being another victim of somebody who preyed on kids. Im glad we added to the adam walsh child safety act. Requirement if youre a sex offender and you change states, youve got to register again or its a federal offense. I believe that has been effective, but, you know, we dont talk about Jessica Lunsford anymore. Times moved on. And i just point this out because what the committees doing made up of a lot of trial lawyers and prosecutor, defense lawyers, we have an obligation to get it right with children and i say especially victims who have been killed or sexually assaulted, you know, just because theyre kids and thats who this predators pick. And i think we build prisons. We can talk about drug offenders and thieves, all of that kind of stuff but we build prisons for people who hurt kids. Thats why we build prisons. To keep them away from the rest of us, from other kids. So i just wanted to thank you for what you all do in looking at it. We have it on our hands now and now because of trafficking, something we didnt even talk about in 2006 when this bill was passed that we have more of an issue of making sure that we protect our most valuable resource. So thank you all for what you do to make life better for kids. Thank you, mr. Chairman, i yield back. Thank you, judge pope. Chair would now recognize lou. Thank you, mr. Chair. I want to thank the witnesses for their work you do. When i was active duty in the air force, i worked on sex offender cases as a prosecutor and in a california state legislature, i authored and coauthored a number of bills and sex offenders. So this is an important issue to me. In my experience, i have a sense that sometimes it may take a long time for a victim of a sex offense to come forward including children who were victims of sex offenses, so i want to ask panel, is that true and if so, why does that happen . Thank you so much, mr. Lou. It is true. If you look, for example, at the clergy or Catholic Church abuse cases, we have good statistics on that and there have been as many as 10,000 victims who have come forward in those cases. But those victims came forward after ten years and 20 years and 30 years and even 40 years. Even now, theres a percentage of them we know about because the priests have confessed to a certain number of children theyve abused but those same children now adults have not come forward. I think its a very complicated issue why children dont tell. It is often a grooming process when you talk about clergy abuse or abuse by a coach or teacher. That is the child is sort of bombarded with a con stalation of behaviors designed to secure the childs trust and then secure the child for Sexual Activity and then secure the childs conspiracy of silence in the end by showing them love and giving them gifts. The same way sex traffickers gain their Visitors Trust and potentially to be a family, give them gifts, a roof over their head, clothing, and then slowly force them to engage in sex against their will. Same is true for child victims. I think also, because most of the abuse happens in the family. Children are very well aware theyre going to blow up their family when they disclose abuse and understand someone may be in trouble and someone may be going to jail and unwilling to do it. I found in my practice, im sure detective beaver could talk about this, oftentimes, the reason children do come forward is because a younger sibling is now targeted by the offender in the family so they feel compelled. They wouldnt have done it just for themselves but now they feel compelled to rescue a sibling. Would you support extending the statute of limitations in the adam walsh act . Should we do that . I do. Many states no longer have statute of limitations for child sexual abuse and i support those efforts because i do think its a complex problem. I was telling someone at dinner last night as a prosecutor, as a federal prosecutor or state prosecutor, i never tried a single trial case where i did not have one person on the jury panel stand up and say, i cant sit on this case because im a victim. Some of those people said that was the first time they had every disclosed that abuse and one member in particular was 65 years old and never told anyone. So i support those. You said that we provide more resources to crack down on sex offenders. Are you aware that the president s Budget Proposal has a nearly 4 cut to the department of justice . I did read that. I think ha budget came out this morning and read that. But i dont have to support or defend or say i oppose the president s budget. Thank you. My friend on your board tells me great things that you all do and having myself worked on this issue as well, it does seem to me that the scale of this problem is monumental. You talk about 250,000 reports that your cyber tip line and let you answer this question. We have a lot of laws cracking down on sex offenders. There is still all of this offending going on. What sorts of things do we need to do differently to try to mitigate this problem . When you look at the issue of Child Sexual Exploitation and the internet, its vast. Theres tremendous work done by the Technology Companies to proactively identify and remove and report. Its fantastic and from a Public Safety standard issue thats ve very good. But the internet is large. Law enforcement is overwhelmed and they have to go into the dark corners of the internet to try to investigate these cases so while the likes of google, facebook, and microsoft can actively patrol but highly sophisticated individuals and you need highly trained Law Enforcement to go and rescue the children. But find all new content in those kind of forums as well as the cases. Gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes from tex texas. This is incredibly important topic iand hard to talk about sometimes. But for my time as a federal prosecutor, it is the Child Exploitation images that i have been forced to view from an incamera evidentiary standpoint as the most disturbing and difficult part of my job. Under president george w. Bush, the prosecution of Child Exploitation crimes became one of our core priorities at the Justice Department and under john ashcroft, the project Childhood Initiative was created and in that context that i had my first interaction with nick mick and was witness to the truly amazing work done there. To that point, mr. Sheehan, as of a few years ago, the most prolific child pornography image series was known as the jan feb series. And by prolific, i mean the most widely shared, the most widely collected, the most widely traded among Child Predators. Hundreds of thousands of times. Child predators around not just the country but around the world shared the most graphic images of the sexual molestation abuse, rape, and torture of a 6yearold girl at knife point in a cage. Images so disturbing and so grotesque, that as long as i live, i fear that i will never be able to get the images out of my mind, but the story of the jan feb series victim also serves as an incredible testament to the importance of the issues that were discussing today and the work thats been done at places like knit mik and icap detectives and prosecutors. It was a Police Detective who in analyzing the disturbing images saw in the background a school logo and working with the good folks at nit mik, they were able to identify the school and then the child and then the child biological father who was in fact the Child Predator who was raping and sodomizing his own 6yearold daughter unbeknownst to the rest of the family. Because of the good work at nit mik and with the i cap, not only is that Child Predator serving a sentence of more than 200 years in a federal prison but i had the opportunity to seek restitution under 18 usc 2252 and 52 a on behalf of that child victim. Again, with the support, mr. Sheehan, of the young lady sitting behind you, the general counsel for knit mik, and we were successful in doing so. So around all of the unhappy stories today, im happy to tell you that the victim of the most prolific child pornography image series in the United States has been able to live a remarkably ordinary life, extraordinary only in the sense of what shes been able to achieve based on whats happened to her. Inasmuch as shell shortly be graduating with hon who aors fr of the finest universities in the southeastern United States. Now i offer my continued thanks to nit mik and former prosecutors and also offer that to an example to my colleagues about what were talking about. This is not just law and policy. This is law and policy thats incredibly important and when done right works well. Everything from the cybertip line and adam walsh act, all of those things are necessary and needed. I reesappreciate you all being today. I am curious, mr. Sheehan, to talk a little bit about to follow up about the Technology Companies. Does nit mik have any partners with the Technology Companies to utilize innovative techniques to combat Current Trends in online Sexual Exploitation . Yes, absolutely. We couldnt do our job without partnerships with Technology Companies like google, microsoft, intel, palenteer. Many our chi in our child identification program, more than 200 million at the request of Law Enforcement. Using robust image hashing technologies through dna to weed out the images known as identified by Law Enforcement as known victims and focusing on those new children. Palanteer making sure we dont miss the needle in the hay stack. Make sure everything that comes through the system, alert Law Enforcement quickly to act upon those most vulnerable. So the technology companys, they are probably the shining star of our Public Private partnership and enable us to do so much more and they are in it for the right reasons. Absolutely. Terrific. Well, the chairman will indulge me, im sure someone has asked this but i had to go to another meeting and another Committee Hearing but one of the things in your report really jumped out at me and the cyber tip line despite the good work being done, i know its been incredibly effective but those numbers have jumped at an alarming rate. 8 million, what, 4 million reports in a single year, i think . 700 increase over a 2 year period. How is nit mik dealing with that challenge . Were certainly struggling in some perspectives. Yes, weve gone from 1. 1 million to the polling year, 4. 4 million and then 8. 2 million. Same 35 analysts process the reports on a daily basis. We have invested in technology. You cant hire an army of staff to review those types of reports. We use technology to work smarter and not harder along those lines. Its also a testament to how the Internet Companies have embraced technology to proactively find, remove, and report this content. We are littled to hathrilled to with publicly available images or reports theyve sent before to find this type of content and keep it out of the public view. I appreciate the chairmans indulgence. I would like to ask questions of all of you but let me just commend you all and thank you for the work youve done and continue to do. With that, i yield back. The gentleman from texas. I recognize myself last. Miss haigs, theres a special bond among prosecutors in congress, frankly, both sides of the aisle. Theres a really small chance that our previous jobs will enable us to go to heaven, so we are united in that, but johnny and powe put their finger on it more than anything else where were united in our inability to get the images of our hits and johnny has got them. Judge powe has them and any of us who did child pornography or sexual abuse cases and not just the physical imagery but trying to get a kid to testify. I hear the word children used. We refer to them as juveniles, not children. Theres a Childrens Court in South Carolina and a Juvenile Court. If youre a child and you dont know the difference between right and wrong, youre not going to be prosecuted but youre not able to testify. So trying to get a 4 or 5 or 6yearold kid qualified to testify in her or his own abuse case, thats the image im sure you still as well as a defense attorney positioning himself or herself so that child has to look at the perpetrator while he or she is telling what happened to him. I go last to encourage my colleagues to culminate with their participation but close up any loose ends. When i hear the term children, wills no childr there is no Childrens Court in South Carolina. It is a Juvenile Court for those under the age of 16 and there is a judge. So not only do you have to have a conviction but a judge exercise his or her discretion to put that person on a registry and you put your finger on it, a registry is a notification document. The public is hereby notified that this happened. If there is an 8yearold as miss pittman says there is, that is on the sex offender registry for life, that 8yearold needs a new lawyer, a new law. A new lawyer. Ill be curious if they found any 8 years old on the sex offender registry for life and a list of all 8 years old on the sex offender registry for life. They need to be the most egregious an 8yearold committed. This is what i want you to do for me. We wont do it today and ive got to get the chairman of the full committee and i had him in california and not virginia but if we can work through that, this is what i want you too for me. Give me a list of the providers that are giving you a hard time. Well have another hearing. We may let them come and publicly explain why they are having a hard time complying with Law Enforcement and Child Exploitation and child abuse cases. My guess is that it will be a very tough public explanation for them. So give me the names of the providers that youre having a h hard time dealing with. I may not make them do it but i can make them come and explain why theyre doing it and my guess is they wont want to do that. Their customers, 99. 9 of them, would expect to work with you. And my remaining time, miss haigs, you mentioned the Child Advocacy centers. Not only are they indispensable in the prosecution of Child Exploitation and child sexual abuse cases, at least in South Carolina, an Alarming Number are not even funded at the state level. So would you agree with me in having someone particularly r l trained in prepping witnesses for trial is indispensable asset for your trial . Indispensable. We have the victim component where they are sbooentitled to certain rights as a victim and indispensability, the necessity of their testimony at trial. All of which is a Law Enforcement function, all of which is a state function, so why are the states and the counties not funding what is primarily a state crime . Because theyre cheap and kids dont vote. Unfortunately. I truly believe that. Youve got, like i said, theres 795ish certified by the Child Advocacy centers around the country and the vast majority of them have to seek private funding to keep the doors open. Theres no excuse for it. I dont understand the lawmakers in the states. The federal government gives some money to the National Childrens alliance and they in turn dole a small amount of money out to the centers but see hundreds of thousands of kids every year and i guarantee thats one of the reasons why kids recant, are incapable of testifying, dont get up on the witness stand. Thats why even though with a number of cases brought, they never lead to a conviction because children need Advocacy Centers and a child friendly process to go through this. Very difficult system and they dont have it. You would agree with me that these are among the very toughest cases of all to prosecute, so youre either going to have a child as your star witness or youre going to have a pediatrician, preferably highly trained in being able to detect indications of abuse, but i never once had dna in an incest case or child sex abuse case. Its an expert and maybe a forensic therapist, oftentimes, all of them come out of the Childrens Advocacy Center and very little money is dedicated to that at the state and local level and i find it astonishing. Im out of time. I tell you what i would benefit from your experience as a prosecutor. If there are investigatory, procedural, or evidentiary things you think congress should look at for which we have jurisdiction to level the Playing Field for child victims and im thinking about everything from the legality of allowing a child to testify behind a veil where they dont get stared at by the perpetrator and 12 adults theyve never met before, any of that that you have in your experience that has levelled the playing feield for victims, i would greatly appreciate that and both sides would as well. Ill recognize mr. Conyers if he has any closing remarks. No, sir. I want to thank the witnesses, especially, for coming. Theres not a more important topic that we will deal with. So thank you for your expertise and thank you all four of you for the way you spent the other 364 days out of the year and if you have suggestions on what we could do to help or make it better, no matter whether its the registry for juveniles or investigation prosecution, hotline, you name it. Let us moe aknow and with that, are adjourned. [ room noise ] it wasnt boring, thats for sure. [ room noise ] captions Copyright National cable satellite corp. 2008 captioning performed by vitac