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 CountySheriffs 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