June 6, 2011
We wanted to share this moving poem written by ICAC Detective Shawn Cronce, which she shared with us following her attendance at our SHIFT Training at the 2011 National Strategy Conference on Combating Child Exploitation in San Jose, CA.
Thanks Detective Cronce!
I watch.
I watch your abuse
I watch everyday
I watch as you scream
Or try to wiggle away
I watch as you cry
I watch as you pray
For God to come save you, to take you away
I watch when most can’t
I watch in disgust
My heart breaking more, with every touch
Your innocence stripped from you, outright stolen
Your little red eyes all puffy and swollen
You have been violated in the worst of ways
I watch, I watch, I watch for days
I watch for clues for things he has missed
I watch, I watch, I’m getting pissed
Your little body all tattered and broken
I watch as he makes you his own little token
I watch and I see your tear hit the pillow
And realize mine are sure quick to follow
I watch and I pray
For the strength to keep watching, watching everyday
I watch to catch him, to put him away
Lord please help me fight off this depression
God only knows how I want to teach him a lesson
I watch so forgive me as I take no joy
In the sexual abuse that you must endure
I watch his face when I come through that door
When he knows he can’t hurt you, not anymore
Now I watch as you heal and you learn how to grow
Without the abuse that you’ve come to know
I watch as you look me straight in the eye
Without saying a word I know what you’re thinking
You’re thankful I watched everyday without blinking…
© Detective Cronce
April 18, 2011
With the advent of the Internet, child sexual abuse and exploitation cases have exploded. Today, hundreds of thousands of pedophiles can easily find one another through cyberspace, encourage each other to commit crimes, teach one another how to do so, and share strategies on how to effectively evade law enforcement and justice.
Unfortunately, due to lack of resources, law enforcement can only investigate less than 1% of these individuals, leaving millions of innocent children vulnerable.
If you care about the safety of our children, please take a moment now to sign and share our petition!
March 25, 2011
On 3/16/11, the California state legislature voted to move Assembly Bill 109 forward, which includes a public safety ”realignment” proposal intended to shift the burden of incarceration and parole supervision from the state to local counties, all in an effort to balance the budget.
While the Brown administration claims this plan will not jeopardize public safety and would actually increase “local control,” it is in truth a scheme to release prisoners early, keep repeating offenders in our communities and pass the state’s budget woes on to our counties. And as this 3,000 page proposal was only made available last Thursday, there simply will not be enough time for law enforcement, lawmakers and the general public to study and comment on the legislation before a vote in the Senate and Assembly.
One of the elements of the proposal includes shifting approximately 38,000 offenders in the first year (16,000 from prison and 22,000 from parole) onto local public safety officials and local courts. By 2014, This number would grow to 68,000 (40,000 from prison and 28,000 from parole).
Unfortunately, the governor’s proposal makes no mention of additional resources being made available to law enforcement to handle the vast amount of these unrehabilitated offenders into our neighborhoods. Local sheriffs are already burdened with their own jail and inmate housing challenges.
The governor’s proposal also includes a resurrection of a failed policy idea repealed last year due to public outrage, which involves shortening the sentences of many felons and leaving many more parolees without supervision. In addition, it is expected that approximately 40,000 felons would gain the right to vote because convicted felons not housed in state prison, according to current election code, have the right to vote. This proposal says nothing about ammending the election code.
Another troublesome aspect of the bill is that it will impose a maximum disposition of 14 days in county jail for a Parole Unit sanction or 30 days in county jail imposed by a court sanction. Currently, child sexual abuse offenders receive a parole violation of 10-12 months for having contact with children.
Proponents of the bill state that the lower risk parolees do not require supervision, however the determining factor for “low-risk” raises concern as it is based on their current prison offense, not their history. So repeat offenders of violent crimes, who are currently serving on a petty theft charge, would be considered low-risk under this proposal. Domestic violence offenses are not considered serious or violent felonies.
The governor’s proposal puts all of us at risk by placing an overwhelming burden on local courts and law enforcement agencies who simply will not have the resources to supervise, manage or rehabilitate this huge influx of criminals.
California is not alone in having to make some difficult choices to resolve budget issues, however those choices should not jeopardize our public safety and our inherent right to live free of fear of becoming victims of these unsupervised criminals.
This proposal must be rejected if we are to keep our families and communities safe.
We urge everyone to call, write and email their state senators and assembly members and demand that they vote “no” on AB109 or any other parole realignment proposal. State representatives can be found at:
Senators: http://1.usa.gov/hatDXR | Assembly Members: http://1.usa.gov/eFDSoy
Please pass this critical message along via the social media and email links below. Thank you!
February 7, 2011
Thank you to all of our Innocent Justice social media friends! We’ve just passed (or nearing) a few milestones:
- 206 Facebook Fans
- 6 shy of 500 Twitter Followers
- 102 members of our LinkedIn Group!
Beginning to build our following is just the first step.
We hope you can join in and create more discussions for us on any of these media you may use. Raising awareness of the increasing prolifieration and true nature of child sexual abuse and torture images is central to our mission. With increased awareness we believe we begin to affect real change. Positive legislative change is beginning to happen in some parts of the country. Let’s keep the momentum spreading!
We welcome all of your continued support in helping to use your social media networks to keep the conversations going!
Connect with us:
December 15, 2010
A Note from our Friends at PROTECT.org:
In the next few days, the Senate is planning to vote on an “omnibus spending bill.” Contained in that bill is $60 million in desperately-needed child rescue funding that PROTECT fought for all during 2010.
If the omnibus fails, state and local law enforcement resources for fighting child exploitation will be slashed in half. Thousands of children will be left in the hands of sexual predators, simply because the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces didn’t have the people to go rescue them… even though they know where they are.
That’s why we need you to call these Senators, who we believe might help us:
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) 202-224-6551
Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) 202-224-2523
Sen. Scott Brown (R-MA) 202-224-4543
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME) 202-224-5344
Here’s what to say:
- I’m calling to urge you to vote for the omnibus spending bill.
- I understand you are leaning towards a YES vote. Here’s why that’s important…
- The omnibus contains $60 million in funding for the ICAC task forces [pronounced eye-kack]. This money will give police the resources they need to stop child pornography traffickers and rescue children.
- And here’s why child protection matters to ME…
(Speaking to the staffer who answers the phone is okay. They log your call, and the office will feel the combined impact of all our calls! If you don’t get through the first time, please try again.)
Please forward this message to friends and neighbors today! Thank You!
NOTE: The omnibus spending bill is not the same legislation as the tax bill recently in the news. The omnibus will fund all government operations in 2011, and it’s the result of a year of work by both Democrats and Republicans. There are no other options on the table that include this $60 million. We win or lose right now. If you believe, as we do, that pro-child, anti-crime voters must focus on the single issue of child protection, please call these Senators today!
December 9, 2010
A Note from our Friends at PROTECT.org:
Congress is hours away from making a terrible mistake — and the lives and safety of thousands of children are at stake.
Today–and for the next few days–we need you to call
Sen. Harry Reid (Senate Majority Leader)
(202) 224-3542
Sen. Mitch McConnell (Senate Minority Leader)
(202) 224-2541
What’s Going On…
In 2010, PROTECT secured $60 million for America’s “ICAC task forces” (ICAC is short for Internet Crimes Against Children). ICACs are law enforcement task forces that track child pornography traffickers across the Internet, often following the trail of evidence right to the door of a child who is being raped or tortured. Every day ICACs rescue children from horrible abuse.
But this $60 million is on the chopping block… potentially cut from billions in spending by selfish, fighting politicians who care more about taxes and scoring political points than they do about these children.
Why Inouye and Cochran? These two Senators control whether the $60 million stays or goes. They need to hear why ignoring the cries of children is a very dumb political move that could cost them Senate seats in 2012. If they won’t feel the pain of child victims, let’s remind them there’s enough pain to go around!
What to Say:
You don’t have to be an expert. You just need to make a few points:
1. Tell them you vote.
2. Tell them to demand the full $60 million in ICAC funding for 2011, no matter what kind of
spending bill the Senate ends up passing, Omnibus or CR *
3. Tell them, “No excuses!” You’ll hold them and their party responsible.
4. Tell them why it’s important to you personally.
Please Call NOW! You will save lives!
Please forward this to as many people as you can. Thank you.
——————-
* Here are the details if you need them. Remember, you don’t have to get into the weeds if you don’t want to… just tell them your values and your demands. You’re a voter, and that’s enough!
The full $60 million is already in the Senate FY11 appropriations bill for the Justice Department, also known as the “Omnibus.” If the Senate doesn’t pass an Omnibus, it will pass a “Continuing Resolution” (or “CR”) instead. If that happens, the $60 million gets cut in half to $30 million. That means half the children rescued!
If you hear that there might not be an Omnibus bill, but a CR instead, tell them you want the $30 million in the CR! They have the power to add “report language” that “carves out” the $30 million from the COPS budget. (That’s where it is now.) This will bring the total ICAC funding back up to the $60 million now in the Senate spending bill or Omnibus.
–The Staff and Volunteers at PROTECT
December 2, 2010
Recently Time.com published an article entitled, “Study: Making Pornography More Accessible May Curb Child Abuse.” We responded:
Dear Ms. Park and Time Editors,
The Innocent Justice Foundation exists to educate the public on the true nature and scope of child pornography, and thereby correct misperceptions within the US population that using child pornography is a victimless crime, similar to viewing adult pornography, as might be implied by the article published today on Time.com entitled, “Study: Making Child Pornography More Accessible May Curb Child Abuse.” I would respectfully argue that nothing could be farther than the truth, and that possessors are extremely dangerous to children. As a University of Chicago MBA and CEO of the organization, I insist we only use solid government statistics and peer-reviewed studies to underlie our assertions.
Studies that use report rates for child sexual abuse (as was the subject of the article) are fatally flawed in that a meta-analysis of 30 years of research over several continents, including Europe, concludes that only 5-8% of child sexual abuse is ever reported.[i] Clearly, any study that relies upon reports of abuse would be hugely unreliable.
In fact, solid peer-reviewed US studies clearly show that 85% or more of child pornography possessors molest children, and that child pornography possessors have many undetected victims before being caught. Yet this message, so vital to the health of American children, is not given equal time in the media.
In 2006, a peer-reviewed study was conducted by psychologists at Butner Federal Prison Sex Offender Treatment Program with child pornography offenders. It found:
- 85% of child abuse image possessors admitted to molesting children,
- 13% denied abusing children but failed a polygraph test, and
- The final 2% denied abuse, passed the polygraph, but admitted if they had had a chance to molest a child, they would have.[ii]
“(Child Pornography) offenders are far more dangerous to society than we previously thought,” says Dr. Hernandez, co-author of the study.
One of the largest myths about child pornography is that it is mostly naked children in the tub or running around on the beach. Today’s article on Time.com has reinforced that misperception in two ways.
First, the article never mentions that child pornography consists of graphic crime scene images of children being raped and tortured, which is now the norm. Yet a Time article from 2005 quotes former Det. Sgt. Paul Gillespie of the Toronto Child Exploitation Unit as saying, “tens of thousands of children are being tortured, and it doesn’t seem to be registering.”[iii] One Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer says of the images, “they are infants, they are not even walking and they are still in diapers, and adults are having sexual intercourse with them. There are pictures with animals.”[iv]
In reality, only 1% of child pornography collections seized by law enforcement limit themselves to nude photos. A US Congress-funded study of child pornography offenders published in 2005 shows that those young children depicted are being violated unspeakably:[v]
- 80% possessed images of sexual penetration, and
- 21% possessed images depicting the children being raped, bound, gagged, blindfolded or “otherwise enduring sadistic sex,”
- 83% possessed images of children between the ages of 6 and 12,
- 39% possessed images of children 3 to 5 years old,
- 19% possessed images of children younger than 3.
Your article uses a quote in the last paragraph from Dr. Christian saying that children are photographed in “provocative and naked ways.” Clearly, these are not just “provocative” or “naked” images. They are gut-wrenching, horrific images and videos with sounds of very small children screaming in pain recording the worst trauma a child could ever experience in their lifetimes. Many of the children being violated in the images are in the US, Canada, and Europe. Many never fully recover from this trauma. In addition, the fact that millions of pedophiles use these images of their abuse and torture, which will be on the Internet for all time even after the child reaches adulthood, old age and even death, to masturbate and gain sexual release continues to re-victimize these children for a lifetime.
Because these are crime scene photos and videos, for the first time in the history of mankind police can use them to try to track down these heinously abused children, toddlers, and infants, and rescue them from their abusers. But due to lack of resources, police can only get to a tiny fraction of American victims.
To imply in any way that continued abuse and torture of these children (many in the US) to produce millions more images that would be legally distributed to pedophiles in order to continue to feed their appetites is irresponsible of the author of the study you feature, and by publishing the premise he suggests, another blow to children who have little hope of ever being rescued due to lack of law enforcement resources.
I hope you will grant these solid facts I have cited an equal airing on your website and your magazine, in order to present a more balanced and accurate picture of the current situation of child sexual abuse and torture images in the US and world today.
Best regards,
Heather Steele, President & CEO
[i] Collings, SJ. “How do Sexually Abused Children Disclose? Towards and Evidence-Based Approach to Practice.” Acta Criminologica 19 (1) 2006
[ii] Bourke, Michael L. and Andres E. Hernandez, “The ‘Butner Study’ Redux: A Report of the Incidence of Hands-on Child Victimization by Child Pornography Offenders,” Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2006, Journal of Family Violence, Volume 24, Number 3, 183-191, DOI: 10.1007/s10896-008-9219-y http://www.springerlink.com/content/c313832g17rt2850/?p=452f458b0c2c45729401a99f4f832c80&pi=0
[iii] Frank, Steven. “Toronto’s Child Porn Sleuths: A Canadian team leads the way tracking down global perpetrators of grisly Internet child pornography.” Time Canada, Jul 25, 2005.
[iv] “Dirty Work” Pulse24.com, Toronto’s 24 Hour Newsource, March 15, 2006. www.pulse24.com
[v] Wolak, et. al, “Child Pornography Possessors Arrested in Internet-Related Crimes: Findings from the National Juvenile Online Victimization Study”, 2005. http://www.missingkids.com/en_US/publications/NC144.pdf
October 7, 2010
It’s always a great joy to receive private foundation, corporation, and individual donations to support law enforcement in their hunt to take more child sex predators off the streets, and yesterday was a banner day. In this time of slashing of law enforcement budgets, two foundations in Connecticut have generously funded the extreme needs of law enforcement for the basic tools they need to do their jobs. With this new $12,500 in funding, we are able to provide Hartford Police Department with a Cellebrite UFED forensic unit, and New Britain Police Department with a Blackthorn2 GPS forensic device, and a Forensic Computers Air-Lite IV MK II to acquire and analyze evidence that can help them find and rescue local babies and children who are being horrifically sexually abused.
We love shopping for cops, but even more, we love going to bed at night knowing more babies will have their nightmares of abused stopped and hundreds or thousands of Connecticut children will never know the pain and humiliation of having sexual abuse or torture forced upon them.
August 20, 2010
I am reminded time and again how little we can achieve on our own, and how reliant we are on people with large hearts to help us in our mission of supporting cops who rescue kids from sexual abuse. Recently we’ve gotten large donations – one from the Fresno Regional Foundation to fund mobile forensic units for Fresno Parole agents who had no other way to check sex offender computers for child sexual abuse images, another from a Foundation in Kansas who was willing to make sure that the Kansas Internet Crimes Against Children task force has the tools it needs to teach small agencies throughout the state how to find and catch child sex predators. We are incredibly grateful to these foundations for their significant investments into keeping their local children safe.
But even small donations which go to help Innocent Justice keep operating mean so much to us and go a long, long way. Tuesday we had our annual fundraising event, this year hosted by the Firefly Grill and Wine Bar in Encinitas, California. Forty people joined us to enjoy great food, great wine, and to honor the local heroes – San Diego ICAC Commander Chuck Arnold, and Deputy District Attorney Jeff Dort – who have sacrificed much over the years to take dozens of bad guys who would hurt kids out of our communities.
We rely upon the love and the support every one of our supporters give – whether it be listing items for sale on Ebay and donating the proceeds to us, volunteering time at an event, donating and/or selling t-shirts or sweatshirts, serving on our board, or giving us the cold cash we need to do our work.
As we start our third year of operations, we are hearing the stories of the children rescued by law enforcement due to the software, training, and equipment funded by our donors. For every donor, large or small, your investment of love, support, and money is leading to the ultimate success – children who will never know the pain and agony of sexual abuse.
In deepest gratitude,
Heather Steele, President & CEO
July 14, 2010
Want to meet the real heroes who dedicate their lives to helping rescue San Diego children? On Tuesday, August 17, come join us at the Firefly Grill and Wine Bar in Encinitas at 6 pm for our annual fundraising event and have a chance to talk to members of the San Diego Internet Crimes Against Children task force and the San Diego District Attorney’s Office who have rescued local children from a nightmare of abuse. We appreciate your support in joining us to honor these front line heroes for the sacrifices they make in order to make our neighborhoods safe again.
Sign up now! Cost is $75 to July 17, $100 from July 18-August 17, and $125 at the door.
Silent auction items include a $750 portrait package from Coast Highway Photography, $580 earrings from Hot Rock Jewelry and much, much more.
We wanted to share this moving poem written by ICAC Detective Shawn Cronce, which she shared with us following her attendance at our SHIFT Training at the 2011 National Strategy Conference on Combating Child Exploitation in San Jose, CA. 
