APRI Highlights - Summer 2003

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Debra Whitcomb

Director, Grant Programs and Development

Every prosecutor in this country is well aware that children are sexually abused and exploited, more often than not by people they know, love and trust. Many prosecutors have learned to surmount the unique challenges of these cases, ideally with training and support from APRI’s National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse. Today, however, with the proliferation of computers and widespread Internet access, prosecutors are confronted with yet another set of challenges, as America’s children are increasingly vulnerable to solicitation and exploitation on-line.

Soon, APRI will significantly expand its capacity in this rapidly advancing and ever-changing area. On May 14, 2003, APRI hosted a group of experts to chart future directions for this work. These experts included representatives of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP), along with a forensic interview specialist and several prosecutors who work with Internet Crimes against Children Task Forces across the country. The result was a plan for an unprecedented collaboration to create a progression of four courses devoted to prosecution of on-line crimes against children:

• Protecting Children Online—Prosecutors (PCO-PRO). NCMEC presently offers a 4-1/2 day course that provides basic instruction on computer forensics with particular application to child sexual exploitation.
  
  
• Advanced, or “level two” training for prosecutors. This course will presume some level of knowledge and skills specific to computer forensics, gained ideally from PCO-PRO but acknowledging equivalent training from other providers. This course will address issues of particular relevance to prosecutors in greater depth, focusing less on the forensics per se and more on legal questions (e.g., search and seizure). The course will also include a component on interviewing compliant victims. APRI will modify a course that we pilot-tested last year to incorporate these elements and to ensure its fit in the new continuum.
  
  
• Safety Net. This course, which APRI has already offered several times, is designed for teams of prosecutors, law enforcement, and forensic experts from each participating jurisdiction. It includes hands-on instruction and thus requires a setting with access to computers and the Internet. A mock trial component may be incorporated. Prerequisite instruction at the advanced level for prosecutors, and its equivalent for investigators, will be required. APRI will modify its existing Safety Net course as needed, especially to enable us to deliver the course multiple times each year, in multiple locations.
  
  
• Trial Advocacy. APRI will develop an intense trial advocacy course, modeled after the childPROOF course that APRI offers each year at the National Advocacy Center. The course will use a composite on-line child sexual exploitation case and provide instruction, practical exercises and critiques for every step of the trial process, from jury selection to sentencing hearings. APRI will work with an advisory group of prosecutors and other experts to design this new course over the next year.
  

With this new initiative, working collaboratively with NCMEC and other OJJDP training providers, APRI will have the opportunity to reach larger numbers of prosecutors across the country. These prosecutors, in turn, will be far better equipped to bring these cases to court successfully and protect children from the dark side of the Worldwide Web.

For information about APRI’s work on child sexual abuse and exploitation, contact the National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse at 703-549-4253 or ncpca@ndaa-apri.org.