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’Net force will
target pedophiles

A $288,000 federal grant
will fund state efforts to police
Internet crime against children

By Pat Gee
Star-Bulletin

The state attorney general's office will create a task force to combat Internet-related crimes involving children with a $288,000 grant from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The office's Missing Child Center-Hawaii is spearheading the effort, which will involve prosecutors, police, schools, parents, and other child protective agencies. Center coordinator Anne Clarkin said the task force should be in place in a year.

Five years ago, when the center was created, there were no known Internet-related crimes, Clarkin said.

That's not the case today.

The task force's efforts will be aimed at pedophiles who lure children over the Internet instead of at playgrounds or video arcades as they did before the computer age.

"They (children) don't get assaulted from the start, they get sweet-talked and seduced," Clarkin said.

One of the task force's three prongs of approach will be to educate children, teachers and parents about what to be wary of.

At most of the group presentations the center has held in the past, all the children admitted being contacted by "someone weird" but did not tell their parents because they were afraid their computers would be turned off, Clarkin said.

Although parents can bar their children's access to certain pornographic channels on more sophisticated computers, they still have to pay more attention to what goes on, she said.

Children "can be roped in in five minutes" by a pedophile on the Internet, so the task force intends to "teach kids to be forewarned that people aren't who they appear to be," she said.

Another goal will be to create state laws -- none exist now -- to make it illegal to use the Internet for such criminal activity.

State laws would strengthen the U.S. Justice Department's efforts to enforce federal laws, Clarkin said.

The task force also will seek to educate law enforcement officers on how to investigate and apprehend offenders so evidence collected "will stand up in court," Clarkin said.

The ordinary police officers have "no idea what to do with Internet crimes," because they may not be computer literate or have the experience, she said.

Hawaii is one of 10 grant recipients nationwide in the third allotment of similar grants for the development of task forces.