The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

Prevention Fairs, Information Booths, Distribution of Child Identification Kits, Distribution ofFlyers/Posters/Brochures and Presentations by Guest Speakers.D. Public-Private Coordination Efforts to Prevent and Interdict Child ExploitationThe Department of Justice also has relationships with private organizations focused on protectingchildren from exploitation, many of which it supports with grant funding. NCMEC is discussedin the preceding section, but the following is a more fulsome description of the program alongwith a brief description of several other partnerships.1. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC)Twenty years ago, a tragic series of child abductions and murders made names like Adam Walshof Hollywood, Florida and Etan Patz of New York household names. These tragedies exposed afundamental weakness in our approach to investigating multi-jurisdictional crimes: the UnitedStates, with its 50 states and approximately 18,000 separate state and local law enforcementagencies, had no established protocol for inter-agency communication and cooperation aroundcases of missing and endangered children. Because these cases almost always cross jurisdictionalboundaries, this was a fatal flaw in our response.At a White House ceremony on June 13, 1984, President Ronald Reagan announced the creationof the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and challenged it to attackthis difficult problem through a true public-private partnership. To assist in their work, NCMECwas granted online access to the FBI's national crime computer (NCIC) and other publicdatabases. In 1997, the FBI Director created a new field in the police report form, so that when achild is abducted, NCMEC receives instant notification. During its first five years of operation,NCMEC's recovery rate for missing children was 62 percent. Since 1990, the recovery rate hasclimbed to 97 percent.OJP provided the Department of Justice’s ongoing support of NCMEC, awarding more than $24million in FY 2008 to support the Center’s operations. Among the missions of NCMEC are tohelp prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation, help find missing children, and assistvictims of child exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them. OJP fundsassist NCMEC in its mission, which is in part based on congressional mandates (see 42 U.S.C.§§ 5771 et seq.; 42 U.S.C. § 11606; 22 C.F.R. § 94.6):• Serves as a clearinghouse of information about missing and exploited children;• Operates a Cyber Tipline that the public may use to report Internet-related childsexual exploitation;• Provides technical assistance to individuals and law-enforcement agencies in theprevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment of cases involving missing andexploited children;• Assists the U.S. Department of State in certain cases of international child abductionin accordance with the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International ChildAbduction;• Offers training programs to law-enforcement and social-service professionals;93