The National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction

deconflict cases, and share information. However, a national system linking all those lawenforcement investigators, and approved international partners, will exponentially increase ourknowledge of the threats and our ability to track suspects, than ever before.3. Increasing prosecutions and prosecution training.The Department is committed to increasing the number of federal prosecutions of childexploitation crimes. This objective will be measurable each year and reported to Congress. TheDepartment intends to achieve this goal by continuing to pursue the increasing number ofinvestigations that are initiated by federal and state law enforcement officers. The moreinvestigations that are pursued, the more likely it is that the number of successful prosecutionswill result. Further, the Department plans to continue educating and training prosecutors todevelop expertise in prosecuting child exploitation cases.4. Continuing cooperation and increasing collaboration.This Report highlights the numerous agencies and entities engaged in the fight against childexploitation, increased cooperation between federal, state, and local law enforcement and nongovernmentorganizations will only strengthen the battle. To that end, cooperation between theDepartment and industry remains a high priority. Industry, like Internet Service Providers andsoftware makers, will be a valuable partner in the fight to protect our children from technologyfacilitatedchild exploitation. Another critical area of coordination with industry is in theretention of data that might be relevant to child exploitation investigations. The Department hasparticipated in an Online Safety and Technology Working Group led by the Department ofCommerce to discuss this issue, among others, with industry and other interested parties, and areport to Congress will be forthcoming from that group.As noted above, Americans who travel to abuse foreign children show the worst of America tothe rest of the world. The Department is committing resources to working with our internationalpartners to address this problem. Increased cooperation between allies is a critical underpinningto successfully curtailing what is known as “child sex tourism.” The Department’s partnershipwith the Department of Homeland Security to provide space and agents from their respective lawenforcement components to staff Interpol is a prime example of this country’s commitment tointernational cooperation.5. Supporting and reviewing of relevant research.In preparing this Report, a comprehensive review of the relevant research relating to childexploitation was conducted, and is reviewed at the end of this Report. As the Threat Assessmentnoted, there are troubling links between those who exploit children by collecting and trading intheir sexually abusive images and those who are hands-on abusers. One might assume, andresearch appears to confirm, that those with a sexual interest in children, whether manifested bygratification using the images of horrific sexual assault or by committing a sexual assault,represent a risk to our nation’s children. However, to better prioritize targets and assessindividual risk levels, research is need to answer many questions, such as: how high is the risk achild pornography trafficker will be a hands-on offender; does the collection and use of these142