A twice-convicted registered sex offender from Connecticut is tracked down, arrested and charged with sexually assaulting a 14-year-old boy in Fairfax County after meeting the teenager online.

In an investigation lasting 18 months, a suspect is charged and convicted of 15 felonies and sentenced to eight years in prison. Charges included the making of homemade videos in which one juvenile was raped and eight young females were further victimized and exploited.

A local university official is arrested and charged with having sexual relations with at least seven area teenagers.  It takes months to uncover all his victims.  A Fairfax County jury convicted him on ten felony charges and sentenced him to 11 years in prison.

Police investigators following up on a suspicious event report uncover two adults making contact with teenaged boys in an Internet cafe in Centreville. The men provided the teens with marijuana and alcohol, had sexual relations with them while the teenagers were incapacitated, and videotaped the encounters.  Both men were charged with making pornographic videos of juveniles, and both have been tried, convicted and sent to prison.

The above cases are real. They are taken from the growing files of the SPEAD (Sexual Predator Enforcement and Apprehension Detail) unit created by the Fairfax County Police Department with funds provided by ChildSafeNet, Inc. (CSN).

ChildSafeNet’s signature P’CASO* (Protecting Children Against Sex Offenders) Partnership Program represents a unique public-private partnership that began with approval by the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors in late 2002. ChildSafeNet, a Fairfax County-based 501(c)(3) non-profit charitable organization, capped off a successful initial fund raising effort when its first formal law enforcement partner, the Fairfax County Police Department, launched the SPEAD unit as an operational law enforcement program in Fall 2004. By December, 2006, ChildSafeNet had contributed nearly $1.3 million to fully fund a SPEAD Unit that is now four detectives strong, and two more detectives who are dedicated to Internet surveillance and computer forensics analysis.

P’CASO is now in its third law enforcement year in the Child Services Unit of the Fairfax County Police Department’s Major Crimes Division. Its work can now be shared with the community for the first time.

In addition to cases like the ones listed above, SPEAD detectives are tasked with regular, proactive, aggressive monitoring of the hundreds of registered sex offenders in Fairfax County.

In SPEAD’s first year, over one third of the 140 offenders then monitored (nearly 35%) were found to be out of compliance with the terms of their release from prison.

By the end of SPEAD’s second operational year, the non-compliance rate for known offenders in Fairfax County dropped to under 25%, nearly a 30% improvement.

As a specialized law enforcement unit, SPEAD has established an investigative database of up-to-date information on registered sex offenders in Fairfax County. This powerful law enforcement tool is now available to all FCPD officers, right down to the neighborhood patrol level.

The FCPD has established a goal of fully verifying the registration information of all known registered sex offenders in each of Fairfax County’s eight districts one and one half times each year.
 
And this is just the beginning. The P’CASO Partnership Program is making Fairfax County safer for kids.

History

During the Fall of 1999, Diane Beatty, president and founder of ChildSafeNet, listened in astonishment to a news report that her father had been arrested in a local park. He was there expecting to meet a 13-year-old girl with whom he had established Internet contact for purposes of a sexual encounter, only to find that he had been “luring” the only Fairfax County detective then assigned to Internet surveillance on a fulltime basis. After more than 20 years of having no contact with her father, Ms. Beatty was stunned to realize he was still present in the community and still preying on children in the same way he had abused her beginning when she was five years old.

Together, Ms. Beatty and the Fairfax County Police Department spent two years planning, developing and launching ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO (Protecting Children Against Sex Offenders) Partnership Program. As a result, Fairfax County’s neighborhoods are now safer for children.

ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO (Protecting Children Against Sex Offenders) Program

Child sexual predators pose real challenges for people in all communities. As P’CASO partners, ChildSafeNet and the Fairfax County Police Department are meeting those challenges. P’CASO became operational as a law enforcement program in October 2004.

The P’CASO Mission

The shared public/private mission of the P’CASO partnership is to increase Fairfax County’s capacity to make children safer from the dangers posed to them by sexual predators.


Goals

P’CASO has three major goals:

• To aggressively monitor registered sex offenders to ensure that they are in strict compliance with the terms of their release from prison.
• To conduct proactive surveillance operations to detect, arrest and prosecute child sexual predators who are seeking to victimize minors, both online and in the open community.
• To deliver quality, community-based educational programs on child and teen safety that will help make Fairfax County neighborhoods safer for adults and kids alike.
  

Today, thanks to the P’CASO Program . . .

• A new SPEAD (Sexual Predator Enforcement and Apprehension Detail) has been established to better protect Fairfax County’s children . . .
• SPEAD detectives aggressively monitor registered sex offenders in Fairfax County for strict compliance with the terms of their release from prison, . . .
• investigate new cases of child sexual predation, . . .
• contribute to current local and inter-jurisdictional investigations of sex crimes against children , . . .
• update Virginia’s Sex Offender Registry with accurate information for predators in Fairfax County, . . .
• and populate a new Fairfax County database with current information on known sex offenders so all FCPD personnel can proactively help better safeguard our children . . . .
• Fairfax County residents have access to a wide range of child/teen safety programs arranged and sponsored as a public service by ChildSafeNet.
  

A Word about Online Risks – Child/Teen Safety in the Internet Age

For many years now the benefits of the Internet have been widely known and enthusiastically embraced by much of the world’s population, including kids. It is difficult to remember a time when it was not part of our lives.

Online risks to kids, however, including threats from sexual predators, are growing daily and are only recently beginning to attract widespread public attention. Dangers posed to minors in cyberspace are fast becoming a “hot topic” in homes, at office water-coolers, in employee lounges, at school administrative, teacher and PTA meetings, in church groups and on the playgrounds and athletic fields where parents gather with their children.

It is not much of an exaggeration to say that technology, almost daily, provides kids new ways to get into trouble – in chat rooms, via instant messaging, on proliferating blog and “social networking” sites, in game rooms, and now with the widespread use of wireless technology, live web-cams and phones that transmit text messages and pictures. Unlike the “real world” (where threats may be obvious) the Internet offers the illusion of invulnerability, while simultaneously bringing every aspect of that world front and center, right into the perceived “safety” of our homes and personal lives. Adults are belatedly discovering that an entire generation of tech-savvy kids is all too familiar with the dark side of the Internet. Parents commonly lag well behind their precocious offspring in technical prowess, and are increasingly bewildered and desperate for solutions.

While life on the Internet may be innocent enough for most of us, online threats are all too familiar to victims, their families, and the law enforcement officials who deal in their aftermath. ChildSafeNet is committed to making sure that kids in Fairfax County get the best protection possible.

Accordingly, in its second year, ChildSafeNet and the Fairfax County Police doubled the original size of the P’CASO law enforcement effort and broadened its focus. Second year funding from ChildSafeNet made possible the creation of three additional new law enforcement positions:

• an Internet surveillance detective
• a computer forensics detective
• a fourth SPEAD detective.

These positions established a new level of protection for kids online, and brought to six (6) the total number of P’CASO detectives devoted to better protecting children and teens in Fairfax County.

P’CASO Child/Teen Safety Educational Programs - a Public Service

It is clear that, in addition to sufficient law enforcement capacity, a knowledgeable and alert community is crucial to keeping kids safe. Making communities safer for kids in our fast-paced, modern world is the shared responsibility of both the public and private sectors.

Model law enforcement programs and the readiness of citizens to become educated
about child and teen safety are two sides of the same child protection coin.

ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO child/teen safety programs are available to all interested groups in Fairfax County. Workplace programs especially will make it possible for people to access vital child/teen safety information without disrupting family time in the evening.

ChildSafeNet presenters include law enforcement and public and private sector child welfare expertise from the Fairfax County Police Department, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force, Childhelp USA/Virginia Children’s Center, PRE-ACT/r.a.d.KIDS professionals, the NetSmartz Workshop, United States Homeland Investigations, Inc. and others.

ChildSafeNet programs have reached hundreds of families in Fairfax County with quality personal safety education in “Adults Only” and “Kids Only” formats. Topics range from Internet Safety, the importance of background checks, home security measures, personal safety training and empowerment programs for kids, to understanding and using the sex offender registry, the characteristics of child sexual predators, recognizing and responding to the signs of child abuse, and staying safe in the community at large.

In partnership with its law enforcement partners, ChildSafeNet has conducted mandatory training for Fairfax County Recreation Center managers, and presented to Northern Virginia Community College “Camps Management” students, the Virginia Recreation and Parks Society, and numerous churches, public and private schools, and other community and civic groups.

Further extending its outreach, ChildSafeNet has regularly published articles in the Fairfax County Journal Women’s Journal, the Burke Conservator, in Fairfax County Police District Station monthly newsletters, and the Blue Ribbon Campaign Summer Fun and Safety Guide.

Reports, Articles and Honors

In late 2006 the International Association of Chief’s of Police (IACP) published a comprehensive report entitled Managing Sex Offenders: Citizens Supporting Law Enforcement. ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO Partnership with the Fairfax County Police was one of a dozen programs from across the nation selected for this study and reported on in this 43 page publication.

Articles about ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO program have also appeared in:

• The Fairfax County Courier
• ParkTakes – the magazine of the Fairfax County Park Authority
• 2004 Fairfax County Police Department Annual Report.

ChildSafeNet was awarded the Fairfax County Park Authority’s 2005 Trailblazer’s Good Neighbor Award.

ChildSafeNet extends an invitation to all interested Fairfax County residents and businesses to become P’CASO Partners and support the ongoing work of making our community safer for kids.

Learn how to become a P’CASO partner.

Board of Directors. ChildSafeNet, Inc.: Diane C. Beatty, President and Founder, David M. Rohrer, Chief, Fairfax County Police Department, J. Thomas Manger, Chief, Montgomery County Police Department, , Steve Salem, Executive Director, Cal Ripken, Sr. Foundation. Advisory Members: John D. Pellegrin, Esq.; John M. Rabun, Vice President of Operations, National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Special Thanks: Great appreciation and much credit also goes to the following for their participation in and support of ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO Program: The Fairfax County Board of Supervisors; Major Shawn Barrett, Commander, Criminal Investigations Bureau, FCPD; Captain Michael A. Spradlin, Commander, Major Crimes Division, FCPD; Lt. Jake Jacoby, Supervisor, Child Services Unit, FCPD; Lt. Scott Durham, FCPD; Major Robert Callahan, FCPD (Ret.); Iris Beckwith, IKeepSafe Coalition; William B. Kearney, President, W. B. Kearney & Associates; Kurt M. Markva, Principal, Government Resources Group; Abigail Shannon; and staff members at the Boys & Girls Clubs of America and Childhelp USA/Virginia Children’s Center.

ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO Partnership Program has been funded by grants from the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. We are grateful to Congressmen Frank Wolf, Tom Davis and Jim Moran, and to former Senator George Allen and Senator John Warner for their support of the P’CASO Program.

Contact Information

ChildSafeNet works in partnership with the Fairfax County Police and the community at large to make communities safer for kids. For more information or to schedule a ChildSafeNet P’CASO program, contact:

Anne W. Harrison, Executive Director
ChildSafeNet, Inc.
P.O. Box 7144
Fairfax Station, VA 22039
Phone: 703.768.9477
Fax: 703.768.9227
Email: anne@ChildSafeNet.org or info@ChildSafeNet.org

OJJDP This product was supported by Grant No. 2005-DD-BX-0055 awarded by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice. Points of view or opinions in this document are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.

February 2007