Welcome to ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO Partnership Program.

The Internet offers children wonderful educational opportunities. Unfortunately, it also puts them at great risk because sexual predators increasingly use it as a virtual pathway to stalk kids online, accessing them right in the very “safety” of their own homes.

ChildSafeNet is a 501(c) (3) non-profit charitable organization working with local law enforcement officials to make our communities safer for kids. Our first law enforcement partner, the Fairfax County, Virginia Police Department, is developing and implementing ChildSafeNet’s signature P'CASO (Protecting Children Against Sex Offenders) Program in Northern Virginia. In its operational phase P’CASO is a law enforcement program that provides comprehensive protection for our children by increasing police presence both on the Internet and in the community at large.

The Fairfax County Police Department is well-known for providing national leadership through innovative law enforcement initiatives. We are delighted that they have adopted ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO Program to better protect our most vulnerable citizens, our children.

From The Fairfax County Police

The P’CASO Program is designed to prevent crimes against children. Because the Internet affords increased access to children and a high degree of anonymity for predators, the targets could be your children or mine. With ChildSafeNet’s support, one of our goals will be to increase police staffing to detect and apprehend predators who initiate inappropriate conversations with children online and then seek to meet them face-to-face. Officers dedicated to the P’CASO Program will also monitor convicted sex offenders when they are released back into the community to ensure they abide by the terms of their release. We always strive to be out in the community and will continue to support and participate in ChildSafeNet’s public awareness programs.

I encourage all citizens to learn more about ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO Program as we work together to make our neighborhoods safer for kids.

Colonel David M. Rohrer
Chief, Fairfax County Police Department

On behalf of the P’CASO Partnership Program: A Report to the Community

Following completion in December 2006 of a second year as an operational law enforcement program, ChildSafeNet and the Fairfax County Police Department are pleased to share results of the P’CASO law enforcement initiative publicly for the first time.

To read the partnership’s Report to the Community, click here.

Summary

ChildSafeNet’s P’CASO Partnership with the Fairfax County Police

ChildSafeNet and the P’CASO Program represent a unique public/private partnership that:

• Adds new law enforcement units to focus on monitoring convicted sex offenders when they are released back into the community. In Fairfax County, Virginia, this unit is called SPEAD (Sexual Predator Enforcement and Apprehension Detail.)
• Adds additional law enforcement officers to investigate online victimization of children, engaging with Internet-based predators before they can physically get to children in the open community, and seizing their computers to secure evidence and build solid cases for prosecution.
• Raises public awareness of child safety issues by presenting information on this website and in quality, community-based educational programs delivered to people right in the communities where they live and work.

An informed community is the best protection. ChildSafeNet works to not only enhance the capacity of law enforcement to protect children, but to increase your awareness of child safety issues, arm you with information and techniques to help keep your children safe, let you know where to turn if you need assistance, and help make sure you never need that assistance.