The following post appears is adapted from the remarks of Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary G. Grindler, who spoke today at the National Internet Crimes Against Children’s Conference in Jacksonville, Florida.

 Crimes against children are particularly vile. The threat to our children is real and with the advent and increasing sophistication of the Internet, the threat is evolving as much as it is expanding. Assessing the threat posed by child exploitation is difficult.  But in order to address the situation, we must try to better understand the dangers. 

Research indicates that there has been a significant increase in the proliferation of child pornography, driven in large part by an enormous financial incentive for peddlers of these abhorrent images.  It is estimated that more than 200 new images are circulated daily and the profit derived from these criminal acts could be as high as $20 billion annually. 

Like child pornography, the enticement of our children over the Internet is a serious threat.  Offenders are using networks of like-minded deviants to share strategies, lurk in chat rooms, social networking or gaming sites where children commonly gather. Ensuring our children are aware of this hidden danger and know how to keep themselves safe is as crucial to our fight as is strong law enforcement efforts.  

Some children also face the threat of being victimized by commercial sexual exploitation.  Runaways, throwaways, sexual assault victims, and neglected children can be recruited into a violent life of forced prostitution.  The numbers are staggering.  Between 2004 through 2008, Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Forces saw a 914 percent increase in the number of child victims of prostitution complaints processed by their members. 

We know that some criminals have turned away from illicit activities such as drug dealing and robbery toward child sex trafficking because it’s more profitable — these traffickers can make up to several thousand dollars a day as a single child can generate as much as $1,000 on a weekend night. 

 Understanding all of these dangers, we must also keep in mind that it is not just our own children who are at risk.  The child sex tourism industry continues to thrive.  Child sex tourists prey on the most vulnerable children in the most impoverished areas of the world. 

Through leadership and coordination with our international allies, federal, state, local, and tribal partners, NGOs, child advocacy centers, victim service providers, educators, and industry we will leave the criminals no place to hide. Through coordination we can devise strategies to combat this war and rescue these victims.

The Department of Justice is committed to continuing to fight against the sexual exploitation of children on all fronts, including: prevention, deterrence, and interdiction.  While law enforcement remains a very important strategy, we also recognize that we can not simply prosecute our way out of this problem.  On the law enforcement side, we must ensure that we have expertly trained investigators and prosecutors. 

The solution to child exploitation must also include prevention through public awareness and education campaigns.  It must also include deterrence using tools like sex offender monitoring.  And, law enforcement must have the technological tools you need to investigate these crimes.  The Department is taking a number of steps to help on each of these fronts.

A National Database: The Department is working closely with the ICACs and others to design and build an Internet Crimes Against Children Data System that will support our efforts and result in a smarter more effective response.  This system will provide meaningful deconfliction among federal, state, local, tribal, and even some international partners who investigate child exploitation.

The Expansion of the Innocence Lost Initiative: The Department is also exploring the expansion of the Innocence Lost Initiative.  This program targets child prostitution and has shown remarkable success. 

National Sex Offender Registry: One of the Department’s short-term goals is to have the U.S. Marshals Service stand up a fully operational National Sex Offender Tracking Center to better track and apprehend fugitive sex offenders.  The Center is already online and the Marshals are working to fully staff the Center with analysts and other professionals in the near future.

 A National Coordinator: To help bring all of the pieces together and to further the coordination efforts, the Department has appointed Francey Hakes as the National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.  She is an experienced federal prosecutor who previously worked closely with the ICAC in her home state of Georgia, has personally prosecuted numerous cases of child pornography and exploitation, and she is eager to work with our other partners to increase overall coordination of our efforts. 

Ultimately, whatever form of child exploitation we discuss, whether it is child pornography, the enticement of children by online predators, or the trafficking of children for sex trafficking – a central theme seems to emerge – child exploitation is a global problem that spans borders and requires a global response.  Coordination and marshalling all of our collective efforts will be necessary to attack these criminals and stop the devastation that they will otherwise wreak.

 We must act together as a nation to protect our children, and children worldwide, and the ICAC program does just that by bringing thousands of federal, state, and local investigators and prosecutors together to share information, investigate cases, conduct training, and develop law enforcement technologies and techniques to interdict child exploitation.  By increasing our cooperation and coordination we will increase our ability to rescue victimized children, arrest those who abuse them, and, hopefully, prevent other children from ever facing the threat of sexual exploitation.

Today the Department of Justice is recognizing  the 10th annual World Intellectual Property Day. Intellectual property refers to creations of the mind –music, literature, film, artistic works, and inventions. Intellectual property is one of America’s greatest assets. Its protection is central to our economic prosperity and security as well the public’s health and safety. Aggressive intellectual property law enforcement is crucial to our continued success and safety, and is a top priority of the Department of Justice. 

Earlier this year, Attorney General Eric Holder announced the creation of the Task Force on Intellectual Property. The Task Force strengthens efforts to combat intellectual property crimes through close coordination with state and local law enforcement partners as well as our international counterparts.

Today, that Task Force got even stronger. Acting Deputy Attorney General Gary  G. Grindler, who serves as the Chair of the Task Force, announced the appointment of 15 new Assistant U.S. Attorney positions and 20 FBI Special Agents to be dedicated to combating domestic and international IP crimes. 

In an op-ed featured in the National Law Journal, Acting Deputy Attorney General Grindler explained why combatting intellectual property crime is so vital to our national interest:

Businesses that create and rely upon intellectual property, from large entertainment conglomerates to small biotech firms, make up among the fastest-growing sectors of the U.S. economy.  These industries also represent a significant portion of U.S. exports, with intellectual property now comprising a significant – and growing – share of the value of world trade. 

The proliferation of worldwide Internet access and advances in traditional distribution methods, such as transportation and shipping, now allow American businesses of all sizes to market their intellectual property throughout the world.  Digital content, whether embodied in software, books, games, movies, or music, can be transmitted from one corner of the world to another almost instantly.  

But these unprecedented opportunities for American businesses and entrepreneurs are put at risk by criminals and criminal organizations that seek unlawfully to profit by stealing from the hard work of American artists, authors and inventors. 

For every new technological advancement by American business, there is, unfortunately, a criminal who would seek to misuse it for his own illicit purposes.  Criminals are responding to American innovation with their own creative methods of committing intellectual property crimes — from wide-spread online piracy, to well-funded corporate espionage, to increased trade in counterfeit pharmaceuticals and other goods. 

When we fail to enforce intellectual property rights aggressively, we fail to protect some of our nation’s most important and valuable resources.  The theft of even a single trade secret can completely destroy a burgeoning small business. 

When criminals sell counterfeit drugs and medical devices to consumers, our nation’s public health is compromised.  And, when illicit products such as counterfeit airplane parts or pirated electronic components make their way into the marketplace, they place our public safety at risk. 

Our efforts to combat intellectual property crimes are stronger than ever. Through partnerships with federal, state and local law enforcement, increased cooperation with our international counterparts, and specially trained investigators and federal prosecutors the Department of Justice remains vigilant in its enforcement of intellectual property law.

Last year, the Department of Justice convened a working group to explore the Department’s policies, practices, and training related to criminal case management and discovery. The group is made up of senior prosecutors from throughout the Department and from United States’ Attorney Offices, law enforcement representatives, and information technology professionals.

Today, in response to recommendations from this group, the Deputy Attorney General issued three memoranda regarding criminal discovery practices including a memorandum to all prosecutors containing guidance regarding criminal discovery that prosecutors should follow to help assure that they meet discovery obligations in future cases. 

Attorney General Eric Holder noted the positive effect of these new guidelines, saying:

“The Department of Justice’s responsibility is not just to win cases, but to do justice. Along with the increased training for prosecutors we have already instituted, these new guidelines will ensure that we strive to meet that standard every day and in every case.”

The procedure for ensuring a consistent process for discovery, in keeping with the Department of Justice’s responsibility of making sure the cause of justice is always served, is further detailed by the guidance memo, which also notes:

There are times when providing discovery broader than that required even by current Department policy serves the interests of justice.  Providing broad and early discovery often promotes the truth-seeking mission of the Department and fosters a speedy resolution of a case.  On the other hand, there are times when countervailing considerations counsel against broad and early disclosure.  For these reasons, the discovery guidance is intended to assure that prosecutors make considered decisions about whether to disclose information beyond the requirements of law and policy and when to disclose it.  

In addition, the Deputy Attorney General issued a memo to United States Attorneys and Heads of Litigating Components Handling Criminal matters directing each office to establish by March 31, 2010, a discovery policy with which prosecutors in that office must comply unless “specific, case-related considerations . . . warrant a departure from the uniform discovery practices of the office. ” 

Read the full memos:

• Issuance of Guidance and Summary of Actions Taken in Response to the Report of the Department of Justice Criminal Discovery and Case Management Working Group
• Requirement for Office Discovery Policies in Criminal Matters
• Guidance for Prosecutors Regarding Criminal Discovery

Today, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden was in St. Paul, Minnesota, to open the Department of Justice’s Tribal Nations Listening Session with many of the country’s top tribal leaders. The Listening Session, which will occur over the next two days, seeks input from tribal leaders on how best to address the chronic problems of public safety in Indian Country. Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli will open tomorrow’s discussion leading up to the Attorney General’s attendance and remarks in the afternoon.

Public safety in Indian Country is an issue near and dear to the top three leaders of the Justice Department. It was a priority law enforcement initiative for them the last time they were at the Department under Attorney General Janet Reno in the 1990s.

During his session with leaders this morning, Deputy Attorney General Ogden emphasized that renewed commitment:

There is a great deal to be done to provide American Indians and Alaska Natives with the level of public safety that most Americans take for granted. We do not underestimate the challenges. But we are actively focused on meeting them, and – together with all of you – we intend to make a real and lasting change.

It’s a tragedy that we still face many of the same problems identified a decade ago – far too few cops on the beat; substance abuse; escalating violence against women, children and elders; and lack of support for crime survivors, to name a few. We must do all we can to ensure that a year from now and a decade from now, things are different. This is about more than reducing crime. It’s about improving the very quality of life in tribal communities, affording safe childhoods and adulthoods to our citizens, and painting the futures of our children and grandchildren in a warmer and brighter hue.

We will not waver from our commitment. As the Department undertakes its new tribal justice initiative, we are aware of the history. We are aware that words too often have not been followed by deeds, or have been followed by grossly inadequate or contradictory ones. As Justice Hugo Black said in his historic dissent recognizing the sanctity of tribal lands in Federal Power Commission v. Tuscarora Indian Nation: “Great nations, like great men, should keep their word.”

We mean to keep our word.

This afternoon Justice Department leadership came together in a rare joint event to commemorate the Justice Department’s recognition of October as Domestic Violence Awareness Month.

Attorney General Eric Holder, Deputy Attorney General David W. Ogden and Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli all delivered remarks at the ceremony to celebrate the work that has been done around the country to end violence against women and, more importantly, to discuss the work still left to do in order to end such violence once and for all.

Attorney General Holder began by speaking about a survivor he met while visiting SHAWL House, a women’s shelter in California.

At SHAWL House, I heard from women whose struggles and successes inspired me.

Every woman there had a compelling story to tell. One person I met there, Gabby, grew up in a household of drug users with an abusive father. She found herself in trouble from an early age as she became involved in abusive relationships with her partners, and she began using illegal drugs herself. After losing her four children and winding up on the streets, Gabby turned to SHAWL’s transitional housing facility. There she received the help she so desperately needed, got “clean,” graduated from the program, and turned her life around.

Gabby’s story – and the stories of others like her – illustrate how personal courage and community support can give survivors a chance at a fresh start and the hope of a bright future.

The Attorney General also stressed our responsibility to act:

But just listening to, and learning from, these women is not enough. We also need to take action, both in our personal and professional lives, to help others in our community who find themselves in this situation. We owe it to them. We owe it to ourselves.

Last year, there were over a half million non-fatal violent victimizations committed against women age 12 or older by an intimate partner. And more than 2,000 women and men were killed by intimate partners last year. These are not mere statistics we are talking about – we are talking about individual human beings: friends, colleagues, co-workers, neighbors, relatives. We should be appalled that this type of violence is visited upon them in this day and age. And we must do everything in our power to stop it.

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David W. Ogden, the Deputy Attorney General, spoke today at the Tulalip Reservation in Seattle, Washington about the responsibility we have to Indian Country.

From his remarks:

Public safety in Indian Country requires our urgent attention. Violent crime in much of Indian Country is staggering, and its effect on the everyday lives of tribal communities is unacceptable. Our Tribal Nations face enormous law enforcement challenges, particularly with respect to violent crime, violence against women and crimes against children. While Tribal Nations accomplish a tremendous amount with the resources they have, those resources are wholly inadequate to the serious criminal justice problems they face each day.

The Department of Justice has a fundamental responsibility to improve public safety in Tribal communities. We have a legal duty to prosecute violent crime in Indian Country. This is because in much of Indian Country — under current law — we alone have the authority to prosecute serious violent crime to the full extent of the law. Our role as the primary prosecutor for serious violent crime makes our responsibility to our citizens in Indian Country unique.

We also have a trust responsibility to support the tribal law enforcement and justice institutions so critical to tribal sovereignty, and to build relations with our Tribal Nations on a true government-to-government basis. We have a duty to improve communication with our tribal partners and to strengthen the bonds between our institutions.

This is a simple question of meeting our responsibilities as a government, and it’s critical to the basic quality of life for those in Indian Country. Under the leadership of Attorney General Holder, the Department of Justice vigorously embraces this important role. We are dedicated to working closely with our Tribal partners, on a true government-to-government basis, to develop a comprehensive approach to improving law enforcement in Indian Country.

You can read the full remarks, here.