The following post appears courtesy of Paul Almanza, National Coordinator for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.

Today, more than 1,700 investigators, agents, prosecutors, victim advocates and community outreach specialists from around the country and from all levels of government are gathered in Atlanta for the 2012 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation. 

Hosted by the Justice Department’s Project Safe Childhood Initiative and Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force Program, the 2012 national training is the largest child exploitation training ever organized by the Justice Department.

Over the course of the next three days, federal, state and local government officials will participate in state-of-the art instruction on investigative techniques, court room advocacy, digital forensics, behavioral profiling, victim advocacy and community outreach.  More than 40 different hands-on laboratory workshops will be offered to train law enforcement on various software programs and computer technologies that can be used to investigate child exploitation cases. 

The training will also provide law enforcement officials with the opportunity to strengthen the partnerships that are necessary to combat the growing problem of child sexual exploitation.  As the Deputy Attorney General noted today in his opening remarks at the training:

“In order to maximize the impact our efforts have on child sexual exploitation crimes, it is absolutely essential that we all continue to improve the way we work together to investigate these crimes, prosecute the offenders, and help the victims recover from the terrible harms they have suffered.  No one agency can tackle the challenges of these cases alone – it is therefore essential that all of us who work to protect children deepen our collaboration and partnership so that we can bring all available resources and expertise to the fight.” 

The national training is a crucial step in the department’s unwavering efforts to protect children from all forms of sexual exploitation.  The Project Safe Childhood Initiative (PSC), which began in 2006, has led to significant increases in child exploitation prosecutions.  In fiscal year (FY) 2011, the department obtained more than 2,700 indictments for offenses involving the sexual exploitation of a minor, a 42% increase over the amount obtained in FY 2006.  Since the launch of PSC, approximately 3,500 children depicted in child pornography images have been identified through enhanced law enforcement coordination, multi-jurisdictional collaborative efforts and additional contributions by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 

This year’s training advances the department’s National Strategy for Child Exploitation Prevention and Interdiction.  Announced in 2010, the National Strategy lays out goals to increase coordination among investigators, better train investigators and prosecutors, advance law enforcement’s technological capabilities and enhance research to inform decisions on deterrence, incarceration and monitoring.  More information about the National Strategy and PSC can be found at: http://www.justice.gov/psc/publications.html

Last week Deputy Attorney General James Cole spoke at a symposium on how the Department of Justice is continuing to fight human trafficking, both nationally and abroad. The symposium, titled “A Global Perspective on Human Trafficking,” was held at Yale Law School and sponsored by David B. Fein, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Connecticut, and the FBI. A panel presentation titled “Expanding our Reach: Law Enforcement and NGO Partnerships” was also held during the event. During the panel discussion representatives from law enforcement, victim service groups and non-governmental organizations discussed the critical need to establish support networks for the rescue of and transition services for these vulnerable victims of human trafficking.

At the event, Deputy Attorney General Cole spoke about the scourge of human trafficking and the department’s deep commitment to stopping it:

It seems almost unfathomable that today in the 21^st Century, we still live in a world where human trafficking persists.   And yet it exists and is often hiding in plain and painful sight. It’s the young woman who comes to America for the promise of a new life but finds herself enslaved and sold for sex.   Or the child who grew up here in America but ran away from home only to find herself the victim of her desperate acceptance of help from the wrong person.   Or the migrant worker who is deprived of identification, transportation, and access to money in order to ensure his total dependence on his employer. The Department of Justice is resolutely committed to preventing and combating human trafficking in all its forms. For Attorney General Holder and I, this is a deeply held conviction.

Within the Department of Justice, there are an array of components that work to combat human trafficking, including the U.S. Attorney’s Offices, the Civil Rights Division’s Human Trafficking Prosecution Unit, the Criminal Division’s Child Exploitation and Obscenity Section, and the FBI. Additionally, the Office of Justice Programs provides critical funding and grants to states across the country, which help to combat human trafficking nationally and assist victim service organizations in local communities.

Vital partnerships with other federal authorities are also crucial to our efforts to combat human trafficking. These partnerships between federal, state, and local law enforcement agencies, international authorities, and non-governmental organizations have all been critical in combating instances of human trafficking nationally and worldwide.

Such programs and partnerships are proving to be effective. Last year, the Department of Justice charged a record number of defendants in human trafficking cases. Over the last three years, there has been a 30 percent increase in the number of charges. But we are not content to rest on these achievements. We are determined to continue to increase the impact of our efforts.

Last year, the Deputy Attorney General announced the Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team (ACTeam) Initiative, an interagency collaboration among the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor to further streamline investigations and prosecutions for human trafficking offenses. These ACTeams are now fully operational and are providing enhanced strategic coordination among agencies and federal prosecutors.

We know that pursuing justice within our borders is not enough. That’s why our efforts are also worldwide, echoing the Deputy Attorney General’s commitment today to fighting human trafficking globally. Through our International Criminal Investigation Training Assistance Program (ICITAP), Department officials have helped to train hundreds of prosecutors, investigators and law enforcement officials in seven partner countries spanning three continents.

We also continue to work with the State Department to engage more international partners on human trafficking issues, ensuring that they are also pursuing aggressive enforcement efforts against traffickers and have the tools to do so. Forging these partnerships across borders helps us continue to focus on prevention of trafficking rings while also making sure that victims, who have been irreparably harmed by human trafficking, have the appropriate services and resources at their disposal.

At the Department of Justice, we are committed to continuing to build strategic partnerships across international borders, all with the goal of fighting human trafficking. While we are encouraged by our recent achievements, there is still much work to be done. We will continue to strive for prevention but also justice on behalf of victims of human trafficking.

Read the press release from the U.S. Attorney’s Office: U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI and Yale Law School Host Human Trafficking Syposium and the full remarks from Deputy Attorney General James Cole.

The institutional commitment to justice is an obligation and hallowed tradition that guides this Department of Justice. It is this commitment and the importance of ensuring trust and confidence in the work of federal prosecutors that led Attorney General Eric Holder to take the extraordinary step of moving to dismiss the case against former Senator Ted Stevens in 2009 when errors were discovered. And it is this commitment and the need to ensure that the mistakes in the Stevens case would not be repeated that led the Attorney General to order a review of discovery practices and the development of recommendations for improving such practices so that errors would be minimized going forward.

The result was a sweeping new training curriculum and additional resources for prosecutors, agents and paralegals across the United States as part of an unprecedented overhaul taken by the department in the last three years since the Stevens case was dismissed.

As outlined in a statement for the record submitted today to the Senate Judiciary Committee (PDF) within days after the Stevens case was dismissed in April 2009, the Criminal Discovery and Case Management Working Group was created to review the department’s policies, practices and training concerning criminal case management and discovery. Our comprehensive review of discovery practices identified some areas where the department could improve, and we have undertaken a series of reforms which have since been institutionalized.

In January 2010, the Office of the Deputy Attorney General issued three memos to all criminal prosecutors that provide overarching guidance on gathering and reviewing potentially discoverable information and making timely disclosure to defendants; they also direct each U.S. Attorney’s Office and department litigating component to develop additional, district- and component-specific discovery policies that account for controlling precedent, existing local practices and judicial expectations.

Later in January 2010, the Deputy Attorney General appointed a long-serving career prosecutor as the department’s first full-time National Criminal Discovery Coordinator to lead and oversee all department efforts to improve disclosure policies and practices and provide prosecutors with key discovery tools such as online manuals and checklists. These efforts have included:

• All federal prosecutors are now required to undertake annual discovery training. Roughly 6,000 federal criminal prosecutors across the country – regardless of experience level – receive the required training annually on a wide variety of criminal discovery-related topics. Since 2010, the department also has held several “New Prosecutor Boot Camp” courses, designed for newly hired federal prosecutors.
• Discovery training requirements are now specifically outlined in the United States Attorney Manual (USAM § 9-5.001), which was amended in June 2010 to make training mandatory for all prosecutors within 12 months after hiring, and requiring two hours of training on an annual basis for all other prosecutors.
• In 2011, the department provided training to more than 26,000 federal law enforcement agents and other officials – primarily from the FBI, DEA and ATF – on criminal discovery policies and practices. The department is currently developing annual training for these agents.
• In late February 2012, the department held “train-the-trainer” programs to begin training the next round of federal law enforcement agencies.
• The department has held several Support Staff Criminal Discovery Training Programs and has produced criminal discovery training materials for Victim/Witness coordinators.
• A Federal Criminal Discovery Blue Book – which comprehensively covers the law, policy and practice of prosecutors’ disclosure obligations – was created and distributed to prosecutors nationwide in 2011.
• The department developed – in collaboration with representatives from the Federal Public Defenders and counsel appointed under the Criminal Justice Act – ground-breaking criminal electronically stored information (ESI) protocol. The protocol was distributed to prosecutors, defense attorneys and members of the federal judiciary in February 2012. It is designed to:

• promote the efficient and cost-effective production of ESI discovery in federal criminal cases;
• reduce unnecessary conflict and litigation over ESI discovery by encouraging the parties to communicate about ESI discovery issues;
• create a predictable framework for ESI discovery; and
• establish methods for resolving ESI discovery disputes without the need for court intervention.

• To ensure consistent long-term oversight of the department’s discovery practices, the National Criminal Discovery Coordinator position was made a permanent executive-level position in the Office of the Deputy Attorney General.

While even one instance of misconduct is one too many, department statistics show that these instances are extremely rare. Over the past 10 years, the department has filed over 800,000 cases involving more than one million defendants. In the same time period, only one-third of one percent (.33 percent) of these cases warranted inquiries and investigations of professional misconduct by the department’s Office of Professional Responsibility. Less than three-hundredths of one percent (.03 percent) related to alleged discovery violations, and just a fraction of these resulted in actual findings of misconduct.

The Attorney General recognizes the importance of ensuring trust and confidence in the work of department prosecutors. In 2009, the department took the extraordinary step of asking the court to dismiss the Stevens case, which the department has said was deeply flawed. This one case does not, however, represent the work of federal prosecutors around the country who work for justice every day.

Prosecutors and other law enforcement officials must recognize their obligations under these rules, apply them fairly and uniformly and be given the tools to meet their discovery obligations rigorously. This is what the department has done since the Attorney General directed the dismissal of the conviction in the Stevens case, and it is what the department will continue to do in the future, under the policies and procedures that have been implemented and institutionalized during the past three years.

For more information, download the full Statement for the Record from the Department of Justice to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary Hearing on the Special Counsel’s Report on the Prosecution of Senator Ted Stevens (PDF) .

Today Attorney General Eric Holder joined members of the president’s cabinet and other senior advisors at the White House for a meeting of the Interagency Task Force to Monitor and Combat Trafficking in Persons.

Speaking at the meeting, the Attorney General said:

For the Department of Justice, our commitment to preventing human trafficking, bringing traffickers to justice, and assisting victims has never been stronger – and our approach has never been more effective. Our work has sent a clear and critical message: that, in this country – and under this Administration – human trafficking crimes will not be tolerated. I’m proud to report that, this past year, we charged nearly 120 defendants – a record number – in human trafficking cases. And, over the last three years, we’ve achieved significant increases in human trafficking prosecutions – including a rise of more than 30 percent in the number of forced labor and adult sex trafficking prosecutions.

This work has saved lives, ensured freedom, and restored dignity to women, men, and children in virtually every corner of the country. We’ve liberated scores of victims; secured long prison sentences against individual traffickers; and dismantled large, transnational organized criminal enterprises.

The Department of Justice’s comprehensive approach to prevent human trafficking involves the work of many offices. That’s why the Attorney General formed the Anti-Trafficking Coordination Team – or “ACTeam” – Initiative, an interagency collaboration among the Departments of Justice, Homeland Security, and Labor aimed at streamlining federal criminal investigations and prosecutions of human trafficking offenses.

The scourge of human trafficking goes beyond our borders. The Department of Justice continues to work closely with our international counterparts. For instance, we’ve advanced the U.S.-Mexico Human Trafficking Bilateral Enforcement Initiative, in collaboration with DHS and Mexican law enforcement counterparts, to develop high-impact bilateral investigations and prosecutions to dismantle international human trafficking networks, resulting in landmark convictions in coordinated prosecutions under both U.S. and Mexican law. 

Department officials have also shared their expertise and helped to train hundreds of prosecutors, investigators and law enforcement officials in partner countries abroad through our International Criminal Investigative Training Assistance Program (ICITAP). ICITAP supported the international anti-human trafficking effort through program activities in seven countries on three continents.

In addition to ensuring those who perpetuate these crimes are found and brought to justice, the department’s anti-trafficking grant programs, training and technical assistance initiatives continue to support communities in building capacity to combat human trafficking and assist victims.

These programs take a multidisciplinary approach to human trafficking prevention and encourage close partnerships among federal prosecutors, state and local law enforcement, victim service providers, and other federal partners, including the FBI, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), U.S. Customs and Border Protection, U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services, and the Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and State.  

Supplementing training and grant programs are resources like the Anti-Human Trafficking Task Force Strategy and Operations eGuide, a comprehensive online resource to assist anti-trafficking task forces in establishing, strengthening, and operating multidisciplinary response teams to identify and assist trafficking victims across the country.

To better understand trafficking, the National Institute of Justice continues to expand its research portfolio to understand how and why trafficking occurs, how to best help victims and examine the reasons why these crimes go under-reported in the United States. 

As President Obama stated today:

The United States is committed to eradicating trafficking in persons, and we will draw on tools ranging from law enforcement and victim service provision, to public awareness building and diplomatic pressure. 

The Attorney General and the entire Department of Justice are encouraged by the progress that has been made, but recognize there is still much more to do as we continue the fight against human trafficking.

Around the globe today, criminals are seeking to exploit the lack of transparency associated with U.S. companies to harm our national and economic security. Major drug trafficking cartels, arms traffickers and other criminal organizations have employed shell corporations to further their illegal activities and launder their ill-gotten proceeds. 

The Department of Justice joins our partners at the Departments of Treasury and Homeland Security in welcoming the introduction of an important bill  (PDF) this week in Congress to “combat U.S. corporations with hidden owners” that would require disclosure of beneficial ownership information in the company formation process.

Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division noted:

“It is essential to our national and economic security that we close the loophole enabling some of the world’s worst actors in the criminal underworld to use shell companies established in the United States to move and hide their money. The proposed legislation represents an important step toward that goal.”

This proposed legislation would facilitate the transparency of the financial system by making it more difficult for criminal organizations to hide behind front companies and shell corporations, an objective referenced in the President’s Strategy to Combat Transnational Organized Crime announced last week.

On July 22, 2011, the Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS) of the Criminal Division hosted the fifth annual law enforcement and industry meeting on intellectual property (IP) enforcement at the Robert F. Kennedy Justice Building.  Attorney General Holder delivered the opening remarks at the meeting along with Assistant Attorney General Lanny A. Breuer of the Criminal Division. 

Attorney General Holder emphasized the Department’s ongoing commitment to intellectual property protection.  He outlined the continued growth of Department’s intellectual property criminal enforcement program, highlighting:

• The establishment of a Department-wide Task Force on Intellectual Property;
• The expertise provided by 40 prosecutors and four computer forensics experts in CCIPS, who guide the Department’s overall intellectual property and computer crime strategy and prosecute key cases;
• The addition of 15 new prosecutors to the Computer Hacking and Intellectual Property (CHIP) Network, which includes over 260 specially-trained prosecutors and 25 CHIP units located in U.S. Attorney’s Offices throughout the country;
• The addition of 51 specially-trained FBI Special Agents to investigate intellectual property crime;
• Ongoing support to the National Intellectual Property Rights Coordination Center (IPR Center);
• Increased international engagement as well as coordination with state and local law enforcement; and
• Ongoing partnerships with a broad range of IP rights holders.

Speaking to the modern challenges of enforcing IP crimes and the need for collaboration and continued vigilance, Attorney General Holder stated:

“Although recent technological advances – particularly in methods of manufacturing and distribution – have created new opportunities for innovation and growth, this process has also created new vulnerabilities that tech-savvy criminals are eager to exploit. Only by working together – in partnership with industry leaders, law enforcement officials, and IP crime victims – will we be able to anticipate, understand, and overcome the new methods and technologies being employed by those who seek to profit from the innovations of others.” 

The meeting also included brief remarks by senior law enforcements officials followed by an open discussion that provided members of the IP community with an opportunity to communicate directly with senior prosecutorial and law enforcement officials most responsible for federal criminal enforcement of IP law at the national level.  The annual IP meeting is part of the Department’s efforts to foster a strong relationship and ongoing dialogue with the victim-industry community.

Senior law enforcement officials who participated in the meeting included: Assistant Director Gordon Snow, Cyber Division, FBI; Deputy Director Kumar Kibble, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement; Assistant Commissioner Allen Gina, U.S. Customs and Border Patrol, Office of International Trade; and Acting Director Kathy Martin-Weis, Food and Drug Administration, Office of Criminal Investigations; and Jason Weinstein, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, Criminal Division.

The event was attended by close to 80 individuals, including senior representatives from more than 40 companies and associations representing a broad range of the intellectual property industry, such as pharmaceuticals, business and entertainment software, luxury goods, electronics, apparel, motion pictures, music, sports, certification mark, consumer goods and automobiles. 

For more information on the Department’s efforts to combat intellectual property crimes, please visit: justice.gov/dag/iptaskforce.