By Senator Bill Diamond
It’s not something most people want to
think about, and it’s easy to understand why. But the fact is, children in
Maine – just like children everywhere else – are sexually exploited for the
financial profit of adults every day. This includes the production, buying,
selling and swapping of child sexual abuse materials online. Luckily, in Maine,
we have a team of dedicated professionals who do all they can to put these
perpetrators away: the Computer Crimes Unit of the Maine State Police, also
known as the CCU. Unfortunately, the CCU is understaffed and struggling to keep
up with a growing caseload. That’s why I’m sponsoring a bill this year to
add more positions to the CCU to help combat some of the most heinous crimes we
see in our society.
The CCU is a multi-jurisdictional police entity that assists other law enforcement agencies and prosecutors with putting these perpetrators away. In many instances, cases come to the CCU as the result of referrals from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Investigators and computer forensic analysts in the CCU then work side-by-side to identify the producers, sellers, buyers and users of these materials and build cases against them. As technology evolves and becomes more sophisticated, so do the perpetrators who rely on technology to commit their crimes. In the past four years, the number of case referrals and tips the CCU receives has nearly tripled.
This has left the CCU with a far
bigger workload than current staffing levels can accommodate. While
investigators can typically conduct about 20 thorough investigations a year,
each of the CCU’s four investigators currently has up to 100 cases. Because there aren’t enough
forensic analysts and investigators to review and examine the evidence they
collect, it remains sitting on a shelf in a closet 20 feet from a vacant CCU
desk. The result is that perpetrators remain free and are able to abuse more
children.
The bill I’ve introduced will add one
or more positions to the CCU to help combat this backlog. The Legislature’s
Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee is currently working on the bill
to determine how many positions to recommend, and whether those positions
should be for investigators or forensic analysts. Whatever the committee
decides, the result will be a recommendation to the Legislature that we fund at
least one additional CCU position. This is necessary to protect our kids, and I
hope my colleagues in the House and Senate will see the value in funding this
priority.
As you can imagine, working on these
cases and viewing these images takes a significant toll on CCU workers. I began
working with the CCU in 2004, when I served as senate chair of the
Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee. I’ve had the honor
of visiting the CCU in the years since, and I can tell you that those visits
have been some of the most impressionable moments of my entire life. I always
encourage my colleagues in the Legislature to tour the CCU and learn more about
their work. CCU workers are local heroes, and their work is often unrecognized
and underappreciated. This includes the computer analysts in the CCU, who are
civilians. Another bill of mine would
include these workers in the state’s 1998 Special Retirement Plan, which
currently includes fire marshals, forest rangers and many others who serve our
state. This would allow these CCU workers to retire at age 55 with 10 years of
creditable service.
Protecting Maine’s children from abuse
of all forms has been a priority for me for the past two decades. That’s why
I’ve also introduced a bill that would
take the Office of Family and Child Services out from under the Department of
Health and Human Services and make it its own department. This would dedicate
more resources toward issues of child welfare, early childhood programs and
behavioral health services for children. Our state has seen too many tragedies
over the past few decades. It’s well past time we make a real investment in
supporting and protecting our most vulnerable children, and I believe this is a
critical step in the right direction. You’ll hear more from me about this in
the coming months.
I hope I’ve been able to provide you
with some information you didn’t have before about the CCU and the reality of
child abuse in our state. We have an opportunity to improve our efforts to
protect our children in Maine by giving the CCU some of the obvious tools they
need to prevent predators from continuing to abuse children. If you want to
discuss this issue, or if you have any other questions or concerns we can work
on together, please don’t hesitate to reach out to me at 287-1515 or diamondhollyd@aol.com. <
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