On May 2–3, 2018, OJJDP convened Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) task force grantees in Minneapolis, MN, for the Spring ICAC Task Force Commanders Meeting. Through this convening, OJJDP provides programmatic and administrative updates to all ICAC task forces and facilitates information sharing and collaboration between investigators, prosecutors, and computer forensic examiners working on these investigations.

Administrator Caren Harp was on hand for the event, during which nearly 100 grantees from 61 ICAC task forces discussed current trends in their jurisdictions and new technologies affecting their investigations. Ms. Harp congratulated the task forces on reviewing more than 775,000 complaints of technology-facilitated crimes against children, resulting in the arrest of more than 83,000 individuals. She also noted that the ICAC program has trained more than 38,600 law enforcement personnel, 2,400 prosecutors, and 12,400 other professionals working in the field.

Representatives of the Exploited Children Division of the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children offered presentations on addressing domestic sex trafficking and child exploitation on the deep web and the continuing prosecution of a classified advertising website for its alleged facilitation of online child sexual exploitation. Helpful tools and resources were also discussed, including those made available via the new Allow States and Victims To Fight Online Sex Trafficking Act of 2017 (FOSTA) and electronic-detection K9s—dogs trained to detect the distinct chemical smell of small electronics (such as hard drives, micro-SD cards, smartphones, tablets, and laptops) that humans cannot.

Attendees were updated on the provisions of the FOSTA legislation and the efforts of the Department of Homeland Security's Angel Watch Center to fight global child sex tourism.

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Additional information about OJJDP's ICAC task force program is available online.