The National Incidence Study of Child Abuse and Neglect found that, between 1986 and 1993, the number of children seriously injured or endangered by maltreatment quadrupled and the number of sexually abused children rose 125 percent. In 1996, child protective service agencies investigated more than 2 million reports alleging the maltreatment of more than 3 million children. An estimated 1,077 children died as a result of maltreatment. Even more alarming, 76 percent of these fatalities were children under the age of 4.

Congress created OJJDP's Missing and Exploited Children's Program (MECP) in 1984 to help address such issues. MECP funds a national clearinghouse and resource center on missing and exploited children, coordinates related Federal activities, provides training and technical assistance, and conducts research.

Recognizing that the advent of the "information age" has exposed children to new threats, MECP undertook several new activities in FY 1998 to help protect children from online exploitation. Industry experts estimate that more than 10 million children currently use the Internet to explore museums, libraries, and universities. Unfortunately, these children's exploration may also lead to sexual exploitation and victimization. The anonymity of cyberspace allows sex offenders to seek victims with little risk of detection. Chatroom stalking circumvents conventional safeguards and provides sex offenders virtually unlimited opportunity to have unsupervised contact with children. This has grave implications for parents, educators, and law enforcement.

Any type of victimization of children can have devastating effects on the child and the family. There are clear linkages between early childhood victimization and later behavioral problems, such as violence in school, drug abuse, and adult criminality. For example, OJJDP's Program of Research on the Causes and Correlates of Delinquency has found that individuals who have experienced maltreatment during childhood are significantly more likely to display a variety of problem behaviors during adolescence, including serious and violent delinquency, teen pregnancy, drug use, low academic achievement, and mental health problems. During the past year, OJJDP addressed this and many other issues pertaining to missing and exploited children. This chapter describes OJJDP's efforts to help children, parents, educators, prosecutors, law enforcement, and others working on these issues.

Previous

Contents

Next

OJJDP Annual Report 1998	October 1999