The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a national resource center and clearinghouse dedicated to missing and exploited children and their families. Located in Alexandria, VA, NCMEC operates a 24-hour toll-free hotline (800-843-5678), provides training and technical assistance, and produces and distributes publications.
In FY 1998, NCMEC's hotline received more than 132,000 calls, ranging from citizens reporting information about missing children to parents and law enforcement personnel requesting information and publications. NCMEC also assisted in the recovery of 6,930 children, disseminated millions of photographs of missing children, distributed thousands of publications, and sponsored a national training workshop for State clearinghouses and relevant nonprofit organizations. NCMEC also assists American parents whose children have been abducted to foreign countries. Also, in a unique agreement between the U.S. Department of State and OJJDP, NCMEC assists the State Department in fulfilling its Hague Convention responsibilities by processing applications for the return of children who have been abducted in foreign countries and brought to the United States.
NCMEC also undertook several activities in 1998 to help protect children from online exploitation. With funding from both OJJDP and the private sector, NCMEC established a CyberTipline to collect information from citizens regarding computer-facilitated sexual exploitation of children. NCMEC forwards this information to appropriate law enforcement agencies. Online since March 1998, the CyberTipline already has provided law enforcement with information that has resulted in arrests for child exploitation offenses and the safe return of children enticed from home by sex offenders. In its first year of operation, the CyberTipline received more than 7,500 reports of online enticement.
In April 1998, NCMEC and OJJDP sponsored a satellite videoconference for law enforcement personnel, titled Protecting Children Online. The videoconference provided information about prevention, investigation, applicable Federal law, and available resources to more than 30,000 viewers at more than 400 downlink sites.
OJJDP and NCMEC also developed two new training programs for law enforcement executives and investigators in FY 1998. The Protecting Children Online course, offered regionally, focuses on Internet investigative techniques, interview and interrogation practices, sex offender behavioral characteristics, current statutory law, and case decisions pertaining to electronic communications. The Protecting Children Online Unit Commander seminar concentrates on broader policy and legal concerns and is designed to help law enforcement executives develop and execute ICAC response plans for their agencies. This seminar is held monthly at NCMEC's Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center, discussed later in this chapter. More than 400 law enforcement executives and investigators participated in these two courses in FY 1998.
NCMEC also launched a Know the Rules safety education program in FY 1998. This program, which targets teenage girls, was developed in response to research indicating that girls are at much greater risk of sexual exploitation than boys. NCMEC also published Teen Safety on the Information Highway to complement its CyberTipline and ICAC law enforcement training programs. The Teen Safety publication is designed to promote safe Internet practices for teenagers, the age group most at risk of online sexual exploitation.
The Jimmy Ryce Law Enforcement Training Center (JRLETC) in Alexandria, VA, was established in 1997 by OJJDP, NCMEC, the FBI, and Fox Valley Technical College (FVTC) of Appleton, WI. JRLETC offers two law enforcement training tracks designed to improve the Nation's investigative response to missing children cases. The Chief Executive Officer seminars offer a management perspective on missing children cases and provide information for police chiefs and sheriffs regarding coordination and communication issues, resource assessment, legal concerns, and policy development. The Responding to Missing and Exploited Children course focuses on investigative techniques for all aspects of missing children cases. In FY 1998, 402 police chiefs and sheriffs and 458 investigators representing law enforcement agencies from every State participated in at least one JRLETC training session.
NCMEC and OJJDP's MECP also sponsor an annual National Missing Children's Day ceremony. Attorney General Janet Reno participated in the 1998 ceremony and recognized six law enforcement officers for their extraordinary efforts to reunite children and their families. The Attorney General presented the NCMEC Law Enforcement Officer of the Year Award to Inspector Jose Berrios Torres and Agents Ismael Cintron and Cesar Nieves, all of Puerto Rico; Detective Jim Munsterman of San Diego, CA; and Detectives Christina Metelski and Billy Soza of Phoenix, AZ. At the 1998 ceremony, OJJDP also released the publication When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide, described in chapter 2, Major Publications.
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| OJJDP Annual Report 1998 | October 1999 | |