Part of OJJDP’s mission is to engage in efforts to understand juvenile victimization and to identify policies and programs that will help prevent or reduce it. Since its inception in 1974, OJJDP has funded numerous programs that address the problems associated with juvenile victimization and keeping children safe. Children’s exposure to violence has been strongly linked with increased depression, anxiety, anger, alcohol and drug abuse, and decreased academic achievement. In addition, approximately 2 million adolescents ages 12–17 appear to have suffered from posttraumatic stress disorder, presumably stemming from violent experiences in their past. Exposure to violence shapes how children remember, learn, and feel.

In addition, children may be victims of parental abductions and/or exploitation. Since 1984, OJJDP has funded the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to enhance and expand NCMEC’s ability to offer critical intervention and prevention services to families, law enforcement, and Federal, State, and local agencies. Other programs have been implemented to strengthen families and reduce child maltreatment. OJJDP-funded research demonstrates that to effectively break the cycle of abuse and protect today’s children, parents need to ask for help early. Research also shows that children who witness domestic violence experience higher levels of childhood behavioral, social, and emotional problems than children who have not witnessed such violence and that the emotional consequences of viewing or hearing violent acts may have the same lasting effects on children as being a direct victim of violence. Such findings have led OJJDP to continue funding the Safe Start Initiative, which helps protect children who have been exposed to violence in their families and communities.

This chapter highlights these and other aspects of OJJDP’s efforts to understand and reduce the victimization of children. FY 2001 proved to be another successful and meaningful year for OJJDP, as it continued to encourage communities and the juvenile justice system to respond more effectively to child abuse and neglect and to promote training and technical assistance.

Children’s Advocacy Centers

Children’s Advocacy Centers (CACs) are child-focused, child-friendly programs that bring together teams of investigators, prosecutors, medical personnel, and social services and mental health professionals to work on child abuse cases. The goal is to ensure that children are not revictimized by the very system designed to protect them. During FY 2001, OJJDP continued to fund the National Children’s Alliance (NCA) of Washington, DC, and four Regional Children’s Advocacy Centers (RCACs). The RCACs provide information, consultation, and training and technical assistance, which help to establish child-focused programs that facilitate and support coordination among agencies responding to child abuse. RCACs also provide regional services to help strengthen CACs that already exist. For information on the regional centers or NCA, phone NCA at 800–239–9950 or visit NCA’s Web site (www.nca-online.org).

In 2001, both the RCACs and NCA worked on several collaborative projects, including the National CAC Training Academy, and developed CACs in American Indian communities and a telemedicine project. This project, NCA Net, provides an opportunity for selected CAC team members from across the nation to connect via videoconferencing for interactive clinical and programmatic discussions with peers. NCA Net also provides access to national trainers and experts in the field with whom sites would otherwise not have the opportunity to consult with. The project became fully operational in 2001. More than 64 videoconferences were held, and they reached more than 800 individuals. NCA awarded subgrants to 400 CACs nationwide, of which 261 were full members of NCA, serving 114,087 children.

Crimes against Children Research Center

OJJDP has supported the Crimes against Children Research Center (CCRC) at the University of New Hampshire in Durham, NH, since 1998. CCRC helps young victims of crime by providing research, statistics, and education to the public, policymakers, law enforcement personnel, and child welfare practitioners. The crimes of concern to CCRC include physical and sexual abuse, abduction, homicide, rape, assault, property offenses, and the victimization of children on the Internet.

In 2001, OJJDP expanded its research relating to the online victimization of children through the Juvenile Online Victimization Incidence Study (JOVIS). This study is designed to count and determine the characteristics of criminal cases that involve the arrest of offenders for Internet-related sex crimes against juveniles. The mail survey of 2,500 law enforcement agencies yielded a response rate of 88 percent (2,260 agencies responded), which includes the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Regional Task Forces and ICAC Satellites. Three hundred followup interviews have been conducted. A JOVIS database will calculate the incidence of criminal cases involving the online victimization of juveniles and produce reports on the characteristics of these cases, including information on victims and perpetrators.

In 2001, OJJDP continued to release Bulletins in the Crimes Against Children Series. These Bulletins present the latest information about child victimization, including analyses of victimization statistics, studies of child victims and their special needs, and descriptions of programs and approaches that address these needs. In FY 2001, OJJDP published the following Bulletins in this series: Child Abuse Reported to the Police (NCJ 187238), Crimes Against Children by Babysitters (NCJ 189102), The Decline in Child Sexual Abuse Cases (NCJ 184741), and Choosing and Using Child Victimization Questionnaires (NCJ 186027). The Bulletins are available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse. Additional information on two of these Bulletins— Child Abuse Reported to the Police and Crimes Against Children by Babysitters — appears in this chapter’s section on the National Incident-Based Reporting System.

ICAC Task Force Program

The increasing number of children and teenagers using the Internet, the proliferation of child pornography, and the heightened activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with underage victims present both a significant threat to the health and safety of young people and a formidable challenge for law enforcement. Recognizing this challenge, OJJDP created the ICAC Task Force Program in 1998. The purpose of the program is to help State and local law enforcement agencies develop an effective response to cyberenticement and child pornography cases that encompasses forensic and investigative components, training and technical assistance, victim services, and community education.

Regional task forces located throughout the country provide forensic, prevention, and investigation assistance to parents, educators, prosecutors, law enforcement, and professionals working on child victimization issues. Participating task force agencies provide training to prosecutors and law enforcement officers and reach thousands of children, teenagers, parents, educators, and others through publications, presentations, and public service announcements. Currently, 30 regional task forces coordinate the activities of more than 160 law enforcement agencies in 35 States. As of June 2001, ICAC Task Force Program operations had resulted in the seizure of more than 900 computers and the service of 695 search warrants and 1,338 subpoenas. In August 2001, Operation Avalanche, an undercover sting operation conducted by the Dallas (TX) Police Department, 30 ICAC Task Forces, and the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, dismantled a multimillion dollar child pornography enterprise in Fort Worth, TX. The operation involved 144 searches in 37 States and 100 arrests for trafficking child pornography through the mail and via the Internet.

OJJDP plans to extend its support for the ICAC Task Force Program into FY 2002. Cooperative agreements will be funded for up to an 18-month budget and project period to begin July 1, 2002, and end December 31, 2003. The solicitation will be limited to State and local law enforcement agencies in the following States and localities: Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, and the Greater San Francisco Bay area, CA.

To enhance the geographical impact of the ICAC Task Force Program, OJJDP created the Investigative Satellite Initiative (ISI). Under ISI, agencies lacking the personnel or resources to form full-time task forces can still receive one-time awards to train and equip officers in smaller jurisdictions to respond to cases of child pornography and enticement through the Internet. Fifty-four law enforcement agencies now receive funding through ISI.

National Center for Missing and Exploited Children

Since 1982, NCMEC has spearheaded the national effort to prevent child abductions and to return missing and exploited children to their families. In partnership with OJJDP, NCMEC continues to enhance and expand its ability to offer critical intervention and prevention services to families and to support law enforcement agencies at the Federal, State, and local levels in cases involving missing and exploited children. Over the years, NCMEC has improved its services and programs. NCMEC’s 24-hour hotline (800–THE–LOST) has received more than 1.5 million calls from around the world and can handle phone calls in more than 140 languages.

In FY 2001, NCMEC launched the AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) Plan, a national program to save abducted children. The AMBER Plan is a voluntary partnership between law enforcement agencies and broadcasters to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child abductions. Broadcasters use the Federal Communications Commission’s Emergency Alert System to deliver information to the community— the same concept used during severe weather emergencies. As a result, descriptions of an abducted child and his or her suspected abductor are instantly broadcast to millions of listeners and viewers. The goal of the AMBER Plan is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search and safe return of the child and apprehension of the suspect. To date, more than 25 areas in 16 States have an AMBER Plan and more than 27 children have been recovered nationwide.

In FY 2001, NCMEC also continued to work with the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) to dramatically expand the distribution of photos of lost, abducted, and runaway children. The IRS included pictures of missing children on its 2001 tax form instructions and publications. The photos are provided by NCMEC and are accompanied by information about the children. During FY 2001, NCMEC released an updated version of its nationally recognized book Child Molesters: A Behavioral Analysis in an effort to better address child molestation through behavior analysis and prevention. This groundbreaking edition provides a comprehensive look at children who are sexually exploited by acquaintance molesters and is a valuable resource for law enforcement officers and prosecutors that investigate such cases.

In February 2001, NCMEC launched a state-of-the-art Internet safety initiative, the NetSmartz Workshop, to better protect children who regularly use the Internet. The NetSmartz Workshop is a DVD–ROM that uses three-dimensional technology to create animated characters who provide interactive lessons to children. The workshop will be tested in 50 Boys & Girls Clubs and, during the next 5 years, NCMEC plans to release NetSmartz to Boys & Girls Clubs nationwide.

Every year, NCMEC honors law enforcement officers for their outstanding work on cases that involve the recovery of missing children and assistance to exploited children by awarding them National Missing and Exploited Children’s Awards. The 2001 awards were presented at the Sixth Annual Congressional Breakfast and National Missing and Exploited Children’s Awards ceremony held on May 23, 2001, on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.

National Incident-Based Reporting System

In May 2001, OJJDP released Child Abuse Reported to the Police ( NCJ 187238), a Bulletin in OJJDP’s Crimes Against Children Series that describes how the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI’s) National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) captures data that allows researchers to analyze incidents involving child victims and parent or other caretaker perpetrators reported to the police. NIBRS is gradually replacing the FBI’s Uniform Crime Reporting system and reports much more information on the crime committed, victim characteristics (including age), offender characteristics, and incident circumstances. Under the new system, as with the old, local law enforcement personnel compile information on crimes that come to their attention, and this information is aggregated at the national and State levels. For a crime to be counted in the system, it simply needs to be reported and investigated. It is not necessary that an incident be cleared or an arrest made, although unfounded reports are deleted from the record.

Babysitters are one of the categories of offenders about which NIBRS collects information. After analyzing data on babysitter offenses drawn from NIBRS, the authors of Crimes Against Children by Babysitters found that:

• Babysitters are responsible for 4.2 percent of all offenses committed against children younger than 6 years old.

• Children most at risk of physical assaults by babysitters are younger (ages 1–3) than those most at risk of sex crimes (ages 3–5).

• Males constitute 77 percent of sex-offending babysitters reported to police, whereas females make up 64 percent of those who commit physical assaults.

More information about NIBRS data collection can be found at www.fbi.gov/hq/cjisd/ucr.htm. For additional information, see Crimes against Children Research Center.

Parents Anonymous^®

Parents Anonymous^®, Inc., of Claremont, CA, is the oldest national child abuse prevention organization. Since 1994, OJJDP has been helping Parents Anonymous^® replicate its self-help model, which is designed to strengthen families and reduce child maltreatment. Parents Anonymous^® encourages all parents to ask for help early, whatever their circumstances, to effectively break the cycle of abuse so as to protect today’s children and strengthen tomorrow’s generation of parents. Parents Anonymous^® builds on the strengths of parents to ensure that children live and grow in safe, nurturing homes by offering families help today and hope for the future. Parents Anonymous^® also operates local 24-hour hotlines to provide an immediate response to parents seeking help.

In FY 2001, this organization continued to expand the number of local groups and the number of parents attending meetings, the diversity of populations served, training and technical assistance, and curriculum and other resource materials. More information about Parents Anonymous^® is available on its Web site (www.parentsanonymous.org).

In FY 2001, OJJDP began a project through a competitive process to evaluate the Parents Anonymous^® program. The purpose of the evaluation is to assess the implementation and effectiveness of the Parents Anonymous^® program in preventing and treating child abuse and neglect. The National Council on Crime and Delinquency is conducting this evaluation in two phases. Phase I is an ongoing process evaluation that investigates how the theoretical premises, principles, best practices, and model of Parents Anonymous^® are operationalized in a sample of programs selected by the evaluator. Phase II will present a preliminary approach to conducting the outcome evaluation of the selected programs. This will include a detailed discussion of the overall design of the outcome evaluation and methods for selecting programs and comparison groups, designing and testing data collection instruments, and collecting and analyzing data. This project will be implemented by the current grantee, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

Safe Start Initiative

The Safe Start Initiative is based in part on the Child Development-Community Policing (CD–CP) pilot program developed by Yale University and the New Haven (CT) Police Department with OJJDP support. The CD–CP program brings together police officers and mental health professionals (through training, consultation, and support) to provide constructive intervention for children who have witnessed or been victims of violent crime.

In FY 2001, OJJDP, which administers the Safe Start Initiative, selected nine sites to share more than $6 million in grants during the first year of a 51/2-year project to develop comprehensive efforts to help children exposed to violence. The sites— Baltimore, MD; Bridgeport, CT; Chatham County, NC; Chicago, IL; Pinellas County, FL; Rochester, NY; San Francisco, CA; Spokane, WA; and Washington County, ME—were selected after a review of 208 applications. Each grantee receives approximately $670,000 per year from OJJDP. In addition, OJJDP is in the process of selecting two tribal sites.

First-year funding is dedicated to a thorough review of existing community services and gaps that need to be filled. Based on the results of this review, the grantees will plan a 5-year comprehensive response that depends on coordination among law enforcement, mental health and medical professionals, and child protective services providers. The plans will include efforts such as child advocacy centers, home visitation programs, and domestic violence services for battered mothers whose children are at a high risk of exposure to violence.

In addition to granting funds to the nine Safe Start sites, OJJDP awarded $670,000 in 2000 to each of three sites—Miami, FL; Newark, NJ; and New Orleans, LA—for a 2-year period. These sites are focusing on specific improvements to services for children exposed to violence. The National Center for Children Exposed to Violence in New Haven, CT, is working with OJJDP to provide training and technical support to the Safe Start sites. A national team led by Caliber Associates is collaborating with local representatives at each site to conduct an intensive evaluation of Safe Start activities and inform the field about the promising practices and strategies being demonstrated.

OJJDP’s Fact Sheet, Children’s Exposure to Violence: The Safe Start Initiative (FS–200113), and Summary, Safe From the Start: Taking Action on Children Exposed to Violence (NCJ 182789), provide more information about Safe Start activities. Both publications are available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse.