With funding to fight cyber crimes left out of this year’s state budget, law enforcement officers in Southeast Missouri received a portion of the state’s federal recovery act dollars to continue their battle.
Gov. Jay Nixon was in Poplar Bluff Monday to present a $63,339 grant to the Southeast Missouri Cyber Crimes Task Force, a multijurisdiction law enforcement unit.
The money was part of $1.5 million in grant funding awarded to 13 multijurisdiction initiatives across Missouri whose mission is to enforce the law against cyber crimes, such as illegal online enticement and child pornography
Nixon made the announcement after he was given a tour of the local task force’s offices, which are housed in the Poplar Bluff Police Department. Leading the tour was Jeff Shackelford, who serves as the unit’s commander and is a member of the police department.
Also in attendance for the tour and announcement were law enforcement personnel and state representatives from across the region, as well as local city and county government officials.
“It should come as no surprise to anyone here that I view law enforcement as one of my greatest responsibilities of our government,” Nixon said. “In my time as governor, and during my tenure as attorney general, I’ve always believed that protecting the public safety is the most important part of my job.
“The job of law enforcement is not getting any easier. Advances in technology have given criminals new access to our lives and the lives of our children.”
Predators, who used to be confined to dark alleys, now can get on the Internet and “gain a direct line of access into our homes, schools and our libraries,” Nixon said.
A generation of children, according to Nixon, have grown up with the Internet as an integral component of their lives.
“This leads to a 21st century in which there are a whole variety of crimes against which we must guard that we never had to worry about decades ago,” Nixon explained.
Law enforcement, he said, has had to evolve to meet the challenges.
“The threats to children and young people that we are seeing now online have been targeted by cops with new tools for enforcement,” Nixon said. “We’re here today at the headquarters of a place where law enforcement officers are doing just that kind of cutting edge enforcement.”
Nixon described it as the kind of initiative he, his administration and the Department of Public Safety sup ports.
“We all stand up behind you in what you do,” he said. “That’s why I am proud to be here today to announce that I’m awarding $1.5 million in Recovery Act funding to the 13 multijurisdictional cyber crimes task forces across the State of Missouri, including more than $63,000 for the SEMO Cyber Crimes Task Force right here in Southeast Missouri.”
The Recovery Act provides states, like Missouri, with a pool of justice assistance grant funds, Nixon said.
“We are responsible for determining how these funds will be distributed,” said Nixon, whose desire was to have those available dollars be used to aggressively help local communities fight crime and fill funding gaps in programs that might otherwise be affected by the tough economy.
Initiatives, like the one here, are “precisely the sort of programs that reflect this aggressive approach to enforcement,” Nixon said.
The 13 task forces in Missouri, according to Nixon, have an “impressive record of protecting our citizens.
“A look at the stats show a startling number of incidents and crimes that might have gone unsolved if not for the work of the cyber crimes task forces,” Nixon said.
In the second quarter of 2009, Nixon said, the task forces collectively did 322 forensic examinations of computers or electronic media for evidence of a crime and arrested 50 individuals for such crimes as distribution and possession of child pornography, sexual exploitation, child enticement/solicitation, child trafficking and child prostitution.
The task forces, he said, also served 52 search warrants, which led to 46 seizures.
“They provided computer crime prevention education training to more than 4,000 people at 63 schools all across the Show Me State, and they identified 13 child victims of crime,” Nixon said. “ … Quite frankly, these are remarkable numbers.”
In a world without cyber crime task forces patrolling the online community many of the criminals, who , have been brought to justice through their efforts, would still be on the streets, Nixon said.
“It is impossible to know how many more children might have been targeted or victimized if these cyber crimes initiatives did not exist,” he said.
Beyond being effective at targeting these crimes, the multijurisdictional cyber crime units also demonstrate the “strong value” of law enforcement agencies cooperating in a region.
“All of the 13 initiatives that received this grant funding are built with officers and resources from multiple local law enforcement agencies,” Nixon said.
Agencies working together to cover a bigger region was never thought about as recently as 10 to 15 years ago, Nixon said.
Since the Internet crosses city and county borders, the multijurisdictional approach allows for more effective enforcement, Nixon said.
“These initiatives show a positive impact of collaboration in protecting the public,” Nixon said. “That’s why, even as we face tremendous economic difficulties here in the State of Missouri and around the nation, it is critical that we provide crucial resources to programs like these.”
Funding, Nixon said, hasn’t been a “foregone conclusion.”
In May, he said, the legislature sent him a budget, which did not include the $1.5 million in state funding “that is ordinarily provided. …
“But, it was my view that these initiatives were too critical a piece of our law enforcement arsenal to leave them subject to drastic cutbacks in resources.”
Nixon said he directed Department of Public Safety staff members to define program criteria for the allocation of Recovery Act Justice Assistance Grant funds to the cyber crimes initiatives to fill the gap left by the legislature.
The task forces, he said, now will not face the difficult decision to cut programs or scale back their efforts in training or education.
“This is a victory for law enforcement; it is a victory for children,” Nixon said. “It is a victory, quite frankly, for all of Missouri.”
Nixon said he will be asking the legislature to restore the $1.5 million amount next year so the task forces will be guaranteed their budgets.
If it’s not, “we’ll look at different sources like we did this year,” he said. “ … This is something we’ve been working too long and making too much progress on to back up now.
“We certainly don’t want to send the wrong signal to cyber crimes and child pornographers, child abusers, all across the country that this is a safe place to work.”
The officers, he said, will tell you it is not a safe place for them to work.
“We’re going to catch them; we’re going to prosecute them, and we’re going to work across county lines … state lines to do it,” he said. “As long as I’m governor, we’re going to continue to back these task forces so they have the resources to do their jobs and protect our kids.”
