Meeting will come to order. Homeland security investigations. Will come to order without objections to chair oj rise of the recess at the subcommittee any time. We welcome efrp to todays hearing on combatting crimes against children and i will recognize myself for an Opening Statement then recognize the gentleman from michigan. Then the chairman of the full committee, if he is able to make it, and then we will begin our questionings. I want to thank each of you for being up here today. Todays hearing addresses one of the most difficult issues for people of good conscious to contemplate. The most innocent and vulnerable, which would be our children. Public safety is the most preimminent function of government. And the most preimminent of protecting those who cannot protect themselves is most important. Today is regarding the exploitation of children, the effectiveness of laws and working together across every proverbial aisle that exist to make sure our laws are as tough as possible. Amend where needed. Strengthen where needed. Thank you to our witnesses for being here today. And every other day other than today when you are combatting Child Exploitation and abuse. No longer is it simply physical proximity that puts our children in danger. The internet and other things created an alternative world where sex offenders can easily and sometimes exploit our children with just a few strokes on a keyboard. Not only are offenders finding vulnerable victims, they are also sharing other p em who share their debravities. These predators lead to even more egregious and criminal behavior. Images on the internet today targeting even younger children including infants with ever more graphic images. Over the past decades, congress enacted a number of laws to protect children of skploe tags in 1984 congress established creation of the National Center for missing and exploited children a Nonprofit Organization to help prevent child abduction and Sexual Exploitation. To help find missing children and to assist victims and their families. National center for missing and exploited children a has contributed to the awareness of sexual abuse on the nint and in identifying and locating children so they could be rescued. Tragically more often than not the image is redistributed time and time again and the person can be victimized hundreds of times over. This permanent picture of abuse can victimize victims for the remainder of this their lives. There is in statute of limitations on your own personal suffering. Because of the National Center for missing and exploited children we are now able to use certain technology to identify a children in an image so we can assure think are fully able to seek justice. In 19 the 8 Congress Passed the jack on crimes against children an offender registration act to require states to track violent offenders. 2006 adam walsh act signed into law under this federal statute is the sex offender registry requiring each state to apply criteria for public posting offender data on the internet. It also created an office of the Justice Department to oversee standard for sex offenders notification and Registration Requirements. 1998 Justice Department investigated internet crimes against children. This program has been incredibly successful. In 2015 alone these task force programs conducted more than 54,000 investigations and 61,000 forensic exams. These efforts resulted in the arrest of more than 8500 suspects. In the wake of evolving technologies and new ways to commit crimes, Congress Introduced laws to combat. So remarkable progress has been made in preventing crimes against children as well as investigating prosecuting these offenses but there is more to do. Predators will continue to do everything to remain undetected and it is our fundamental and constitutional duty to implement tu tools to enable Law Enforcement investigators to track done these predators. Children are the most vulnerable and innocent of victims. They are completely dependent on us. They merit the greatest protections our law allows. Merit the most severe form of punishment the law allows. This includes everything from preventing crimes from occurring, strengthening the ability to investigate these crimes, strengthening the prosecution and pretrial methodologies so children are interviewed as few times as possible by trained professionals who know how to both talk to and listen to children. And assuring victims have access to restitution and support services to fully aid them in the recovery process. With that i would thank our witness again and look forward to our conversation and recognize the gentleman from michigan, Ranking Member of the full committee. Thank you, mr. Chairman. May i read the three sentences of congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee who is in another committee. Yes, sir. Thank you. And here is what was what is said in her behalf. Our Ranking Member congresswoman Sheila Jackson lee is also a member of the House Budget Committee which is currently debating the health care bill. She will not be able to attend this hearing today but she expresses her passion for combatting crimes against children which is a major problem in her district and the city of houston in the form of human trafficking. As Ranking Member and founder and chair of the childrens c k caucus, she pledges her support to Work Together to create a legal system that protects all our children and punishes the perpetrators of crimes against children. And now in my own behalf, i wanted to mention that todays hearings, mr. Chairman, and members, by this subcommittee well discuss the serious and ki disturbing issue of the criminal victimization of children. With all of our effort to fight the various forms of Child Exploitation, it continues to be a threat to our young people. However, weve developed strategies to both prevent and respond to these crimes and to assist in the many children who are victims. I trust we will learn about the strategies that are working and how we can do better. In april of last year the department of justice reported to us that the main threats in this area and the next five years will be child pornography, sex extortion, child sex trafficking, sex offender registry violations, and child sex tourism. Response to these crimes requirement Law Enforcement and prosecutorial agencies and private Nonprofit Organizations and advocates supported by direct federal funding authorizations and grant programs. All working together to keep our youngest constituents safe from harm. Today we will hear from individuals representing some of the entities involved in this necessary mission and their rules illustrate the ways we can do more and do better. Were proud to have these four witnesses with us. First, we in Congress Must recognize that while we can enact federal legislation state local enforcement is on the front lines. The internet crimes against Children Task force program funded through the Justice Departments office of juvenile justice and delinquency pension provides training and Technical Assistance and regularly conducts undercover online investigative operations. Since congressman dated creation of this program, 3,500 federal state and local Law Enforcement and prosecutorial agencies have joined to form 61 coordinated Regional Task forces. These task forces are important now because we see a tremendous increase in crimes perpetrated against children on the internet. Detective Patrick Beaver from the Loudoun CountyVirginia Sheriffs Office will speak us to today about his successes that his office has enjoyed working with the Northern Virginia internet crimes against Children Task force to conduct an operation targeting internet predators last year. Next we must provide specialized assistance to families, victims and Law Enforcement to help prevent child abductions, recover missing children, identify and assist victims of child pornography and child sex trafficking. That is the mission of the National Center for missing and exploited children and well hear from their representative today about what they are experiencing and providing this assistance. As former and local prosecutor, ms. Fran seen hawks will also help us about the challenges at the state and local levels in fighting these crimes and enforcing our laws. Challenges a local levels in fighting these crimes and enforcing our laws. H the state and local levels in fighting these crimes and enforcing our laws. All this will help us consider authorizations, considering the adam walsh act and victims protection act. Clearly we must do more to prevent and investigate these crimes and especially assist their many victims. When we do apprehend and convict offenders, we must recognize that most of them will be released back into society at some point. The sex offender registration and notification act is intended to establish a nationwide system of monitoring and trafficking sex offenders. Particularly after their release from prison. Currently there are over wi850,0 registered sex offenders in this country. If were going to have such a system, we must ensure that it is used in an appropriate circumstances and in the most effective manner. However, only 17 states in substantial compliance withity requirements. States, policy makers, researchers an advocates continue to object to the requirements established by sorna for many reasons. One of the most pervasive criticisms of sorna is the inclusion of juveniles on registries. Ms. Nicole pittman is here today to discuss the real impact of juvenile registration on the juveniles, their families, and the overall effectiveness of sorna. I thank the chairman for holding this hearing on this important topic. We all wish the Child Exploitation could be eradicated. But the problem persists. With what we learn today, i hope we can Work Together to come closer to achieving our goal. I thank the chair. Chair thanks the gentleman from michigan and now recognizes the gentleman from california. Thank you. Except im from virginia. What did i say . California. Whatever i said, i meant virginia. Im very pleased youre holding this hearing and i thank you for the opportunity to say a few word about it. Its a very important hearing on combatting crimes against children. Much progress has been made over the past few decade in preventing, investigating and prosecuting Child Exploitation crimes but there is still work to be done. The bur roy of statistics once stated that 66 of all victims of Sexual Assault reported to agencies were juveniles under age 18. 30 under age 12. These statistics are unacceptable and are especially frightening in light of the fact that most child sexual abuse goes unreported. It is for this reason we must remain vigilant in protecting the most vulnerable and innocent victims of crime. Our children. As a father and grandfather, i can think of no more Important Role for a Law Enforcement. Over the past several Years Congress has taken important steps to prevent criminals from victimizing children in the first place. This include the establishment after National Sex Offender registry. And the passage of the adam walsh Child Protection and safety act, comprehensive set of National Guidelines for state sex offender registries. These registries are crucial in assuring that sex offenders are not living off the grid, are not evading state and federal Law Enforcement and most importantly are not having unsupervised interactions with children. I very much appreciate the work of the United States marshals and contributions of the National Center for missing and exploited children to this effort. Each provide assistance to state and local Law Enforcement in locating noncompliance sex offenders. People who pose a very real risk to our children. The u. S. Marshals were tasked with this in the original adam walsh act in 2006 and works to apprehend sex offenders. However more work is needed to secure the implementation of the National Standard in every state. So Important Information can be easily shared between jurisdictions. I thank congressman sensen brenner for his introduction of the adam walsh reauthorization act, legislation necessary to maintain the good accomplished by this act and improve this system to be more efficient and more just. Sex offenders will often go to Great Lengths to get close to children, gain their trust and take advantage of their naivete. It is meant to provide children with mentors to be sure their volunteers and employees do not have a history of predator ary behavior. I commend the work of congressman bishop and ship, it gives access to data base in investigations. We have panel here to discuss this difficult subject. People who dedicated their careers to protecting children and are familiar with the pervasive nature of these crimes and challenges in ending them. I look forward to hearing from our panel about the problems that are being encountered in preventing and investigating crimes and what congress and states can do to help further combat them. Congress has passed a number of bills to address the crisis of Child Exploitation in the United States. We must keep up with this everevolving criminal behavior. This hearing will help us determine what more can be done to end these terrible crimes. I thank all of you for being here today. And i yield back. Thank you, mr. Chair. I thank the gentleman from the Common Wealth of v and beg his forgiveness again for putting him a state other than virginia. We have a distinguished panel. I will begin by swearing in our witnesses. Please rise and lift your right hand. Do you swear the testimony you are about to give before this committee will be the truth, whole truth and nothing but the truth so help you god . May the record indicate that all witnesses answered in the affirmative. I will introduce you are welcome to sit down. I will introduce you as a group then recognize you individually. I would tell you up front, all members have access to your Opening Statements. All members either have or will read your Opening Statements so the extent you can summarize it within the fiveminute time period so the members, and we have great participation today, so members can get to their questions. Our first witness is mr. John sheeshian, Vice President of the exploited children division, National Division of exploited children. Francy haks is a Child Protection advocate. Former National Coordinator for child introduction. Third witness is detective Patrick Beaver of Loudoun County sheriffs office. Detective beaver is a member of the internet crimes against Children Task force and fourth witness is ms. Nicole pittman. Vice president and director of center on youth registration reform at impact justice. With that, mr. Sheeshian you are recognized for five minute. Thank you. Im Vice President at national sent formissing and exploited children. Ive been with them for 17 years and served as Vice President since 2015. Necnec is a private Nonprofit Organization. We reunite families and to reduce Child Exploitation and child vikt mixization. Our founder is john walsh. Ncnec has a coordinated response to the problem of missing and exploited children. More specifically, ncmec has programs for reporting child abuse content and identify child victims. The two are the cyber tip line and child identification program. Ncmec launched the tip line in 1998 to provide the public with an efficient method of reporting incidence of Child Exploitation including child pornography. We later expanded the program to enable reporting by the Electronic Service providers. Federal law now requires Electronic Service providers to report a child pornography like they became aware of to the ncmec tip line. Cyber tip lines reports are reviewsed by ncmec staff, use resources