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There has been a 150% increase in reported child exploitation and attempted exploitation in Vermont since mid-March. The incidents include child extortion and cybercrimes, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Burlington.
Officials say that’s at least in part because the Covid-19 emergency has resulted in children being online more than ever before. Predators, meanwhile, have more time to exploit them.
In both January and February, Vermont received 20 tips of child exploitation online, which officials say is a typical number for that time of year. Then in March, when the pandemic began, that number climbed to 46 — and in April it spiked again, to 53.
Matt Raymond, commander of Vermont’s Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforce, or ICAC, said those numbers are way outside the norm. He said while the reports of child exploitation online have been steadily growing in Vermont for years, this spike was far from typical.
“Correlation does not prove causation,” Raymond said. “You can’t say the lockdown caused this, but I think if you have somebody that has a predilection to exploiting children online, and you give them an extra 40 hours a week to do that, this is the result you see.”
Predators attempt to get children to send sexually explicit images and videos of themselves, and try to lure children to meet for sex, officials said. In some cases children have also been subject to extortion.
Raymond said young children are being targeted by online predators, and parents might need to be vigilant far earlier than they think.
“When people think about child luring or children being online victims, everyone thinks of older children, and older children do get victimized,” he said. “But people don’t realize the average age of child victims online is getting younger and younger. Generally, most of our cases are kids under 8 years old.”
Raymond said it’s hard to say what percentage of tips result in criminal charges being filed. He said a number of factors can reduce the ratio of tips to prosecutions, like multiple tips all tracing back to one perpetrator, or tips ultimately proving to be untraceable, or an investigation revealing that the tips fall short of actual crimes.
The increase in the number of tips, however, means more children have been exploited, he said.
Prosecutors have pursued several Vermonters accused of exploiting children online over the past several months. Most recently, a UVM doctor was charged with production and possession of child pornography after being found with hundreds of videos and images of child pornography, in addition to a hidden camera he was keeping in an employee bathroom at the UVM Medical Center.
U.S. Attorney Christina Nolan said her office has been aggressively prosecuting each case they can substantiate, in the hopes of deterring those who might be predisposed to exploiting children online in the future.
“I think that certain populations who were already vulnerable before the pandmeic are in many ways at even greater risk during the pandemic in light of stay home orders,” Nolan said. “Children fall into that category.”
Nolan said there would be “no way to know” if aggressive prosecutions are actually deterring others from exploiting children online, but said her office “certainly hopes” that their work would make a child predator think twice before engaging in exploitative activity online.
“If we deter any number of them, or spare even one child, then we’re doing our jobs,” the federal prosecutor said.
When parents have to juggle their children’s education with teleworking and the general demands of parenthood, it can create opportunities for predators to exploit, she said.
Nolan said a recent press release put out by the U.S. Attorney’s Office led to a spike in referrals to ICAC, which she said her office is hoping leads to more prosecutions, and as such, fewer cases in the future, though she said that might depend a lot on the conditions of the pandemic over the next several weeks and months.
“Being an optimist and knowing how hard state, local and federal law enforcement partners are working, I’m hoping it levels off,” Nolan said.
Raymond said he hopes cases level off, in part because ICAC already has “quite the backload” of tips they haven’t been able to investigate, and need to catch up.
Before the Covid-19 emergency began, Raymond said the Office of the Attorney General had converted two existing positions into ICAC positions, and had requested funding to fill those positions. However, that funding had yet to come through when the crisis hit. Without those positions, the office has been swamped.
“Those positions are drastically needed,” he said. “I understand that Vermont is in a severe economic decline due to Covid, and we’re not the only place that needs money. I know we don’t live in a vacuum but these positions do need to be filled.”
He said in the interim Homeland Security has helped lighten the load.
Adding to the “perfect storm” of the past few months has been the shut down of the courts, Raymond said, making it harder both to get residential search warrants, and to bring the perpetrators to justice. He hopes the June 1 court reopening date helps alleviate some of that pressure.
Experts say parents should pay attention to where computers are located in the home and watch children’s online privacy settings.
Vermont’s upward trend in cases the past few months is in line with national and global trends, Nolan said. Reports of child sexual exploitation to international cybertip hotline are up by an average of 30% globally, according to InHope, a network of 47 national cybertip lines. But Nolan said she’s optimistic that those numbers will begin to fall soon.
“Anywhere that there is the internet, which is virtually everywhere, this is a risk,” Nolan said. “But we’re hoping our efforts here help mitigate that risk.”
Read the story on VTDigger here: Child exploitation online spikes during pandemic.