Projo 7 to 7 News Blog

WASHINGTON -- Rhode Island's Internet Crimes Against Children program is to get $452,439 from the federal government through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Recovery Act), the state's congressional delegation announced Friday.

"This funding will ensure Rhode Island's law enforcement officers have the resources they need to protect our children from online predators," the legislators said in a joint statement. "Today, with more young people sharing personal information on social networking sites like Facebook, it is important to protect children from being targeted and victimized in cyberspace."

This month, local authorities, working with federal law enforcement officials, arrested nine men and two minors in connection with the online trading of child pornography.

Rhode Island's ICAC program is part of a national network of 59 coordinated task forces, representing more than 2,000 federal, state, and local law enforcement and prosecutorial agencies engaged in proactive investigations, forensic examinations, and criminal prosecutions.

In the past two years, ICAC task forces have conducted more than 24,371 forensic examinations, identified nearly 1,439 children who were victims of some form of abuse or neglect; and arrested 5,450 individuals, according to a joint news release by U.S. Senators Jack Reed and Sheldon Whitehouse and U.S. Representatives Patrick Kennedy and James Langevin.

 Tags  Washington

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