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Child abuse unit cracking down on Internet crime

This is the first part of an ongoing series on the Long Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children and its Internet Child Abuse Unit. In the coming weeks the Herald will report on sexual predators on the Internet and how they hunt for children, as well as how kids bypass Internet restrictions and what parents can do to prevent this form of crime.
When Jeff Mackston tucked his 9-year-old daughter into bed one evening, he noticed her stiffness. She was quiet, and yet she seemed to be rattled. When asked what was bothering her, she said it was the man on the computer. Even at 9, she knew how to sign on to the Internet, but she couldn't control others from talking to her in a sexually suggestive way.
"I was livid," Mackston said. "I wanted to do something about it. You try to protect your kids as much as you can, but now you have these people trying to get at them right in your home through a computer."
Mackston's daughter was working on a geography project for school when she began "speaking" to someone from California. "It scared her," Mackston said. "But kids like her are subjected to this every day, and after it happens they are forever changed."
Feeling powerless, Mackston turned to a friend, an investigator with a child-abuse unit. Though he had no law-enforcement experience, in 1996 he teamed up with the Long Island Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (LISPCC) to form a child-abuse unit that would focus on computer crimes.
In April 1998 the Society's Child Abuse Unit (CAU) launched an aggressive campaign to educate and train its officers in how to fight the growing problem of pedophiles who hunt for children in Internet chat rooms and the distribution of child pornography on the Internet.
"This is desperately lacking in law enforcement," said Mackston, 47, of Island Park, who is now not only a certified New York State peace officer but the Child Abuse Unit's chief. "If there were a unit like this in every city in the country, we would still only make a dent in the amount of pedophile-committed crimes over the Internet."
The CAU is empowered by the New York State Division of Criminal Justice Service to prosecute or assist in the prosecution of any acts resulting in the direct or potential mental, emotional or physical harm of a child. "We work with the district attorney's office on local cases, and with U.S. Customs and the FBI on state, national and even international cases," Mackston said. "Basically those that read this should know that if you are out there doing wrong, we will be on the other end."

How the unit works
As an example, an officer will construct a personal profile of a 13-year-old girl that depicts the character of a typical child going through the trials and tribulations of adolescence - difficulty with parents who never understand her, searching for friends, seeking acceptance, etc. The investigator will then enter a chat room where pedophiles are known to hunt and simply wait. No conversation needs to be initiated by the officer, and he or she doesn't even need to communicate in the open chat room.
An experienced pedophile looking for children usually won't engage in open conversation in the chat room, either, but will, for example, check the America Online profile of all who are in the room until he finds a participant who interests him. There are times when a CAU officer is hit with 12 to 15 "instant messages" at the same time. The officer may engage in a conversation and eventually set up a meeting. The unit then informs the district attorney, obtains a warrant and works with another law enforcement entity to make the arrest.
It's early on a Thursday morning, and Mackston has just been given transcripts of several conversations with alleged pedophiles from the night before. Posing as young teenagers, officers have been approached by predators from as near as Oceanside and as distant as England.
"It can be anyone," Mackston says. "Your next-door neighbor, your boss, your employee - we've seen people from all walks of life."
Sifting through the transcripts, Mackston sees that some alleged pedophiles have sent sexually explicit photos of themselves. Sometimes it's just a portrait, but this morning Mackston shakes his head in disgust while looking at a man in one photo who is holding his erect penis. "This is what we get, this is every night," he said.
Seventy-seven percent of the targets of online predators are 14 or older, while 22 percent range from ages 10 to 13. The U.S. Department of Justice's Bureau of Justice Statistics reports that of all convicted rapists and those convicted of sexual assault in 1999, two out of three victims were under age 17. Fifty-eight percent of those victims were younger than 12. "The way I see it, if we just take one of these people out of society, you will be saving a lot of kids from being victimized," Mackston said.
Unit needs funds
With such a large number of suspects and a limited staff and resources, Mackston understands that there is only so much his unit can do. "It makes me sick," he said of the pedophiles he and his colleagues can't get to. "I mean, it just eats at me, because we know that person might be doing something and most likely is."
In the past, officers have met suspects after phone conversations. "We worked with the district attorney for a while, using a female to impersonate a young teenager," Mackston explained. "But to update them on every detail of the conversation was difficult, and eventually the suspect would know something was wrong."
Voice synthesizers will be used in the future so officers themselves will be able to hold conversations. "Hopefully that will allow us to set up meetings and make more arrests," Mackston said. "But we need more. We are short staffed and seriously in need of funds to continue this operation."
The CAU currently operates on a budge of $300,000 a year. Most of the money is raised through fund-raisers throughout the year, but the unit usually falls short of its needs, and the rest comes out of the pockets of Mackston and a few others in the unit. "We could be doing so much more if we had a bigger staff and more money for equipment," Mackston said.
The unit gathers in a small office in Oceanside, but Mackston has made it possible for his officers to work from home in the early hours of the morning, when most Internet pedophiles are signed on. Although many pedophiles hunt on the Internet at all hours of the day, 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. are their favorite hours of operation.
There is no statue of limitations on sexual predators, which gives victims a chance to report their attackers at any time. So while predators are out there, waiting for their next opportunity, the CAU is hard at work, trying to protect the community's children. "We come in contact with over 100 pedophiles a month," Mackston said. "We're out there making arrests all the time."

The LISPCC's Child Abuse Unit will present Swinging in the '50s and '60s, a holiday cocktail reception, Tuesday, Dec. 7 from 6:30 to 10:30 p.m. at the VFW Hall, 155 Searingtown Road in Albertson. To sponsor or buy tickets for the event, call (516)562-7415. For more information, log onto www.childabuseunit.com

Full credit for story goes to: Oceanside/Island Park Herald, NY