Herring urges colleagues to fight child exploitation with new technology

During a panel discussion at the Southern Region meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General, Attorney General Mark R. Herring and his partners in the Campaign for Child Rescue showcased cutting-edge technology that Virginia has adopted to fight child exploitation and urged his colleagues from around the country to adopt it in their states. The presentation is part of the Campaign for Child Rescue, a national initiative recently launched by Attorney General Mark Herring, South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley, high-tech industry and nonprofit partners to encourage states to adopt cutting-edge technology that enables the crowd-sourcing of investigations into suspected child pornography and online child exploitation.

“Nothing could be more important than the safety of our children. That’s why we’re leveraging new technology to make our investigations into these heinous crimes faster, more powerful, and less stressful on officers and investigators. That means we can identify victims more quickly and rescue them from incredibly dangerous situations,” said Attorney General Mark Herring. “If we can recruit more states to join us in adopting this technology we can start to crowd-source and coordinate these investigations among multiple law enforcement agencies across state lines to make our efforts even more powerful.”

Attorney General Herring has made combating child exploitation a priority during his term, increasing prosecutions, investigations, and investments in technology that can keep Virginia children safe from predators. Virginia is one of only about five states to adopt the technology that he helped showcase today.

In the last three years, Attorney General Herring and his team of prosecutors have brought charges against nearly 250 perpetrators, securing jail sentences of nearly 500 years, and have examined more than 2,000 computers, phones, and other devices in about 400 cases.

The Campaign for Child Rescue technology showcase is part of the National Association of Attorneys General Southern Region meeting, a bipartisan conference on emerging technologies hosted by Attorney General Herring in his capacity as chair of the Southern Region of NAAG.