AUGUSTA, Maine — Members of the Legislature’s Criminal Justice and Public Safety Committee are determined to find additional funding for the Maine State Police Computer Crimes Unit after hearing the backlog of child pornography cases continues to grow.
“This is my absolute top priority,” said Sen. Garrett Mason, R-Livermore Falls, Senate chairman of the committee. “I will never forget what I saw at the crime lab, never.”
Like several other members of the panel, Mason visited the lab and looked at the images on the computers being analyzed. He said he is haunted by the sexual exploitation of children he saw on the computers that had been seized by law enforcement agencies from across the state.
“Let’s really do something about it and let’s stop kicking the can down the road,” said Sen. Stan Gerzofsky, D-Brunswick. “Everybody on this committee wants to do it, and this is the year we are going to do it, I hope.”
A former co-chairman of the panel, he said he has been frustrated that the work of the computer crime lab has depended on federal grants including one-time funding under the stimulus act that is running out next year.
“I am tired of hearing we are just holding our own with hundreds of cases they are not getting to,” he said. “This is a priority.”
State police Lt. Glenn Lang, director of the unit, told the panel at a work session last week that when it had full staffing, including temporary grant positions, the unit barely could hold its own; the backlog has grown since then. He said as of February there is a backlog of more than 200 cases with more than 600 computer hard drives that need to be investigated.
“When we were at full complement, had the six detectives working for us and the four forensic examiners, we could just about stay dead even with the flow,” he said.
Lang said the complexity of the cases has grown. He said a case used to mean a single hard drive, but now cases usually mean multiple computer hard drives with as many as 10 being seized in a single case.
“And there is more information capacity on the hard drives we are seeing now,” he said. “It takes longer to do the analysis.”
In 2011, the unit handled 235 child pornography cases, which represents 73 percent of the unit’s workload, according to statistics from Lang. He said the unit has to shift from working on the backlog when a case of more immediate urgency comes to them. For example, he said, a murder case or a missing child becomes first priority.
“Its triage for us all the time,” Lang said.
Overall, the unit has cleared 67 percent of its cases. But there is a backlog of 235 child pornography cases from 2011, 73 from 2010, two for 2009 and a single case from 2008.
“We have tried to streamline things, like doing a preliminary forensic analysis,” Lang said. “We generate a quick report and some DAs like that and some don’t and say they want a full forensic analysis before they will touch it.”
The legislative panel is considering a bill sponsored by Sen. Bill Diamond, D-Windham, that started as a sweeping bill covering several areas from the sex offender registry to increasing criminal penalties for a number of sex crimes. One section of that bill would provide an additional $300,000 a year for more detectives. It has broad committee support.
“I think there is time to put this together and find the money,” Diamond said.
Lang was asked to put together a proposal for the committee to consider this week to increase staff so that the unit can start to reduce the backlog of cases.
“I am not sure what the mix would be,” he said. “We need detectives as well as forensic examiners and I am not sure what would be the best, but I will get back to you.”
Col. Robert Williams, chief of the Maine State Police, said he is hopeful there will be additional staff for the unit in the governor’s supplemental budget, but he does not know for sure because the budget has not been released by the governor.
Our children are being assaulted on a daily basis, and the scumbags seem to be given leeway, leniency, plea deals, etc., and then let out for “good behavior” after leaving their victims in a prison-like state for a lifetime. There is no rehab for these perverted beings who prey upon the youngest in our midst.
Just tax maine people more problem solvrd!
I’m shocked that comments weren’t automatically closed on this one.
I can fix the back log, one bullet at a time.
I love the hillbillies name, oh and what you said. If only it were so simple. I prefer the tie you child harming pecker heads to a chair and pull your finger nails off method.
Stephen Marshall had the right idea back in 2006.
You are a sick person. Stephen Marshall was a murderer of innocent people. Who were put on that stupid register for having sex with their girl friend.
Yeah? I’m sure I wasn’t on that bus with all those innocent folks. Stephen may have been a victim, but he was also dangerous, violent, and paranoid…. All symptoms of sexual abuse.
Since most of these cases cross borders with other states and countries. Wouldn’t it make sense to demand that the Federal govt. fund these labs?
The State Police Computer Crimes Unit is not the best place to put our child-porn fighting dollars. As one poster above points out, many of these crimes are not happening in Maine, and a couple of weeks ago, this agency began searching out people who post cartoons of child porn.
I suggest that the Maine State Police go back to their original mandate of enforcing laws in Maine. Also let Yosemite Sam police the cartoon world.
Well, the Catholic Church will be fighting this one…
The site referenced above is spam, and it loads tons of adware into your computer. Do not access it.
I did not click on it, but flagged it. If you run across something like this; if you run your cursor just under the comment you will find the flag button (did not know if you knew this)
No I didn’t I never have “flagged” anything… I thought that was just for inappropriate language, or threats, etc. Then a while back I noticed all the flag buttons were gone. I assumed they were removed.
The innocence of babies and children are being exploited moment by moment by sexual perversion and abuse. What a sick, sick monstrous people this world has in it. We ask how to help end these horrific animals and I repeat; animals not humans from our planet: First of all, if these animals are found to be in anyway involved with any form of child exploitation we as a country need to stop being so weak-minded and think they have any rights. They have lost their rights to the human race the moment they let their sick minds take advantage of the innocence. We are so very quick to make sure every word spoken today is politically correct that we in the United States have become fools of our own making. No wonder our jails are full because we feed, provide clothes and keep all the monsters warm in a bed. God forbid we allow them near other inmates because they are smart enough to know they are vile and should be allow giving them their due, but no, because we are supposedly so human we protect the monsters. It is time to protect our children not the monsters. We should support any and every program to make sure these animals are found, castrated and placed with the other inmates, why should we protect those animals? Our court system, judges, lawyers representatives need to care more about this issue instead of what political party is going to move them forward in their careers. If someone does not want to make sure that money is set for this cause then they should be investigated because anyone that has any human morel fiber to their person would want the children protected at all cost.
You are so right!
Let them concentrate on the ones they know about and through out all the older cases. They prosecuted them on sex charges anyway.
An Island, about 30 miles out to sea… No boats… include boa’s ……
Senator Mason is a republican. This is the party advocating to take away head start, food stamps, aid for dependent children, medical care and so on. They do not appear to be interested in the welfare of so many children.
Am I wrong but are children who are poor and disadvantaged not the victims of child pornography?
The Senator’s concern is noble but his vision is shortsighted for supporting policies that will provide for more poor children to become possible victims. This all seems so counterproductive to me and does not support the Child Protection Act.
This is a big problem and needs to be addressed in a wider fashion by addressing the poverty issues, the root cause of the abuse.
People living in poverty do not sexually abuse children at any greater rate than wealthy people. In fact those in poverty abuse slightly fewer children. (but still within the margin of error.) The reason for this is the child’s living environment does not seem to be a factor.
What we do know is that children are most likely to be abused by a family member, family friend, or someone the child knows. We also know that people who discover this abuse (within the family) seldom report it. It usually comes to light when little Johnny brings a friend home and uncle Dunkle abuses this child too.
The solicitation by internet, or other “stranger” contact is not the usual way pedophiles do business. This is why I fail to understand why so much money is being spent on “stranger contact” as opposed to looking toward where these crimes REALLY occur.
I suspect the old ploy of using horrendous but rare instances of this crime as a way to get taxpayers to open their wallets….
Sorry,; No sale.