Overview

     Children have embraced the Internet with remarkable alacrity, as they go online to learn, play, and communicate with their friends.  The Internet clearly influences how a growing number of children discover and interact with the world around them.  Unfortunately, cyberspace is not always a safe place for youngsters to visit.  Some sex offenders use the privacy and anonymity of the Internet to prey on vulnerable children and teenagers, whose Internet access is often unsupervised. In exchanging child pornography or seeking victims online, sex offenders may face little risk of interdiction of their criminal activities.  This heightened activity by predators searching for unsupervised contact with minor-age children presents both a significant threat to the health and safety of young people and a formidable challenge for law enforcement.  

     In response to this problem Congress, through the FY1998 Justice Appropriations Act, Public Law 105-119, directed the US Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to create a national network of "State and local law enforcement cyber units to investigation child sexual exploitation." 

     Through this Congressional mandate, OJJDP created the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) Task Force Program.  The purpose of the ICAC Task Force program is to help State and local law enforcement agencies increase their collective capacities to respond to computer and internet facilitated sexual exploitation of children.  This response requires increased capacities in computer forensics, technical investigation, community outreach and education, and victim services.

   In 2000 the Maryland State Police received Federal funding to establish the Maryland Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (MDICAC), with a mission to safeguard our children from Internet crime through a program of community education, aggressive investigation, and effective prosecution.

     MDICAC makes use of the task force model, forming collaborative relationships with local Maryland and Federal law enforcement agencies to build a circle of protection around our children to safeguard them from Internet predators and build those investigative capacities within local law enforcement agencies which make possible the effective investigative response to online child exploitation.

     MDICAC is one of 45 ICAC Task Forces that have been developed nationwide.

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