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Save This PageThere are 19,000 computer hard drives in Virginia containing child pornography, according to law-enforcement officials, but only 48 people trained and licensed in the state to investigate the crimes.
A lack of resources leaves police unable to pursue cases, several officials said at the Capitol yesterday in support of legislation that would expand funding to an Internet crimes task force and add forensic data labs.
The thousands of pictures and videos traded through peer-to-peer file-sharing programs are excruciatingly gruesome, including rape and torture.
"These are actual videos of children where you can hear the screams and cries of these children as they're being victimized and brutalized as well as see the full-length video," said Lt. Michael Harmony of the Bedford County Sheriff's Office and the Southern Virginia Internet Crimes against Children Task Force. "Some of these videos are up to an hour in length."
According to task force, 1,256 hard drives in the Richmond area contain child pornography, along with 222 in Midlothian, 229 in Williamsburg, 1,956 in Virginia Beach and 243 in Charlottesville.
House Bill 1189, or "Alicia's Law," is sponsored by Del. Brian J. Moran, D-Alexandria, with chief co-patron Del. Beverly J. Sherwood, R-Frederick. The bill, named for a 13-year-old victim of an online predator, would:
The total-package budget amendment totals $20 million, but a scaled-down version could cost $6 million.
Beefing up police resources is important, Moran said, because children are being victimized as time continues with police lacking resources to investigate.
Harmony said Virginia ranks 10th in the nation for the number of transactions of child pornography tracked on the peer-to-peer networks in the past 2½ years.
"There are literally thousands and thousands of pictures and videos of child pornography, child sexual exploitation, child rape, and these aren't just pictures and videos -- we refer to them as crime-scene photos and crime-scene videos because there had to have been a child that was victimized for this to occur," he said.
"For these images to have been made, there has to be a child out there somewhere."
Contact Olympia Meola at (804) 649-6812 or omeola@timesdispatch.com.
