NCMEC mission is to find missing children and prevent child victimization.

The agency serves as a National Clearing House for Missing and Exploited Children.

 

There are 5 locations that coordinate with US Marshalls, FBI, Secret Service, NCIS, ICE, and Diplomatic Security.  NCMEC was created as a result of victim's families that lobbied congress.

 

The breakdown of agency activity is as follows:

 

24 Hotline: 1-(800) THE-LOST

Receives calls from law enforcement, parents, victims, or from the general public with leads. They handle family and non family abductions, lost, injured, or otherwise missing, endangered runaways, and 5779 cases or strictly law enforcement calls for assistance with individuals between 18 and 21.

 

Case Management: Intake completed, assigned, missing report with NCIC, call center, interviews, determination of needs, Photos Collected, Media Campaign, and finally potential recovery.

 

Case Analysis: Public and Private database searches, age progression development, social media outreach, analyzing and collaborating on leads, investigational units.

 

Team Adam: Rapid Response Team that deploy, advise and assist local investigators, provide on-scene access to NCMEC resources, and enable rapid distribution of critical information to other agencies or personnel.

 

Photo Distribution: Walmart Partnerships, Facebook Social Media Outreach, Univision and Telemundo, "Have You Seen Me?" Cards, and News Distribution Network.

 

FDLE Cases: Foster Care children, assigned social workers, NCMEC will make initial contact, verify info for posters, Photos updated as possible, emails, cell phones, supervisor information, Recovery verify any changes, hair colors, tattoos, piercings, marks, and scars. Backpage monitoring. (Girls have been known to return to group homes or foster facilities with nice clothes and well-groomed to recruit other girls into trafficking or other prostitution services).

 

Locaters:www.locaterposters.org for information and how to sign up to receive posters.

 

Family Advocacy Division: Post recovery support to child victim and family of victim for long-term care for as long as the child needs support especially when trauma is associated with case.

 

Long-Term Missing: After 4-6 months, collection kit is sent to law enforcement for DNA, dental records, biometric collection, age progression, fingerprints, and NamUS, which is database to register missing persons.

 

Child Sex Trafficking Team: Only deals with missing and exploited children that are suspected to be involved in trafficking. Created in June 2003, FBI and DOJ they started acting as a national clearing house. They provide law enforcement support and case management for suspected sex trafficking cases. Also provide help with multi-jurisdictional task forces for missing and exploited children suspected to be enslaved in trafficking situations. Also houses a cyber tipline www.cybertipline.com where websites can report on child pornography, child exploitation, and child trafficking. NCMEC conducts detailed searches with public records, sex offender searches, social media searches, various website searches both public and private, to assist law enforcement with information on child victims and suspects. Family and friends are interviewed to find out about child victim's habits such as online chatting, information on friends/non-friend correspondence, personal grooming, routes they take to and from school, work, church, etc. They also check into where the child hangs out, changes in habit, new unexplained injuries, markings or tattoos, and changes in behavior. Information is referred to case analysis to coordinate with law enforcement for potential recovery.

 

The local Missing and Exploited Children field office is in Palm Beach Gardens. The contact phone number is (561) 848-1900. Mabel Juric is located at extension 3240, Donald Iman and extension 3246.

 

 

2 Million sisters, brothers, mothers, daughters, friends.....Slaves. This is the number that awakened Valentina the reality of  Human Trafficking.  She created a club called Love Moves to love on the brokenhearted and the forgotten and noticed that Human Trafficking deserved all of Love Moves attention. Love Moves is now looking to put on their second annual "Love Moves Yard Sale" on April 20th from 8-1 in the Wellington High School bus loop. A yard sale where people can donate their items or can have their own tables to sell things. All the proceeds go to help continue the Hope For Freedom safe house. Aside from just raising the money, Love Moves is raising awareness in the community of a crime bigger than ourselves.

 

 

Liisa Spinello spoke about the Sexual Assault Awareness Month in April. April 2, 2013 is the Sexual Assault Awareness Day of Action (SAAM Day). This year for SAAM Day, Palm Beach County Victim Services has decorated a field located at 4200 North Australian Avenue with 897 teal flags representing the 897 victims of sexual assault that Palm Beach County Victim Services has served over 2012. The small white flags also displayed in the field represent the 1 in 6 women that will be a victim of sexual asault throughout their lifetime. The SART Center fence is decorated in teal cups spelling out "No Means No!" with a banner, and an 8 foot high wooden teal ribbon. 

 

April 24th is Denim Day. Denim Day is based on an Italian court case from 1997 where a sexual assault case was overturned because the judge ruled that the victim's jeans were too tight. The Center will also be handing out promotional items and creating signage for college campuses, bars, and health fairs advising the public not to leave their drinks unattended to avoid drugs being dissolved in them. They are also working on public service announcements advising the public that they don't have to report a sexual assault to law enforcement in order to receive a free forensic exam and services from their agency.

 

Palm Beach County Victim Services and Rape Crisis Center serves all victims of crime, of all ages. The services provided by this agency include crisis response, advocacy, therapy, and community awareness. A victim DOES NOT need to go forward to law enforcement to receive services from this agency. To Contact Palm Beach County Victim Services, see numbers below:

24/7 Rape Crisis and Violent Crime Hotlines (561) 833-7273

Toll-Free: (866) 891-7273

TTY: (561) 355-1772

Main West Palm Beach Courthouse: (561) 355-2418

Victim Services SART Center: (561) 625-2568

North County Courthouse: (561) 625-2568

South County Courthouse: (561) 274-1500

West County Courthouse: (561) 996-4871

 

 

The Victim's Compensation Program is designed to assist primary and secondary victims of crime with benefits for wage loss, loss of support, disability, funeral/burial expenses, treatment expenses, mental health and grief counseling, property loss reimbursement for elderly over 60 years old or adults with a pre-existing disability, domestic violence relocation, and sexual battery relocation. All expenses must be directly related to the crime to be considered for payment. All benefit categories have payment limitations that can change without prior notice. All claims require an application with applicable documentation. Some benfits are not available for certain types of claims.

 

To request an application, apply for victim's compensation, or check the status of a claim, you can contact the Bureau of Victim Compensation by calling 1 (800) 226-6667. The Attorney General of the State of Florida can also provide information on the appellate court process, the Sexual Battery Examination Program, the Address Confidentiality Program for domestic violence, and victim services available in your area with referrals for local field agencies.

 

Elayne Gooding is the contact from the local Attorney General field office and provides services for the 15th and 19th Judicial Circuits as well as the 4th District Court of Appeals. Elayne can be contacted by calling (561) 837-5025 ext. 168.

 

 

Sarah Willis spoke about the Office of Statewide Prosecution being a hybrid style prosecution in which they can prosecute under a multi-jurisdictional area in the State of Florida. Sarah also discussed the new laws instituted in Florida after July 1, 2012. All forms of human trafficking were combined and located under kidnapping and are now punishable by a first degree felony. These new laws also removed element of coercion from Florida law for victims under 18 years of age. The other distinction that was created during the changes included penalties for victims under 18 years of age being a first degree felony and punishable by up to life in prison. For victims under 15 years of age, its considered a "life felony" where the penalty minimum is life in prison.

 

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Tyson Elliott also presented during this meeting on behalf of the Department of Juvenile Justice. He discussed a new Pilot Project that is underway in the Juvenile Justice Assessment Centers in Broward, Miami-Dade, and Orange Counties, as well as the Detention Centers in Miami-Dade, Bay, and Duval Counties. The project focuses on female victims of sex trafficking with a male perpetrator. This tool is used if certain indicators are flagged during the initial intake or assessment. For the months of January and February 2013, there were 56 children that completed the tool survey and 10 were flagged as human trafficking.

 

 

The Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) recently cross-referenced cases with the Department of Children and Families (DCF) in an effort to find out how many of the approximately 1200 Human Trafficking Reports from May 2009 through January 2013  made to DCF had been in contact with the DJJ. The statistics revealed that 717 DCF human trafficking cases had had contact prior with DJJ. Out of those 717 children, only 3% were brought in for prostitution. The juveniles were being charged with other charges, the majority being related to drugs, alcohol, assault, and/or battery.