"Nothing is more important than keeping our children safe from the people who seek to victimize them over the internet," said Attorney General McCollum. "These people will stop at nothing to exploit Florida's children and we must do everything within our power to keep them away from our children and put them behind bars."
The "Think Before You Post" campaign is designed to educate teenage girls about the potential dangers of posting and sharing personal information online. Popular social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook make it easy for teens to post and share personal information, pictures and videos, which may make them more vulnerable to online predators. Research shows that teenage girls are particularly at risk of online sexual exploitation.
"As a result of Project Safe Childhood and its unprecedented effort to bring an entire community together to tackle the problem of online child exploitation, predators and would-be predators are now fully aware that their actions will not be tolerated in the state of Florida," said U.S. Attorney Greg Miller. "Rest assured, we will find you, we will aggressively prosecute you, and we will make sure you will never be in a position to harm the vulnerable youth in our community ever again."
The bill, which was unanimously approved by all referenced Senate and House committees prior to the opening day of the 2007 Legislative Session and has received strong support from both Senate President Ken Pruitt and Speaker of the House Marco Rubio, will strengthen penalties for the possession or distribution of child pornography. Additionally, the bill creates a new, separate penalty against sexual predators who communicate with a child online and then travel to meet that child for the specific purpose of further abusing him or her. The maximum prison terms will increase threefold from five years in prison to 15 years.
The legislation will also increase penalties when an offender misrepresents his age in order to seduce a child over the Internet. This technique, known as "grooming," is a behavior where the sex offender attempts to demonstrate that he is closer in age to the child in order for the child to feel more comfortable with the online communication. By creating a false sense of trust conveyed by a "common age," the offender breaks down the child's suspicions and defenses.
