County officials on Monday approved a request to submit a grant application to the state for funds that will help bolster a local task force focused on combating internet crimes against children.
The Bartholomew County Commissioners on Monday backed a request made by the Bartholomew County Prosecutor’s Office to apply for $22,560 in funding through the Indiana Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force grant program, according to Jay Frederick, a full-time criminal investigator with the prosecutor’s office.
The ICAC Task Force is a multiagency partnership that investigates and prosecutes individuals who use the internet to sexually exploit or entice children, and is overseen by the Indiana State Police. ICAC is one of 62 similar coordinated task forces in the United States.
The ICAC Task Force is made up of 105 local affiliates. Bartholomew County started its own last June, comprised of the office of Bartholomew County Prosecutor Lindsey Holden-Kay, the Columbus Police Department and Bartholomew County Sheriff’s Office.
The funding, if awarded, would go towards training for ICAC investigators and equipment, Frederick said. Last year, the prosecutor’s office submitted an application for $21,940 in the same funding and was awarded $6,660.
Applications for the funding has gotten more competitive, Frederick said, in part because the ICAC Task Force is expanding to bring on additional affiliates to help fight against crimes that are only increasing in frequency.
“The bad news is, this pie gets sliced thinner and thinner,” Frederick said with regard to the grant funding.
“The smartest thing we did as a community was to join the task force and to form our own local task force to organize and properly use our assets and resources,” Frederick continued later. “We’re nowhere close to where we need to be to tackle the problem, because the problem is so huge and it’s growing rapidly. And frankly, that’s why the state police has initiated an effort to on board more affiliates like us.”
Indiana’s ICAC Task Force received 18,183 cybertips last year, and have quadrupled over the past five years, according to state data.
Frederick said they expect to hear back from the state regarding the amount of their award before the end of June.
ICAC was developed in 1998 in response to an ever-increasing number of children and teenagers using the internet, the growing amount of online images depicting child sexual abuse and increasing online activity by people seeking to contact and exploit children and teens.
ICAC Task Force funding is supported under the Missing and Exploited Children appropriation included in the U.S. Department of Justice fiscal year appropriation.