June 13, 2008 — Professionals involved in child-abuse cases are invited to a seminar coming up June 23-25 at the Almeric L. Christian Federal Building on St. Croix.
"It will provide for more effective prosecution," said Sara Lezama, spokesperson at the Attorney General's Office.
The goal is to further develop an island-wide capacity to provide rapid, effective and measured investigative response to unlawful acts involving children.
The focus of the training seminar is on decreasing the vulnerability of children to sexual exploitation and enhancing the capabilities of federal and local law-enforcement investigators through coordinated programs, investigative assistance and task force operations.
The agenda includes workshops on behavioral dynamics of child-sex offenders, polygraph interviewing techniques, forensic child interviews, innocent images — sex offenders online, crimes against children unit and prosecution of sexual exploitation of children.
"They're some child-interviewing techniques," Lezama said.
Sensitivity is the key to interviewing children, and they needed to be treated with kid gloves, Lezama said.
Child-sex abuse, incest and other crimes against children are on the upswing, but law-enforcement officials are also making more arrests in those cases, she said.
"Because of the upswing, more training is required," she said.
The seminar is sponsored by the Attorney General's Office in conjunction with the St. Croix Child Abuse and Neglect Task Force, the Women's Coalition of St. Croix and the Washington, D.C.-based FBI Crimes Against Children.
Invited are officials from CASA, St. Croix Child Abuse and Neglect Task Force, Juan F. Luis Hospital, Queen Louise Home for Children, V.I. Superior Court, Women's Coalition of St. Croix, U.S. Attorneys Office, U.S. Marshal Service, Office of the Attorney General, V.I. Police Department and the V.I. Departments of Education, Health, and Human Services.
Certificates will be issued upon completion of training.
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