LOS ANGELES -- The FBI's Community Outreach Unit and the Internet safety foundation I-SAFE America will work together to combat the widespread victimization of young people, it was announced today by Teri Schroeder, I-SAFE America founder/CEO and Cassandra M. Chandler, assistant director of the FBI's Office of Public Affairs. They also designated April as national Internet Safety Month, with activities to include a poster contest around the theme, "Know the Turf Before You Surf."

I-SAFE's curriculum, based on FBI guidelines for Internet safety, has been taught in schools throughout the country since September . At one middle school in Ohio, Shroeder pointed out, 5 percent of about 160 computer lab students listening to the I-SAFE presentation admitted to meeting a stranger in person with whom they had corresponded online. Eleven of 15 kids responded positively when asked to send an Internet stranger their photographs.

"These youngsters could easily have become part of the growing statistic of online predator victims," Schroeder said. "And it's not only the kids who need to learn how to recognize danger and how to immediately report it. Parents and guardians must also become alert to warning signs."

According to Chandler, "The full scope of child pornography and child exploitation via the Internet is unknown. We do know from a study conducted by the University of New Hampshire's Crimes Against Children Research Center in that 1 in 5 children received a sexual approach over the Internet and almost 70 percent of the solicitations happened when the youth was at home on the computer. We feel that a multi-agency community educational outreach approach with I-SAFE will be a successful way to address this burgeoning crime problem. Children and their parents also need to know that when children break the law online, they will be held responsible for their actions along with their parents."

San Diego-based I-SAFE America is funded by bipartisan Congressional earmarks managed by the Child Protective Division of the Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention within the Department of Justice.

Source: I-SAFE America