The Guardian reports President Donald Trump’s U.S. Department of Justice has slashed funding and training resources for law enforcement working on investigations and prosecutions of sex crimes against children. Worse, prosecutors and official are terrified of discussing the cuts, which limit their ability to carry out this work, for fear of losing their jobs.
“You don’t want to speak too loudly, because you just fear retaliation, and that’s a heavy hand to be dealt when you’re just trying to do your job,” one prosecutor told the Guardian.
Major cuts include the cancelation of 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation, which was slated for use in June. The conference, featuring presenters and training on targeting and prosecutorial tactics, would have benefitted state and federal law enforcement officers investigating online baiting and crimes against children.
“The sweeping cuts, enacted soon after Donald Trump began his second term as US president, are putting vulnerable children at risk and impeding efforts to bring child predators to justice, according to four prosecutors and law enforcement officers specializing in cases of child sexual exploitation, speaking on the condition of anonymity,” the Guardian reports.
Under the pretense of “austerity,” prosecutors warn administration higher-ups are also eviscerating efforts to conduct investigations and prosecution against alleged child predators.
“We need to justify all travel for training, trial preparation and meeting with victims. We need to justify it’s ‘core mission’, and the answer is almost always no,” said one federal prosecutor who specializes in crimes against children.
The 2025 National Law Enforcement Training on Child Exploitation was axed without explanation, which “hurts on a lot of levels,” according to one officer with the Internet Crimes Against Children (ICAC) taskforce, a national network of law enforcement agencies dedicated to combating online child exploitation. “If you’re not getting the training, it impacts the investigations, especially for new investigators.”
The internet world evolves at a tearing pace, and predators are devising insidious new tricks and tactics for nabbing victims. Child predators, they say, are better abusing AI to “groom and target children.” And sources said conference attendance is critical for investigators to keep up with the fast pace of “developments and software for obtaining and analyzing digital and forensic evidence, and other investigative techniques.”
Additionally, training forums provide an essential environment to not only learn techniques but to cope with “deeply traumatic” workloads that foster high staff turnover.
“This is very isolating work. You can’t go home to tell your family what you did during the day. When you meet other people at these conferences, they’re in the same boat,” the state prosecutor added. “Building those bonds is essential to us staying in this work long term.”
Read the full Guardian report at this link.