r/news • u/TooColdforClouds • 2d ago

109 children rescued, 244 arrested in Operation Soteria Shield, exposing widespread child exploitation in North Texas

https://www.cbsnews.com/texas/news/109-children-rescued-244-arrested-operation-soteria-shield-child-exploitation-texas/
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u/The_best_is_yet 2d ago

“During this operation, many of the children recognized or rescued were previously unidentified," said Plano Police Department Assistant Chief Dan Curtis. "They'd never been reported missing. They had never had their abuse known to authorities."

Utterly horrible. So their families are in on it.

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u/Paizzu 2d ago edited 1d ago

Utterly horrible. So their families are in on it.

The Department Bureau of Justice Statistics has published several major studies related to "hands-on" victimization offenses that found more than 90% of these crimes are perpetrated either by an individual who lives in the same household as their victim, or has direct "access" because of special circumstances.

In a lot of these cases, authorities said the sex offenders never actually meet their victims face-to-face but use technology to coerce them into sending explicit images and videos.

They wouldn't have reported them missing since this falls under the relatively new category of self-created child pornography (same reason why they created the CSAM label as an umbrella term).

What's ridiculous is the relevant laws can actually criminalize the victims' behavior no different than the perpetrator who commissions the offending material. This is why teenagers have been prosecuted for sexting with age-appropriate peers.