By a Biometrica staffer Wednesday, May 25, was International Missing Children's Day. It's a day that's dedicated to encouraging parents, guardians, caregivers, and others concerned with the well-being of children to make child safety a priority. The commemoration of this day, per...
By a Biometrica staffer One-and-a half centuries. Over 400 Indigenous boarding schools run by the federal government, with support from religious institutions. The use of systematic militarized and identity-alteration methodologies in an attempt to 'assimilate Indigenous persons.' Corporal punishment to enforce rules...
Pilot Program to kick off in Phoenix/Appleton in August-September 2022, with a focus on fundamentals, including understanding data and data privacy, creating case-use guidelines for facial recognition, ensuring accountability, and preventing bias. PHOENIX/APPLETON, March 21, 2022: On Monday, the National Criminal Justice...
By a Biometrica staffer On Friday, Feb. 4, the Justice Department announced that Aaron Crawford of Maryland had been sentenced to 20 years in federal prison, followed by 20 years of supervised release. Why? For engaging in what Attorney General Merrick B....
By a Biometrica staffer There's no doubt that combating child sex abuse material (CSAM) is a serious challenge that law enforcement officers, parents, caregivers, and various others involved in or concerned about child safety and protection face. Sample this: Of the 21.7+...
By a Biometrica staffer At Biometrica, child safety and protection has always been at the heart of what we do. We ended 2021 with a look-back special at various issues surrounding this all-important public safety subject that took centerstage through last year....
By a Biometrica staffer At Biometrica, the safety of children has always been a priority. This year, amidst general chaos and anxiety, the safety of children took center stage like never before. Here are some of the relevant issues and news stories...
By a Biometrica staffer On Wednesday, Dec. 15 the U.S. and Australia signed a landmark agreement that will facilitate access to electronic data for investigations of serious crime, including terrorism and child sexual abuse. The agreement is authorized by the Clarifying Lawful...
By a Biometrica staffer Two reports released recently draw attention to a mental health crisis plaguing schools and students in the U.S. One is an advisory issued by the Surgeon General, which warns that “symptoms of anxiety, depression and other mental health...
By a Biometrica staffer Last week, the Office of Inspector General (OIG) of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released its Fall Semiannual Report to Congress, in which it was found that the efforts of the HHS in the 2021...
By Aara Ramesh When it comes to gun rights, one demographic proponents of gun control are particularly concerned about is children that live in homes that also have firearms. While the presence of a firearm in the house can be dangerous to...
By Deepti Govind The 15-year-old who opened fire on his fellow students at Oxford High School in Michigan on Tuesday, Nov. 30, has been charged as an adult with two dozen crimes, including murder, attempted murder and terrorism. He faces life in prison...
By a Biometrica staffer On Tuesday (Nov. 30) afternoon, a 15-year-old sophomore who hasn't been named yet by authorities opened fire at Oxford High School in Michigan. His shooting spree ended up leaving three fellow students dead and eight others wounded. The...
By Aara Ramesh The U.S. is currently in the grip of what experts are calling a historic crime wave, with violent crime — and homicide rates particularly — reaching levels previously seen in the 1980s and 1990s. In fact, over the last...
By a Biometrica staffer U.S. prosecutors recently announced that they have filed sex trafficking charges against Apollo Carreon Quiboloy, the Philippine national who founded a church called Kingdom of Jesus Christ, as well as two U.S.-based administrators of that church. The superseding...
By a Biometrica staffer An SUV barrelled through barricades and drove through a Christmas parade in Waukesha (a suburban town just 20 miles from Milwaukee, Wisconsin) in the early evening of Sunday, Nov. 21, killing at least five and injuring over 40...
By a Biometrica staffer In Portsmouth, Virginia, the local police department and the Up Center are reaching out to the public as they seek mentors to help steer youth in the right direction. The two organizations have come together due to an...
By Aara Ramesh Last month, we wrote about some gaps in the child welfare system that can lead to children in foster care being abused. Unfortunately, the reality is that it’s not just those children who can fall prey to abuse. Almost...
By Aara Ramesh Even before the Covid-19 pandemic, the child welfare system was rife with gaps that made children in foster care extra susceptible to abuse. Like with many other societal problems, however, the pandemic only worsened that situation on a number...
By a Biometrica staffer A drive-by shooting around 1 pm on Monday, Nov. 15, in Aurora, Colorado, has left six teenagers (four boys and two girls between the ages of 14 and 18) injured, according to police. The incident occurred at the...
By a Biometrica staffer In 2019, the last year for which data is available, a total of 5,998 post-secondary institutions (across almost 11,000 campuses) reported 34,933 criminal offenses to the federal government, and 17,758 offenses related to violence against women, be that...
By a Biometrica staffer As part of their mandate to prevent substance abuse, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) periodically puts out a resource guide titled “Drugs of Abuse.” The latest version from 2020 is meant to serve as a “comprehensive guide” to...
By Aara Ramesh On Wednesday, Oct. 27, the Department of Justice (DOJ) announced that a Virginia man, 26-year-old Zackary Ellis Sanders, had been convicted by a federal jury for producing, receiving, and possessing child sexual abuse material (CSAM). The DOJ alleges that...
By Aara Ramesh On Wednesday, Oct. 20, Nikolas Cruz, 23, pled guilty to 17 counts of murder and 17 counts of attempted first degree murder for his shooting spree at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida in 2018. Despite this,...
By Aara Ramesh It’s not uncommon these days, unfortunately, to see stories of children or toddlers coming upon an unsecured firearm at home and accidentally setting it off. Research from the Gun Violence Archive and the Associated Press found that gun violence...
By a Biometrica staffer Out of the total federal caseload, child sex abuse material (CSAM) production cases account for only a small percentage. Even so, the expansion of digital and mobile technology has led to a 422% spike in the number of...
By Deepti Govind One in 10 people aged 18–25 and one in 30 people aged 13–17 experience homelessness each year. To put it another way, in a classroom of 30 students, at least one will experience homelessness this year, which means they...
By a Biometrica staffer Gun violence has steadily been claiming the lives of, or injuring, an increasing number of American children and teenagers over the years, the Associated Press reported, citing data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA). Shootings involving the young...
By a Biometrica staffer A few months ago, Reuters News analyzed data from the National Emergency Medical Services Information System, which represents almost 90% of all emergency responses in the U.S., and found that during the pandemic, “the rate of drug-related 911...
By a Biometrica staffer At the end of September, the U.S. Department of Labor (DOL) released its 20th annual “Findings on the Worst Forms of Child Labor” report, which analyzed the state of child labor in 131 countries and territories between January and...
By Aara Ramesh A year ago, last October, USA TODAY reported in a bombshell investigation that a foster father in Florida had been arrested in 2019 and had pleaded guilty to charges for rape, molestation, and producing and consuming child sexual abuse...
By a Biometrica staffer There's been a large increase in the number of sextortion complaints made to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Bureau's Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) warned at the start of this month. As of July 31, 2021,...
By Aara Ramesh The exploitation of children is a real and present problem, one that has only worsened — like many others — as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. Children are roped into forced labor; they are trafficked for sex; they...
By a Biometrica staffer In 2018, there were 1.2 million emergency department visits for assault in the United States, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) says on its website. Over 19,000 people died due to homicides, more than 14,000 of...
By a Biometrica staffer On Sept. 8–9, U.S. Attorney General Merrick B. Garland and Deputy Attorney General Lisa O. Monaco met remotely with G7 and EU Security Ministers, along with the Secretary General of INTERPOL, to discuss responding to the rapidly evolving...
By Deepti Govind In the late 1960s, a New York-based attorney named Bertram Hirsch was sent to North Dakota to assist with a custody dispute case on behalf of the Spirit Lake Tribe. At that point, Hirsch was employed by the Association...
By a Biometrica staffer The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) issued a warning in May asking the public to be wary of scammers looking to extort family members of missing persons who share details on social media. The goal of these missing...
By Deepti Govind Historically, animal cruelty was considered an isolated issue — one that didn't really harm the human population. As a result, perhaps, the process of recognizing animal cruelty as a serious violent offense in and of itself developed only slowly...
By Aara Ramesh On Sunday, Aug. 16, as the world watched on in horror and shock, the capital of Afghanistan, Kabul, fell to the forces of the notoriously extremist Taliban, prompting the U.S.-endorsed president to flee the country and American operatives to...
By Deepti Govind Just three weeks ago, the Department of Justice said a 53-year old Maryland resident, Jeffrey John White, was sentenced to more than 11 years in federal prison for possessing thousands of files of child pornography. When the case was...
By a Biometrica staffer In a bid to improve the relationship between law enforcement and the community, and to help officers de-escalate tense but not necessarily criminal situations, Alabama Governor Kay Ivey announced on Tuesday, August 3, that the Alabama Law Enforcement...
By a Biometrica staffer It would not come as any surprise to say that the Covid-19 pandemic pushed most of the world online, particularly children, as schools went virtual under lockdowns and restrictions. This increased children's use of the internet, and has...
By a Biometrica staffer Last week, a coalition of researchers from organizations including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the UN’s World Health Organization, and the World Bank published a report in the medical journal Lancet, in which it was...
By a Biometrica staffer In 2019, lower percentages of students aged 12-18 reported any kind of criminal victimization during the previous six months, compared with 2009, and that included theft and non-fatal violent victimization, a report published by the National Center for...
By a Biometrica staffer The Covid-19 pandemic turned the whole world upside down in a manner of speaking, but for some sections of global society, the impact was darker and more pronounced. Last Tuesday, we gave you a brief overview of the...
By a Biometrica staffer An undercover investigation in middle Tennessee ended in the arrests of 18 men accused of seeking illicit sex from minors, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) said on Monday, July 12. The operation began on July 8 and...
By Deepti Govind Child abductions are, thankfully, rare in the United States, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) said in its "Inside the FBI" podcast on May 25, Missing Children's Day. But when it does happen, the statistics tell a terrifying story:...
By Charlotte Spencer Earlier this year we discussed pending legislation in an article titled, “Pending Hate Crime Legislation in Front of Congress,” published April 22, and a February 4 article titled, “More Legal Firepower Proposed in Battle Against Child Abuse.” More has...
By a Biometrica staffer In what was supposed to be the International Year for the Elimination of Child Labour, a joint report published by the International Labour Organization (ILO) and the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) has sounded an urgent alarm over...
By a Biometrica staffer Even one incident of mass violence at a school is one too many. Going by that metric, the United States has had far too many to ignore over the course of the last two decades: from Virginia to...