Jump in FBI child porn cases leads to lab backlog – Yahoo! News

Fri Jan 23, 2009

WASHINGTON – The FBI’s stepped-up effort to fight Internet child pornography has led to an evidence backlog in the bureau’s computer labs, auditors said Friday.

The Justice Department’s inspector general said the number of such cases handled by the FBI rose more than 20-fold between the 1996 and 2007 budget years. As a result, the heavy volume meant it took an average of about two months to examine such evidence in 2007 — and even as long as nine months.

The FBI, which has built a new lab in Maryland to handle the increased demand, agreed with the inspector general’s recommendations to create deadlines to reduce the backlog.

In a written response to the report, the FBI’s executive assistant director, Stephen Tidwell, said the bureau should try to hire more staff to handle the growing number of people needed to process digital evidence, not just in child exploitation cases but in other types of criminal investigations.

The FBI also plans to work with federal prosecutors to find ways to negotiate plea deals earlier in child pornography cases, to reduce the demand on lab workers.

At the time the audit was conducted, there were 353 requests for processing digital evidence in cyber crimes against children cases.

See the FBI Report: http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/reports/FBI/a0908/final.pdf