League City Area News Online: Government

Government - Attorney General Greg Abbott picture TEXARKANA – Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott and his top Cyber Crimes Unit investigators, responding to the proliferation of predators seeking children online, visited Texarkana on March 21 for an interactive “cyber safety” town hall meeting at the Texas High School Little Theater.

This meeting was designed to arm parents with the tools they need to keep their children safer on the Internet. National statistics show that one in five children receive unwanted sexual solicitations online each year.

Internet Safety

National statistics show that one in five children receive unwanted sexual solicitations online each year.

Online Solicitation of Minor is now a felony in Texas even if the individual did not meet the child in person.*

“Web sites that kids frequent very often are also cruised by child predators,” said Attorney General Abbott.

At the meeting teenagers were invited to join a discussion on how to use social networking Web sites like MySpace, Friendster and Xanga without compromising personal information.

At the meeting, Attorney General Abbott and his Cyber Crimes Unit investigators outlined the risks children face online, the environment teens face online, and the way child predators are using this emerging technology to find victims. The investigators also offered information and safety tips about online predators and helped parents decipher chatroom lingo.

Teenagers were encouraged to participate in a discussion about safely using social networking Web sites like MySpace, Friendster and Xanga without compromising personal information that could unintentionally lead predators to them and their families.

The interactive presentation provided the audience with an opportunity to ask questions, and attendees also received Attorney General Abbott’s new “Internet Safety for Parents” video, which offers advice and tangible safeguards to parents on how to spot the warning signs that their children may be giving out too much information to a potential child predator.

The meeting included straight talk about the issue of online solicitation and some discussions included mature content. Parents of children of all ages and high school students were strongly encouraged to attend. Students in middle school attended at their parents’ discretion.

Cracking down on sexual predators is a top priority of Attorney General Abbott’s administration. The Cyber Crimes Unit’s hunt for online child sex predators has resulted in arrests of men from 14 Texas counties and Indonesia.

In addition to the Cyber Crimes Unit, Attorney General Abbott also formed the Fugitive Unit to locate convicted child sex offenders who have violated the terms of their parole and could be stalking children. The Fugitive Unit has arrested 270 of these parolees, as well as 46 unregistered sex offenders and another 23 men and women in other operations.

For more information, contact the Texas Attorney General’s office at 1 (800) 252-8011 or visit the Attorney General’s Web site at www.oag.state.tx.us

- Document - Rewritten to convert to past tense.
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--* From the March 27 article "Attorney General Abbott’s Cyber Crimes Unit arrests a man for online solicitation."

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