Exactly what are they going to do with the funds from the grant? Has the journalist uncovered a misuse of funds? See notes below..
11-10-2008 Michigan:
GRAND RAPIDS -- Sexual predators beware: don't count on a city budget crunch to keep you undetected.
Grand Rapids has been awarded a $433,000 U.S. Justice Department grant to hire a computer expert and to train police officers to help catch child predators.
The program, called GRACE, or Grand Rapids Against Child Exploitation Program, will be discussed this week in City Hall.
It includes hiring a "forensic services analyst" for $125,000 a year who can investigate and recover computer evidence, Grand Rapids Police Chief Kevin Belk wrote in a report on the project. The rest of the grant is used for training investigators to catch online predators and overtime and software programs.
Grand Rapids police now try to catch predators by conducting spot checks on identified sex offenders who are in violation of registration requirements. Police have enough staff to check on 200 a year, but there are 750 registered sex offenders in the city limits, Belk said.What does checking on local sex offenders (verifying addresses) have to do with finding Internet Predators on the Internet? This one sentence, quoting the Police Chief, makes one wonder if the grant funds are going to be used to do something other than catching Internet Predators. Anyone have any ideas?
Michigan has the nation's third-highest population of registered sex offenders, according to the chief's report.
Officers also work with sheriff's deputies and state troopers to identify sex offenders, and GRACE helps that effort. Funds also will be used for community officers to offer Internet safety training and other predator awareness outreach.
"The GRACE program has the potential for significant improvement and expansion of multijurisdictional cooperation in a new area of law enforcement operations in Kent County," Belk wrote. ..News Source.. by Theresa D. McClellan The Grand Rapids Press
November 10, 2008
MI- Grant targets sexual predators
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Here are some other questions to ponder:
If Grand Rapids LE have that grant money how much was PJ given for their role in the last sting?
The money is to be used for computer forensic analysts, so will the computers used by PJ be forensically analyzed as well or did PJ use computers provided by GRPD or the Kent County Sheriff's Office? Wait, were those PJ decoys even in the state while chatting?
Another part of the fund is to be used for training and over time, but isn't that the reason for using PJ? According to PJ's website that is what they boast about, LE is able to use their services (they indicate free of charge but I would bet differently)to do the bulk of the work (outside of arresting) and to avoid department overtime costs? Also according to PJ's site, they have developed their own software and plan on training LE with it in their training program.
This just doesn't smell right and it comes way too close after a PJ sting operation.
I agree, how does investigating internet predators equate to registration violation requirements?
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