War on Child Porn || Stories From the Frontlines
Of the great evils that thrive in the dark corners of our society, few are as heinous as the child pornography industry. Though the average American in their day to day life is unaware, a war is being fought against this evil. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has been training teams of injured or sick veterans unable to serve in the military to be investigators in child pornography cases.
Since 2013, over 100 veterans have been trained through the H.E.R.O. Child-Rescue Corps in computer forensics. After the eleven month training period, the recruits work with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), unpaid for the first year, viewing graphic content looking for clues leading to the capture of perpetrators. The amount of cases each year are overwhelming. Though ICE is just one of several agencies working in this field millions of cases are being brought in each year and it is a struggle to keep up. According to ICE’s Deputy Director Daniel Ragsdale, “It’s certainly not tipping the scale to dissuade people who abuse children.”
The veterans are grateful to have regained a sense of purpose that was lost when they couldn’t serve in the military anymore. The work requires them to view horrible images and videos that an everyday citizen wouldn’t have to think about, but they are proud to be able to hunt down these evil people taking advantage of children.
Read more about the story here.
About the Author, Samuel J. McLure, Esq.
Sam graduated from Huntington College in 2006 with a degree in Business Administration. Before transferring to Huntington College, he attended Bethune-Cookman University as the first minority-white running back in the historically black conference.
He went on to Jones School of Law and graduated with honors, cum laude. During law school, Sam had the distinguished honor of serving with the Faulkner Law Review, clerking with Alabama Supreme Court Justice Patricia Smith, clerking with the Alabama Attorney General’s Office, and studying International Law with Cornell University in Paris, France.
However, Sam’s most memorable law school achievement was adopting his first child from the Hungarian foster-care system. It was through that process that he and his wife saw the great need to protect children in the foster care system and to encourage adoption.
Sam’s law practice has maintained an orbit around protecting vulnerable and at-risk children. He and his wife have four children and have been actively engaged in the foster care system. Sam is the author of The End of Orphan Care, and book devoted to unpacking the orthodoxy and orthopraxy of orphan care; and has founded or served with ministries and community outreach initiatives such as Kiwanis, Personhood Alabama, Proposal 16, and Sav-a-Life.