I’ve been aware of child exploitation and trafficking for most of my adult life. The Air Force provided some training on how to spot a trafficking victim. I’ve seen the airport bathroom signs and watched the films about heroic rescues overseas. None of that prepared me for what I later learned: the system failing these children is not only in some far-off country. It is here. As I listened to voices like Tim Tebow and Victor Marx and began supporting organizations like Protect The Innocent, I learned how badly the odds are stacked against victims in my own state, in the law, in the budget, and now in the culture.
The law
In Washington State, attempted rape of a child in the third degree, meaning an attempt to rape a 14- or 15-year-old, is a gross misdemeanor.
Here’s how: under RCW 9A.28.020, an attempt to commit a Class C felony is punished as a gross misdemeanor. Rape of a child in the third degree is a Class C felony. Put those together: an adult who intends to rape a teenager, takes a substantial step toward doing it, and is stopped before completing the crime faces a maximum of 364 days in county jail.
Prevention depends on what happens before abuse is completed. When the law treats a failed attempt as a minor offense, it weakens one of the few tools that can stop abuse before a child is harmed.
Prevention works when we let it
The Innocent offers a solution to child exploitation that is proven and effective at not only stopping future crimes, but finding past harm. Trained officers impersonate children online. When an adult arranges to meet a child for sex and shows up, he does not meet a child. He meets law enforcement.
Washington has proof this works. Since 2015, the State Patrol’s proactive operations have produced nearly 400 arrests, with numerous children removed from dangerous situations. A state-commissioned review found that 236 of 252 court-processed cases ended in conviction, and more than half of those arrested brought sexual paraphernalia to the meeting. These were not casual misunderstandings. Prosecutors have described cases where adults confirmed their intent to commit child rape and arrived at arranged meeting locations. In one set of Yakima County Net Nanny prosecutions, the Attorney General’s Office reported indeterminate prison sentences and lifetime sex-offender registration. In each successful intervention, a child was spared because law enforcement got there first.
But the people doing this work are past capacity. Southeast Washington’s child-exploitation team has lost detectives and now works mostly reactive cases, after a child has already been hurt. The lead detective’s own words were blunt: “If I had 10 more detectives investigating, I would have them busier than what they would know what to do with.” The state task force solicits public donations to fund operations. Nonprofits like The Innocent pass the hat so small departments can afford training the state has not funded.
A penny on the dollar
The entire national Internet Crimes Against Children program, 61 task forces, 6,200 agencies, and 347,000 investigations and 17,000 arrests in a single year, received $33.9 million in federal funding in FY2025.
The DEA, one agency, requested more than $3.3 billion the same year, inside a $44.5 billion national drug control budget.
That is roughly one penny on the dollar against the DEA alone. Congress knew this was inadequate seventeen years ago. The PROTECT Our Children Act authorized $60 million annually, and the task forces have never once received it, while reports of online child exploitation rose 2,800 percent. The threat grew twenty-nine-fold. The promise was never kept.
The documentary versus the record
Into this arrives Predators, David Osit’s Sundance documentary, acquired for wide release. It revisits To Catch a Predator with unaired footage of men weeping, begging, and saying their lives are over. Critics call it measured and humane.
Keep the record in view. A person who arranges to meet a child for sex is not at the beginning of something harmless. He may be at the end of a documented escalation. Research shows a progression from adult pornography to increasingly extreme material to child sexual abuse material, and the Department of Justice found that one in eight online offenders already has a record for hands-on offending. Self-report studies suggest the real number may be higher because many contact offenses are never detected. And be clear about what CSAM is: each image documents the sexual abuse of a real child. A child cannot consent. Consuming that material sustains the market for abuse, and showing up in person can be the next step.
One distinction matters. To Catch a Predator was entertainment, and its methods made most of its cases impossible to prosecute. Washington’s operations are professional law enforcement with a 236-of-252 conviction record. Criticize the TV show all you want. Do not let that critique become sympathy against the professional model that actually protects children. Whatever the film’s intent, the public conversation should not teach audiences to grieve first for the man at the door while the children he came for are protected on scraps.
Get in the fight where you live
You do not need a badge or a title. The system that produced this statute, these budgets, and these outcomes is built out of public processes that almost no one watches. So watch them:
Know your county’s record. Court files, plea agreements, and sentencing orders are public. Look up how sexual-offense cases against children are charged and sentenced where you live. Judge by the documents, not the headlines.
Show up. Hearings and sentencings are open to the public. A full gallery tells the judge, the prosecutor, and the victim that the community is watching and expects the law to take the harm seriously.
Move your lawmakers. Find your legislators. Tell them to make every attempted sexual offense against a child a felony and to fund the task forces. Then testify when the bill gets a hearing, and vote like children’s lives depend on it, because they do.
Speak where budgets are set. Task force staffing dies quietly in county budget meetings. Public comment is open to you.
Do it lawfully, do it with records, never identify a victim, and leave enforcement to law enforcement. A single observer can monitor a docket. A disciplined community can make quiet failure impossible.
The children these offenders target do not get a documentary. They get us, or they get no one.
Sources: RCW 9A.28.020 · RCW 9A.44.079 · WSIPP, “Internet Stings and Operation Net Nanny” · KOMO News · NWPB, ICAC staffing · WSP MECTF · OJJDP ICAC Program · National Drug Control Strategy FY2025 · FY2025 Drug Control Budget Highlights · Uncovered, “ICAC Funding Gaps” · DOJ SMART Office · Napier, Seto et al. (2025) · Variety · Sight and Sound · Documentary Magazine · The Innocent
Appendix: check your own county in five steps
The argument above depends on records, not impressions. Here is the short version of how to verify sentencing claims anywhere in Washington, using Chelan County as the example.
- Build the case list. Search the Washington Courts name/case search and the Odyssey Portal for cases involving rape of a child, child molestation, sexual exploitation of a minor, commercial sexual abuse of a minor, CSAM possession, and attempted versions of each. Local reporting identifies cases to check; it never proves the pattern.
- Pull the primary records. From the county clerk, get the charging document, plea agreement, and judgment and sentence. The final conviction offense and sentence come from those documents, never from headlines.
- Compare the sentence to the lawful range. A sentence is not “light” because it is lower than the original accusation. The honest comparison is the sentence imposed versus the standard range for the conviction offense. Also note whether a charge reduction, plea negotiation, or judicial departure explains the gap.
- Verify custody. County jail rosters and the Washington DOC inmate search confirm whether the sentence is actually being served.
- Preserve and publish carefully. Snapshot every web source with the Wayback Machine or archive.today before citing it. Publish records, not rumors. Say “charged” or “alleged” unless there has been a conviction. Never identify a victim or publish anyone’s home address or family details. Accountability runs through courts and legislatures, not front doors. No threats, no doxxing, no vigilante conduct. It can get real cases dismissed and real offenders freed. Correct errors promptly.
A supportable conclusion sounds like this: “In the reviewed cases, X of Y sentences fell below the midpoint of the standard range, and charge reductions, not judicial leniency, explained most of the gap.” Anything less documented should use safer wording: “Local reporting raises questions worth checking against court records.”
