Hillsborough County Public Library Cooperative, together with Hillsborough County and the Tampa Bay Advertising Federation (AdFed), are getting tough on internet crimes against children.

Why? The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) reports:

• 1 in 3 youth have been exposed annually to unsolicited sexual material online
• 1 in 7 youth received an unwanted sexual solicitation while online in the past year.

• 1 in 33 youth received an aggressive sexual solicitation in the past year. This means a predator asked a young person to meet somewhere, called a young person on the phone, and/or sent the young person correspondence, money, or gifts.

• 14% of solicitations, nearly a four fold increase in five years, were generated by offline friends and acquaintances.
• Only 5% of the youth who received an unwanted sexual solicitation reported the incident to authorities.