Issues

Protecting our children from harm is every parent’s highest priority. As the mother of two small children, Attorney General Lisa Madigan is personally committed to protecting all Illinois children. She created the “Project Surf Safe: Navigating the Hidden Dangers of the Internet” program and a teen dating violence education campaign as part of the Youth Advocacy Initiative, which also offers a school violence tip line, sex offender tracking and protection from unsafe children’s products.

When Lisa Madigan was first sworn into office, she made protecting our kids from sexual predators a top priority. She drafted laws to strengthen the system for managing dangerous sex offenders, including requiring lifetime supervision of sexual predators. Attorney General Madigan also revamped the Illinois Sex Offender Registry to ensure that pictures, addresses and other vital information are accurate and up-to-date. In doing so, she discovered that hundreds of sexual predators had failed to register. Her office launched an effort that continues today to track down these fugitive sex offenders.

Children too often fall victim to predators in the anonymous world of the internet. That’s why Attorney General Lisa Madigan secured federal funding that allows her High Tech Crimes division to track down online sexual predators and child pornographers. This division coordinates the work of the Illinois Crimes Against Children task force, which has been responsible for the arrest of hundreds of suspected online sexual predators.

To combat the alarmingly large volume of child pornography downloaded, traded and viewed on the internet, Attorney General Madigan launched her Operation Glass House in August 2010.  By the operation's first anniversary, 26 of the worst child pornographers in the state were found and arrested and the number of Illinois-based Internet protocol (IP) addresses accessing child pornography was drastically reduced. The operation continues to make more arrests and in its second year will focus on on targeting offenders found viewing and trading violent videos.

The Attorney General’s Illinois Crimes Against Children Task Force has also trained over 100,000 local law enforcement, teachers and parents about the dangers of the internet. “Project Surf Safe: Navigating the Hidden Dangers of the Internet” gives parents the tools necessary to remain informed about new dangers on the internet and provides children and teenagers with the skills they need to protect themselves.

Attorney General Madigan successfully pressured MySpace.com, the online social networking site frequented by pre-teen and teenage children, to remove over 1,800 registered sex offenders from their network. The Attorney General’s investigators continue to monitor internet social networking sites and chat rooms to seek out and stop sexual predators from preying on unsuspecting underage victims.

With the rise of internet usage, traditional schoolyard bullying has gone high-tech and can now reach right into our children’s homes.  Bullies use chat rooms, text messages, social networking sites and email to target their victims.  Attorney General Lisa Madigan has targeted cyberbullying in Illinois by bringing together law enforcement, educators and parents to keep Illinois laws current with technological advances and to educate students, parents and teachers about the best ways to prevent cyberbullying.

The health and safety of Illinois children has always been a major priority for Attorney General Madigan, and nowhere is this more evident than in her tireless efforts to protect them from dangerous and defective products. In 2008, 48% of recalls involved children’s products. This staggering number led Attorney General Lisa Madigan to fight to change the way that the federal government handles its recalls of children’s products. She worked for new, stronger laws that require products be removed from store shelves more promptly and prohibit the resale of dangerous items.  Tainted products should be kept out of the hands of children, and Attorney General Madigan will continue to fight to make sure that happens.

Whenever the health and safety of Illinois children have been put at risk, Attorney General Lisa Madigan has been there to protect the most vulnerable members of our society.