"Alabama is blessed to be the home to more natural resources than any other state. Of all the resources found within our borders, however, none is any more precious than our people. Our children are the future and the hope of Alabama. We must make every effort and exhaust every energy necessary to defend their innocence from those who would abuse and exploit them. Likewise, those who built the foundation upon which our future will be constructed, our seniors, deserve our vigilance against those who would take advantage of their vulnerability as they grow older. I pledge anew to the people of Alabama that the protection of our families, from our children to our grandparents, will be the cornerstone of my tenure as your Attorney General."
-Attorney General Troy King

The Family Protection Unit was established by Attorney General Troy King to serve as a clearinghouse for crime and prevention issues that affect Alabama families and as a presence to vigorously pursue and prosecute those who take advantage of our most vulnerable citizens. This unit will function in collaboration with state, regional and local agencies to ensure that these critical issues will receive priority attention throughout Alabama. "There can be no more important calling on the part of a public servant than to ensure the protection of those members of our society who are least capable of protecting themselves," says Attorney General King. "Alabama's families are victimized daily by cowardly, immoral individuals who choose to prey on the weakest among us. Your Family Protection Unit will be unrelenting in its efforts to ensure that we do everything within our power to make Alabama's families safer and more secure."

The Family Protection Unit consists of four fundamental components: Child Abuse and Exploitation, Elder Abuse and Exploitation, Consumer Fraud, and Welfare Fraud.

UNIT ORGANIZATION

Child Abuse and Exploitation

Attorney General King has directed the Family Protection Unit to work cooperatively with federal, state, and local prosecutors and law enforcement officials, to determine where our current efforts to protect our children are inadequate and how we can do better. When the innocence and trust of children is betrayed by physical or sexual abuse or neglect, it is a tragic loss for all of society. Those who commit these crimes against children must be made to pay a high price for their depravity. The Family Protection Unit will not rest until Alabama has been made a safer place for our children, a place where their trust will not be betrayed.

1. Drug Endangered Children Alliance
• This nationwide alliance is designed to address the problem of children who are found in, or around, environments where methamphetamine and other illegal substances are produced.
• The Family Protection Unit will make it a top priority to form a statewide task force to establish and adopt a uniform protocol for helping these endangered children who are rescued from clandestine drug labs.
• This task force will be part of a nationwide program designed to balance the enforcement efforts of law enforcement, medical services, and the needs of child welfare workers to ensure that children found in these environments receive appropriate attention and care.
• Children exposed to the many dangers of these drug production sites suffer a variety of health and safety risks including inhalation, absorption, and/or ingestion of toxins, drugs, or contaminated foods that can cause injury, and in some cases, even death.
• These children often suffer abuse and neglect and are exposed to a very hazardous lifestyle, including exposure to toxic chemicals, firearms and drug abuse. Last year, there were approximately 14,260 national methamphetamine lab related incidents. In over 10% of these cases there was at least one child at risk. These labs affected more than 3,000 children, including those who were residing at the labs but who were not present at the time of the seizure, as well as children who were visiting the site. Nearly 1,300 incidents involved a child being exposed to toxic chemicals.
• Attorney General's Office prosecutors will work with district attorneys across Alabama to insure that the individuals who are committing these crimes against children are prosecuted under existing laws and to further insure that we coordinate our efforts to strengthen and improve these laws and to propose new legislation to make these prosecutions more effective.
2. Partnership with the ABI Internet Crimes Against Children Unit
• The Alabama Bureau of Investigation's Internet Crimes Against Children Unit investigates computer crimes committed against children, including child pornography, child endangerment, solicitation, etc. In the past, the Unit has had to rely on resources from different prosecutors across the state. The Attorney General's Office prosecutors will work with ABI to investigate and prosecute those who would prey on the children of this State. This partnership will provide a consistent and uniform approach to the prosecution of these cases.
• The Family Protection Unit will conduct an unprecedented statewide crackdown on child pornography. Every available resource will be utilized to ensure that these vicious predators are punished to the fullest extent of the law.
3. Prosecution of Fraudulent Government Funded Daycare Operations
• Federal and state funding provides assistance to welfare mothers who are attempting to return to the workforce. These families are in desperate situations and cannot afford childcare. Funds are distributed to select daycare operations, which meet the requisite guidelines under these federal programs. Approximately 15,000 children are on waiting lists to participate in these programs and when unscrupulous daycare providers defraud this program, these scarce resources are denied to deserving families. The Family Protection Unit will conduct a concerted effort directed at investigating and prosecuting these corrupt daycare providers and stopping the theft of these important resources from those desperately in need.
4. Mentor Alabama
• In August of 2000, the Office of Attorney General began encouraging adults across Alabama to become mentors to at-risk youth through MENTOR ALABAMA.
• MENTOR ALABAMA is an Attorney General's initiative to reduce juvenile crime by involving appropriate adults in the lives of at-risk children as mentors, tutors and role models.
• We know that mentoring works. The National Mentoring Partnership tells us that mentored teens are 46 percent less likely to use drugs, 59 percent more likely to make better grades, and 73 percent more likely to set higher goals.
• The goal in establishing MENTOR ALABAMA was to recruit 2,002 mentors by the end of 2002. That goal was exceeded nine months ahead of schedule and over 5,500 mentors have been recruited from every region of the state. The Attorney General's office has completed in-state criminal background checks on all of these volunteers at no additional cost to Alabama taxpayers.
5. Faithful Friends
• When a man or woman is convicted of a crime and sentenced to state prison, the "forgotten" victims are the children they leave behind. There are approximately 27,000 men and women in prison in Alabama, and it is estimated that 70% of them are parents.
• Statistics show that 7 out of 10 children who have one or both parents incarcerated end up incarcerated themselves.
• In October 2003, "Faithful Friends" was started as an extension of MENTOR ALABAMA to provide mentors to children of prisoners in Alabama. To accomplish this good work, "Faithful Friends" successfully sought to become one of 52 organizations nationally to receive a federal grant from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Resources under President Bush's "Mentoring Children of Prisoners" grant program. This program is active in the greater Montgomery and greater Birmingham areas (specifically Jefferson, Blount, Shelby, Walker, St. Clair, Montgomery, Elmore, Autauga and Lowndes Counties.

Elder Abuse and Exploitation

The Family Protection Unit places strong emphasis on protection of the elderly, those who have given so much of themselves to us and Alabama. We owe a tremendous debt to those who made possible the opportunities we now enjoy, and we must be faithful in repaying our obligation to them. When their strength and vigilance is weakened by age, the rest of us must be strong and steadfast in protecting them. To better meet this need in Alabama, the Family Protection Unit is working with every state agency whose mission is linked to the elderly. Initially, these agencies will participate in a soon to be announced Attorney General's Family Protection Seminar for law enforcement personnel, social workers, and other professionals who are charged with the care and protection of the elderly. Afterward, a series of meetings across Alabama will be held with senior citizens to provide a network of information regarding their special concerns and needs and how they can guard against those who would victimize them.

1. Elder Abuse Investigations
• The Family Protection Unit, with the support of the Alabama Department of Public Health and law enforcement, will improve coordination and implementation of investigations into complaints of elder abuse. By working together, we can ensure that Alabama families can be confident that our parents and grandparents are being cared for in a competent manner by professionals without danger of abuse or exploitation.
2. Statewide Elder Abuse and Exploitation Seminar
• The Family Protection Unit will host a state-wide conference on the issue of Elder Abuse and Exploitation directed towards law enforcement officials, healthcare professionals, and social workers designed to focus on ways that professionals who work with the elderly can better detect, investigate, prosecute and eradicate elder abuse and how we can harness and organize these resources to better serve the elderly. This seminar will be offered at no cost to local officials and will be a tremendous resource to assist local law enforcement as we deal with this issue.
3. Regional Elder Abuse Prevention Seminars
• The statewide seminar will be followed by a series of regional seminars to be held at different locations around the state in order to help senior citizens educate themselves about ways to protect themselves so that they do not become victims of abuse and exploitation. These seminars will also be open to professionals who work with the elderly, but will be primarily designed to benefit seniors and their family members. The Family Protection Unit is working with the Department of Senior Services, AARP, and various other local and statewide senior organizations to ensure that any senior who wishes to access this resource will have the opportunity to do so.
4. Elder Abuse Investigations and Prosecutions
• The Family Protection Unit will work to establish a partnership with the Department of Human Resources and local law enforcement officials to combat the problem of elder abuse. The Attorney General's Office prosecutors will work with the Department of Public Health to investigate and prosecute elder abuse cases when they are detected in facilities that accept Medicaid funding. Additionally, cases will be prosecuted in which unscrupulous criminals prey on seniors financially through embezzlement, or by theft or theft by deception.
5. Elder Abuse Hotline
• Coordination with the Alabama Department of Senior Services is planned for the establishment of an elder abuse hotline. This hotline will be dedicated to the coordination of abuse complaints of family members who suspect that a loved one has been the victim of abuse or exploitation. This collaborative effort will be dedicated and oriented toward fielding those concerns and forwarding them to the appropriate regulatory or enforcement entity and then monitoring the response to ensure that the complaints are processed and handled properly.

Consumer Protection

Alabama's families also suffer at the hands of unscrupulous criminals who, through illegal and deceptive business practices, take advantage of and prey on consumers who are too trusting or too busy. Attorney General King directed his Office of Consumer Affairs to intensify its fight to prosecute and stop these criminals. By tying the Consumer Division's mission to this new unit, unprecedented efforts are now being made to rededicate our effort to help victims deal with the consequences, and insofar as possible, to help make them whole from their losses. A major initial project will focus on identity theft, striving to combat this growing threat to the financial well-being of Alabama families, which is made all the more ominous by society's ever increasing dependence on information technology. Victims of identity theft face an enormous struggle to repair their damaged finances and credit history. Attorney General King has committed to provide information and assistance to help protect Alabamians from this threat, to ease the burden for those who have been victimized, and to pursue new laws and better hold those responsible accountable.

1. Identity Fraud Initiative
• The Consumer Fraud Division, which has been made a part of the Family Protection Unit, will look for ways that they can address issues of concern for Alabama families. An increasingly frequent crime plaguing Alabama families is the crime of identity theft. Identity theft is the misappropriation of an individual's personal information, such as their social security number or driver's license number, and the misuse of that information for financial gain. When a person is victimized by identity theft, it has devastating consequences for a family. The steps that are necessary to rehabilitate a person's credit and expunge inaccurate records that occur in the wake of identity theft can be daunting, often leaving ramifications that can continue for years. To date, there has been no central clearinghouse to provide victimized Alabamians with assistance as they fight to restore their good names.
2. Identity Theft Mail Out
• The Family Protection Unit, through the Consumer Fraud Division, will prepare one comprehensive packet that will provide identity theft victims with the steps necessary to report the crime to the appropriate officials, to rehabilitate their credit, to insulate themselves from further instances of theft, and to put these families back on the road to financial solvency. While there is no silver bullet for protecting families that have fallen prey to this insidious crime, Alabama families will now have a centralized resource to access when they have been victimized in this manner.
3. Identity Theft/Law Enforcement Partnership
• The Consumer Protection Hotline will be made available to all law enforcement entities that investigate and prosecute these offenses. All of these entities are encouraged, as part of their victim services, to inform the victims of these offenses that they now have a partner in their effort to restore their names and put their family back on the road to financial viability.
4. Public Service Announcements
• A series of public service announcements will be launched informing Alabama families that they now have a partner if their identities have been stolen. Victims of this crime may contact the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division and consumer specialists will work to see that victims' rights are protected and that their good names are restored.
5. Consumer Protection Initiatives
• The Consumer Protection Division will continue to be highly proactive in the areas of home repair fraud, automobile sales and repair fraud, and state and national class action lawsuits designed to restore Alabamians who have been harmed by negligent or corrupt corporate entities.

Welfare Fraud

The Family Protection Unit will strengthen the existing Welfare Fraud Section's prosecution of those who raid the public treasury, stealing money that would have been used to care for children living in poverty. Attorney General King has assigned investigators and prosecutors to bring to justice those who prey on the least among us. The Attorney General's Office and the State Department of Human Resources are working together to develop innovative approaches to protect these critical funds, to uncover and vigorously prosecute criminals who steal welfare benefits, and to pursue the return of funds fraudulently paid. Particularly, the unit will target repeat offenders and serial violators for more severe penalties. The Attorney General's Medicaid Fraud Control Unit will assist the Family Protection Unit in the enforcement of laws designed to protect adults in particular need, such as the elderly, nursing home patients and the mentally and physically disabled. The Family Protection Unit will aggressively investigate and prosecute those who abuse, steal from, or otherwise exploit such vulnerable citizens.

1. Interstate Fraud
• The Attorney General's Welfare Fraud Division is charged with prosecuting those who steal funds that should be reserved for Alabama's poorest families and therefore, it is being incorporated into the Family Protection Unit.
• The Family Protection Unit and Welfare Fraud Section Chiefs have met with Commissioner Page Walley of the Department of Human Resources and discussed methods to track down and apprehend criminals who commit the crime of welfare fraud in multiple states. Organized schemes to defraud have been too successful in evading prosecution in Alabama for too long. Concentrated efforts will now be made to identify and punish them. The Family Protection Unit will work with D.H.R. to ensure that we have the necessary resources to pursue these criminals, many of whom illegally collect multiple benefits in different states.
2. Increased Welfare Fraud Prosecutions
• The Welfare Fraud Unit is intensifying its efforts to track down and prosecute welfare cheaters. Through this increased attention, the goal is to double the number of cases of welfare fraud presented to grand juries across the state.
3. Stiffer Penalties
• Efforts will be increased to vigorously punish welfare criminals by asking judges to impose serious penalties on the worst of these offenders. Additionally, those instances involving serial violations and organized schemes to defraud taxpayers will be carefully examined and targeted for harsher treatment.
4. E.B.T. Fraud
• Since Alabama has been completely converted from food stamps to Electronic Benefit Transfer (E.B.T.) cards, the Family Protection Unit will work with the Department of Human Resources to institute a system of oversight that will seek out those who are defrauding this system and bring them to justice. An E.B.T. card is similar to a reusable debit card that is automatically reloaded with welfare benefits each month. These cards are then used like credit cards at the cash register of qualifying merchants who participate in this program. There should be a system of audits of these transactions to ensure that fraud is detected and those responsible are prosecuted.