By Kevin Lavery, KWMU
St. Louis, MO. –
Law enforcement officials say a bill before the Missouri Senate could go a long way towards helping them track down on-line sexual predators.
State senator John Loudon, a Ballwin Republican, is introducing a measure that would create a board to distribute grant money to regional task forces.
Those agencies would in turn pay for detectives and computer forensics investigators. St. Louis County police captain Tom Jackson says the bill is welcome news for departments working under tight budgets.
"With so many other priorities in law enforcement, it's hard to put the money and the people together to do this stuff," Jackson said. "And it's really, really important work, because it's going after the truly innocent, our children; that's what these predators are doing. And this bill, if passed, will do so much to help us."
The program is expected to cost about 3-million dollars.