Detective Constable Jason Long admits that it is impossible not to bring the awful nature of his work home with him.
The North Bay Police Service’s expert on internet child exploitation is stepping away from a position that very few people are wired to perform, let alone excel at. For his efforts in investigating child exploitation cases and internet crimes against children, the 16-year veteran of the police service is receiving a commendation from the North Bay Police Services Board.
Long will continue on in his role as a detective but in the meantime, he is training his investigative partner to assume the lead role that he is vacating. He says that support from home and within the department have made his line of work as bearable as possible.
Long says the work will always be there with him, after eight years and viewing hundreds of thousands of images of children in horrific situations. Long recalls a case that took him 18 months to nab his suspect, chasing him through cyberspace, eventually wearing down his man to the point that he got sloppy and revealed the information that got him caught.
Locally, Long has investigated 65 child exploitation incidents, including child pornography, luring, and non-consensual distribution of images. His investigations have resulted in 74 total charges laid against 29 people over the past three years. Long says that people would be shocked at how far the child exploitation cases can reach around the world and equally as horrified by how close to home they can occur.