Project Safe Childhood: Is It Enough to Stop Child Exploitation?

Craig James Myran’s apartment in Bemidji, Minnesota, looked unassuming from the outside. But inside, FBI agents uncovered a chilling trove of evidence, hard drives and a cell phone brimming with thousands of images and videos of child sexual abuse material, known as CSAM. Sentenced on April 1, 2025, to nearly 22 years in prison, Myran wasn’t just a collector. He was a prolific distributor, an active voice on dark web forums where he advertised sadomasochistic content and hunted for his so-called 'holy grail' of depravity. His case rips open a festering wound in our digital age, one that festers far beyond the reach of casual headlines.

This isn’t a lone monster lurking in the shadows. Myran’s story reflects a sprawling, insidious network thriving on the dark web, a digital abyss where anonymity shields the worst of humanity. The Justice Department’s announcement of his conviction under Project Safe Childhood, a nationwide initiative launched in 2006, underscores a grim reality: the fight against child exploitation online is escalating, and we’re still scrambling to catch up. For every Myran locked away, countless others persist, emboldened by technology and a system that struggles to keep pace.

What’s at stake here isn’t abstract. It’s the safety of children, real kids coerced into unspeakable acts, their trauma digitized and traded like currency. As a society, we can’t afford to look away. Myran’s nearly two-decade sentence sends a message, sure, but it’s not enough. We need a reckoning, a full-throated demand for justice that prioritizes victims over bureaucratic half-measures.

The dark web isn’t some distant underworld; it’s a parallel reality, accessible through tools like Tor, where predators like Myran operate with chilling efficiency. Europol’s recent takedowns of CSAM forums across 19 countries reveal the scale: millions of users, encrypted chats, and cryptocurrency fueling a global trade in suffering. Over 90% of this material originates beyond U.S. borders, a fact that snarls international efforts to dismantle these networks. When one site falls, another rises, a hydra of exploitation that laughs at our fragmented response.

Technology has supercharged this crisis. Generative AI now churns out hyper-realistic CSAM, blurring the line between real and synthetic abuse. Offenders manipulate existing images or craft new ones from scratch, evading the safeguards of legitimate platforms. A 2025 report from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children tallied 36.2 million reports of suspected child exploitation, up 12% from the year before. That’s not a statistic; it’s a scream for help. Meanwhile, predators exploit social media and messaging apps, targeting kids as young as 12 with sextortion schemes that spiral into live-streamed horrors.

Project Safe Childhood has fought back, no question. Since its launch, it’s powered over 61 Internet Crimes Against Children task forces, nabbing more than 89,400 offenders. Federal prosecutors, like those who took down Myran, wield sharpened tools to prioritize these cases. Yet the program’s reach falters under the weight of its own ambition. Less than 1% of CSAM leads get investigated, a bottleneck born of stretched resources and an avalanche of reports. Advocates for child safety argue this isn’t failure; it’s a call to double down, to flood the system with funding and manpower until no child’s suffering slips through the cracks.

Opponents of harsher measures often cry overreach, claiming long sentences like Myran’s don’t deter crime or heal victims. They point to sentencing disparities, cases in New Jersey where possession nets three years while production earns 18, and argue for rehabilitation over punishment. But that misses the mark. These aren’t misguided souls needing a second chance; they’re calculated exploiters who thrive on impunity. Rehabilitation matters, yes, but not at the expense of accountability. The harm they inflict demands a response that’s fierce, not timid.

History backs this up. Before the internet, CSAM spread through physical channels, slow and risky. Now, digital tools have turned it into an industry, one that’s outpacing our laws and ethics. The dark web’s resilience, its ability to rebirth itself after every raid, proves we’re not hitting hard enough. Project Safe Childhood’s successes are real, but they’re dwarfed by the enemy’s adaptability. We need more than arrests; we need a systemic overhaul that chokes this beast at its roots.

Myran’s conviction isn’t the end of this story; it’s a flare in the night, illuminating a path forward. Project Safe Childhood, for all its grit, can’t win this alone. Lawmakers must act, pouring resources into task forces, AI detection tools, and international partnerships that don’t just chase shadows but shatter the dark web’s foundations. Victims deserve more than rescue; they deserve prevention, a world where predators fear the light more than they revel in the dark.

This fight is personal. It’s about kids who’ve never known a world without this threat, about parents who lie awake wondering if their child’s next click will invite a nightmare. We’ve got the tools, the will, and the evidence, 184,000 investigations and counting, to prove we can do better. Let Myran’s 21 years and 10 months be a start, not a ceiling. Justice demands we push harder, louder, until every child is safe from the monsters we’ve let fester too long.