In the last month alone, there’ve been several notable arrests alleging child sex crimes. A school board official accused of sexual communication with a minor. A Syracuse public works crew leader and twice-convicted child sex offender accused of the attempted rape of a young girl. A now-former Cayuga County Sheriff’s Deputy accused of rape of a minor. And on Friday, the arrest of Luke Underwood of Otisco, charged with having images showing sexual contact between toddlers and adults.
That’s a lot, in a short time. So what’s going on here? Is there a rise in child sex crimes? Is it just better enforcement? It might be at least a little of both.
“Nationally, right now, every second there's a cyber tip related to child sexual abuse material,” said Deputy Ryan Schruise of the Onondaga County Sheriff’s Department, who investigates computer-related crimes. In Underwood’s case, Schruise says automation at Google noticed the images, sent them to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which passed them to State Police and finally to Schruise’s unit when the IP address pointed to this area.
Police said they found many images in Underwood’s Google Drive account. Most appeared to have been generated entirely by artificial intelligence. He was charged over the photos where real humans appear to have been photographed. The images are not of local people, Schruise said, and lacked the hidden data that indicates when and where the photos were first taken, indicating they had been passed around many times.
Online cases are exploding, according to the Center’s 2025 report. Reports of enticement – using texts and calls to convince or force a child to have sex – have roughly tripled in a year, to 1.4 million cases nationwide. Child sex trafficking reports quadrupled in that same year. The use of artificial intelligence to create fake child porn is skyrocketing, in a category that didn’t exist a few years ago. Cyberbullying and extortion of kids – often by other children – are also rising quickly. All of it is tied to technology: mainly, a cell phone
“With kids utilizing their phones and stuff, we're seeing more and more of this problem,” Schruise said. “It's popping up more and more, not just with child exploitation, but sextortions and a few different cases.”
Much of the superfast rise in case reports is due to a new law that requires internet service providers to look for and report suspected cases. But it also proves what advocates have said all along – that the vast majority of child sex crimes go unreported.
“As long as there's demand, there's going to be this (underworld) demand for those videos,” said Onondaga County Sheriff Toby Shelley. People are going to be victimizing those kids somewhere,” added Schruise. “Every time that they watch the material or download this material, those children are being re-victimized every time.
Deputy District Attorney Jarrett Woodfork says parents are the first line of defense. “As the summer begins and moves forward, children are beginning to tire of being outside, and families are providing those devices and getting access to the platforms that these offenders are sitting and waiting for.”
