Kansas City, Mo. ? Joint federal and local task forces arrested more than 1,600 people nationwide last year who were accused of exploiting children over the Internet, a fivefold increase over 2000.

But Atty. Gen. Alberto Gonzales said Thursday the problem only continues to grow as the Internet has given child pornographers and people seeking trysts with minors unparalleled access to young users and made it easier to hide from law enforcement.

“The only way to respond to their horrific ambitions is to respond with greater perseverance,” said Gonzales, speaking at the Protect Our Children Conference, a three-day event bringing law enforcement from Missouri, Kansas, Illinois and Nebraska together with child advocates and abuse treatment organizations.

In particular, Gonzales said states need to re-evaluate their laws against child exploitation and make them stronger, if necessary.

Missouri, for example, enacted legislation this year that boosts the penalties for many child sex crimes, such as a mandatory minimum sentence of 10 years for someone convicted of trying to entice a child into meeting to have sex.

President Bush this summer signed into law legislation that effectively doubles many federal sentences for pedophiles, as well as requires offenders to place their names and locations on Internet databases and be charged with a felony for not providing regular updates.

Gonzales said federal, state and local law enforcement are doing a better job of coordinating their efforts and teaming up with community organizations that teach parents and children how to avoid online predators and deal with the aftermath when children are abused.

He added that his office and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will begin airing new public service messages early next year to call attention to the online dangers.

“We need to get the public as well as government officials to start thinking about it in the right terms; it is brutal, it is heinous and it is criminal,” he said, adding that the pornographic material is increasingly graphic and involving children as young as toddlers and even infants. “Our ultimate goal is prevention because a child who is molested bears a scar that never quite heals.”

He added that federal authorities are increasingly reaching out to other countries, where much of the child pornography now traded among pedophiles is made and distributed, to stiffen their own child sex laws.

U.S. Atty. Bradley Schlozman’s office in Kansas City has been among the leaders in the country in attacking online predators, filing 42 child exploitation cases last year, the sixth-highest in the nation. So far this year, the office has filed 23 cases, spokesman Don Ledford said.

Schlozman said the Internet’s reach means he’s dealing with offenders around the world, so he could be barely making a dent in rooting out local pedophiles.

“Sometimes you don’t know exactly if that predator is operating from Overland Park (Kan.) or Bangkok,” he said. “We certainly see a ton of it here. So I know it’s a huge problem but, ‘Is it getting better?’ That’s really hard for me to say.”