Kansas City, Mo. ? Investigators process more than 300 child porn cases at the FBI’s Heart of America Regional Computer Forensics Lab every year.

The lab and Project Safe Childhood, a federal program, are instrumental in prosecuting people found with the illegal images, said Kim Martin, assistant United States attorney.

“We’ve gotten bigger, tougher, stronger laws federally for this type of case and really have gone the extra mile to try to put some teeth in these laws, to help protect the children,” Martin said.

The lab, 4150 N. Mulberry Drive, has been around for about five years and also trains a few thousand officers in the area each year in how to investigate child porn cases.

Two officers from the Lawrence Police Department have been through the training. It was that agency’s computer forensics work that helped Martin successfully prosecute Richard McNett, of Lawrence.

McNett recently pleaded guilty to having more than 13,000 child porn images. His wife became concerned when he kept locking himself in a room with a computer, a spokesman for U.S. Attorney Eric Melgren said. McNett faces 10 years in federal prison and a $250,000 fine.

Martin, who prosecutes federal cases in Kansas, wasn’t able to talk about specifics of the case. But, she said most child porn is more outrageous than you might think.

“These are not adults made to look like children, dressed up to look like underage children,” she said. “These are real children being forced into graphic sexual situations.”

Martin said child pornography is a tremendous problem, but she’s hopeful work on the federal and local levels will help bring the illegal activity to an end.