RACINE, Wis. (CBS 58) — As criminals become more tech-savvy, the Racine County Sheriff’s Office is one of many advancing its tools and using AI to keep an eye on a head start in its investigations.

“We’re on a roll and we’re putting ourselves away from the bad guys, which is amazing,” said Anthony LaCombe, an investigator with the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.

The Racine County Sheriff’s Office’s Internet Crimes Against Children unit has made more than a dozen arrests this year alone.

They say new artificial intelligence programs are becoming an asset to their team.

“Specifically, for an ICAC case, I’m going to be looking for child pornography images or videos,” said Maddie Churches, a forensic analyst with the Racine County Sheriff’s Office. “So in these programs it will filter out family vacation photos or nature photos so I no longer spend hours or days going through hundreds of thousands of images.”

This could potentially reduce the investigation by several days, allowing them to focus on the illegal images and arrest suspects more quickly.

“If we need to identify a suspect, you know, based on descriptors, the AI ​​will comb through that video and be able to provide us with images of a person in that video that matches the requested physical descriptors,” said Emil Ortiz, investigator with the Racine County Sheriff’s Office.

The department also has systems operating 24/7, using AI to scan millions of images from the internet daily. Alert investigators to any concerning images.

“If it’s Christmas Eve, we’re not on duty,” LaCombe said. “We’re really not off duty, our computers are still constantly searching for known child pornography images circulating on the Internet, across the United States and throughout the state of Wisconsin.”

However, if it falls into the wrong hands, AI can create additional challenges for investigators.

“Now with AI generators, you can generate these types of images,” Ortiz said. “You can generate images of adult females, female children, male children, you know whatever you want really through artificial intelligence.”

Images illegal in Wisconsin.

Another obstacle is finding hidden electronic devices. That’s where K-9 Stella comes in. She can detect chemicals in devices, alert her handler and provide new evidence.

“It finds the electronics, the AI ​​goes through it, makes it narrower for us,” LaCombe said. “It saves us time on footage that we really should be spending our time on to make sure it’s illegal or not and hopefully make an arrest.”

Come together as a team to stay vigilant against crime.