[Congressional Record Volume 140, Number 115 (Tuesday, August 16, 1994)]
[Senate]
[Page S]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Printing Office [www.gpo.gov]


[Congressional Record: August 16, 1994]
From the Congressional Record Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]

 
                      CRIME BILL CONFERENCE REPORT

  Mr. GORTON. Mr. President, earlier today, the distinguished chairman 
of the Committee on Judiciary of the Senate spoke on the so-called 
crime bill which still is pending in the House of Representatives. The 
chairman stated that he could not understand why Republicans claimed 
that community notification of sexual offenders was dropped from the 
conference report. The chairman claimed that the conference report 
does, indeed, include community notification.
  So that I can be entirely accurate, I wish to quote briefly from the 
statement made by the distinguished chairman of the Judiciary 
Committee. He stated that the conference report, and I quote:

       Requires the States to create registries of sex offenders; 
     requires law enforcement to keep track of those offenders' 
     whereabouts after the release from prison; and the provision 
     explicitly permits law enforcement to give notice to the 
     community to serve law enforcement purposes and to give the 
     police immunity from releasing that information.

  The chairman of the Judiciary Committee's attempt to correct the 
Record on the contents of the crime conference report, Mr. President, 
itself needs correction. As a sponsor of the community notification 
language legislation in the Senate that was attached by this body by 
unanimous consent, I totally and completely disagree with his 
statement. Instead of providing for notification to communities when 
convicted sexual predators are released from prison and into individual 
communities, the conference report provides for a section expressly 
establishing privacy protections for those very sexual predators.
  And I want to state precisely what appears in the crime bill. Under 
the title ``Privacy of Data,'' it says:

       The information collected under a State registration 
     program shall be treated as private data on individuals and 
     may be disclosed only to law enforcement agencies for law 
     enforcement purposes or to Government agencies conducting 
     confidential background checks with fingerprints. A law 
     enforcement agency may release relevant information 
     concerning a sex offender required to register under this 
     section when such release of information is necessary to 
     carry out law enforcement purposes or to notify the victims 
     of the offender.

  Mr. President, if this were not so serious, that would be gallows 
humor. The only member of the public ever entitled to notification of 
the presence of the sexual predator is a victim of that offender, and 
that victim very frequently, Mr. President, is in fact dead. The 
general public has no such right under this legislation, and in fact, 
under these privacy provisions, the general public may not validly be 
given that information even presumably by the authorities of those 
States such as my own which already have such provisions in their law.
  My amendment, adopted unanimously by this Senate in November of last 
year, entitled the ``Sexually Violent Predators Act,'' the acceptance 
of which was instructed upon the House Members of the conference by a 
rollcall vote of 407 to 13, but which was dropped by the conference 
committee, is based on a successful registration and community 
notification law in the State of Washington that has provided 
protection to countless potential victims of these monsters.
  The community notification element, letting a community, a 
neighborhood know when these predatory men are released into their 
neighborhoods, is crucial to the success of preventing repeat offenses. 
Had such a provision been in effect in the State of New Jersey, the 
recent notorious and terribly regrettable Megan Kanka murder almost 
certainly would not have taken place. Her parents did not know that 
three sexual predators were living across the street from them, one of 
whom eventually brutally murdered that 7-year-old victim.
  It is true that the conference committee report provided for 
registration and tracking of sexual offenders in a certain fashion. It 
failed to include language, however, expressly providing for the 
notification of the community without which the registration and 
tracking is almost useless. In fact, as I have already indicated, for 
all practical purposes, it forbade any such community notification 
except of previous victims, either already traumatized or perhaps dead.
  The term ``law enforcement purposes,'' which is included in the 
conference committee report, is not defined. Perhaps the chairman of 
the committee suggests that this includes the ability to notify the 
community of the presence of a released sexual offender. That certainly 
is not clear to this Senator, and certainly it should not ordinarily be 
included in a section, the title of which is ``Privacy of Data.'' It 
would take enormously good faith for a law enforcement agency to 
believe that ``law enforcement purposes" clearly permits community 
notification other than notification of a previous victim.
  There is a phrase, a section on immunity, for law enforcement 
agencies for good-faith conduct in the conference report. But that 
immunity is going to be meaningless if the law enforcement agency goes 
beyond the explicit language of the act itself.
  This was not the only thing that the conference committee did to 
strip the provision of any effective meaning for communities and for 
potential victims. It also weakened other sections of my amendment. 
Rather than requiring these repeat sexual offenders who, the chairman 
of the Judiciary Committee and I agree, often have the least 
possibility of rehabilitation, the least percentage record of 
rehabilitation of any of our major criminals, to register indefinitely 
and to verify their addresses every 3 months, the conference report 
limits the registration to an arbitrary 10-year period and only 
requires registration once a year. Again, Washington State and the 
other States that have adopted such provisions find that those 
provisions and the tightness of those provisions are absolutely 
essential for success in monitoring these very, very dangerous 
criminals.
  I believe, Mr. President, that we must be absolutely clear if we are 
going to provide law enforcement agencies with the authority and the 
direction to share this information, and if we are going to provide 
citizens with the protection that they need and deserve. And I believe 
that the rights of those peace-loving, law-abiding citizens and their 
children are greater than the privacy rights of convicted sexual 
predators.
  We have to include expressed community notification provisions like 
those in the Senate amendment which was adopted on my suggestion here 
last November.
  Let me tell you what people in the State of Washington think about 
these various provisions. Catherine Dodd, of Families and Friends of 
Violent Crime Victims, writes to me:

       The highest obligation of our government is to protect its 
     citizens. We ask that you do everything in your power to 
     retain Senator Gorton's community notification provision for 
     sexually violent predators. The Nation as a whole needs this 
     provision.

  Bob Ross of Citizens Against Violent Crime, writes:

       We believe firmly the lives of our children will be saved 
     if you support this measure. We ask that you please retain 
     this provision regarding sexually violent predators.

  And Kelly Rudiger of The Crime Victims Bureau writes:

       A crucial component of the Federal crime package is the 
     community notification provision for released sexual 
     predators. Our organization is in support of this measure and 
     requests that you retain this provision in the pending crime 
     package.

  All of that advice was ignored. Once again, the purpose of the 
amendment in the first place was to encourage the establishment of a 
national registration and tracking system so that interstate movement 
of these sexual predators could be followed, and then to see to it that 
communities and neighborhoods knew it when their new neighbors were 
released, convicted sexual predators.
  My amendment did so by withholding a small amount of law enforcement 
money from the States that did not establish such a system. The 
conference report, on the other hand, gives the Attorney General 
complete discretion over whether a State can be denied these funds. 
They have far less incentive, therefore, to comply than they did under 
the original amendment.
  Finally, the conference committee report does not make it clear 
whether or not States can take more significant and more drastic 
measures to notify communities. They need that authority very, very 
specifically.
  Mr. President, notification of communities and the broad use of the 
knowledge about the presence of sexual predators was a vitally 
important part of the Senate version of the crime bill. For reasons 
which are still obscure, in spite of instructions from the House of 
Representatives, it has been dropped from the present bill. It is one 
of the great shortcomings and great defects of the crime bill pending 
before the House of Representatives today.
  The attempt by the chairman of the Judiciary Committee to justify 
what was done and to say that community notification remains in the 
bill, is simply incorrect. It is not there. To make this bill even 
remotely or minimally acceptable to many persons concerned with what 
happens to their children, concerns with the repeat sexual predator, it 
must be restored in its complete and in its original form.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Jersey.
  Mr. LAUTENBERG. Thank you, Mr. President.
  I wanted to deal with the subject of health care. But since our 
distinguished colleague from the State of Washington talked a bit about 
the crime bill and his concern for a section of the bill that has to be 
strengthened, referring to notification of communities, that someone 
who has had a history of sexual attacks on young children has to be 
made public so that the people in the neighborhood can be aware, is a 
very important addition.
  I was called today by the President of the United States--twice, as a 
matter of fact--and he announced that he was fully supportive of the 
so-called Megan Kanka law. He directed his call to me because I am from 
New Jersey where we have had two horrible incidents in very recent 
weeks where very, very young children were attacked by a depraved 
sexual predator who not only raped these children but killed them.
  So our communities are on high alert, very nervous, and parents are 
concerned about what is happening. The President of the United States 
told me that he is determined to see that the crime bill includes a 
very strict notification process so people in the communities can be 
alerted to the danger that may exist for their children. So I was 
pleased to hear that discussion. I am fully supportive. Senator Gorton 
and I were the lead sponsors in this, and we intend to push it until it 
becomes a matter of law.

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