[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 49 (Wednesday, April 17, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S3421-S3424]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




            SEXUAL OFFENDER TRACKING AND IDENTIFICATION ACT

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, I have introduced The Sexual Offender 
Tracking and Identification Act of 1996 with Senators Biden, Hutchison, 
and Faircloth. I would like, this morning, to talk a little bit about 
this bill, its origins and what it seeks to do.
  I begin by asking unanimous consent to have printed in the Record a 
letter of endorsement from the National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children.
  There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in 
the Record, as follows:

                                       National Center for Missing


                                         & Exploited Children,

                                    Arlington, VA, April 16, 1996.
     To: Senator Phil Gramm.
     From: Teresa Klingensmith, Manager, Legislative Affairs.
                                             Date: April 16, 1996.
     Re Necessity of Sexual Predators Tracking and Identification 
         Act of 1996.
       The benefit of a national sex offender registry network and 
     database, such as the one envisioned in your bill, cannot be 
     overstated. As we see the effects of the mandates contained 
     in the Wetterling Act--presently 47 states have sex offender 
     registry programs--we are made cognizant of the new obstacles 
     to be tackled with regard to sex offender containment. It is 
     time for the next steps contemplated but not attended to in 
     Wetterling.

[[Page S3422]]

       1. A registry network. Fifty individual state sex offender 
     registries would be sufficient if no sex offender ever moved 
     interstate. Unfortunately, that is certainly not the case. 
     Indeed, these offenders tend to be particularly transient 
     individuals, probably due to the need to conceal the darker 
     side of their lives and seek out new victims. As these 
     offenders move from state to state, they can easily get lost 
     in the paper-shuffling from state to state. A central, 
     federal database and verification system will insure that 
     these individuals do not ``fall through the cracks'' as they 
     move from state to state.
       2. Community notification. Thirty states have enacted 
     community notification laws, and more are being considered in 
     the 1996 state sessions. These laws remain very popular, 
     despite the current judicial debate surrounding them.\1\ 
     However, like sex offender registries, these laws are 
     ineffective in the larger scope if offenders can evade them 
     simply by moving across a state line. Already, I receive 
     letters from offenders in prison requesting information about 
     which states have notification programs and which do not. 
     These offenders are not stupid; we must be as clever as they 
     if we intend to protect our children. No current federal law 
     suggests the passage of a community notification program as 
     strongly as your legislation or provides the background on 
     which to build such a national system. No current community 
     notification program will be truly effective until all 50 
     states have relatively uniform programs; this bill the next 
     step towards such coverage.
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     \1\ Even this judicial debate centers on specific aspects of 
     these laws (i.e. retroactive application) rather than on the 
     spirit of the community notification program. The basic 
     theory of notification has withstood all challenges.
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       3. Release of information. Child molesters dedicate an 
     enormous amount of energy obtaining legitimate access to 
     children. This includes securing positions (if possible) in 
     day care centers, child youth organizations, schools, 
     community centers, etc. In recognition of this, states have 
     responded by passing background screening laws requiring 
     criminal background checks for those who have access/contact 
     with children. Unfortunately, most of these checks stop at 
     state lines. Without a national database of sex offenders and 
     authorized access to that database, these background checks 
     won't accomplish their true purpose. We strongly support your 
     effort to provide such a database.
       Sex offenders do not only victimize the women and children 
     they attack; they victimize society as a whole. As a nation 
     we have a depleted sense of security and trust as a result of 
     these individuals. To combat these offenses and their long-
     term results requires a plan that addresses all the aspects 
     of their behavior and strives to empower the community to 
     protect itself and its children. NCMEC has long advocated a 
     reasonable, responsible, long-range approach to containing 
     sex offender recidivism. I believe your bill is a positive 
     contribution to such a long-range plan and necessary to its 
     development.
       The inclusion on the FBI's Wanted Persons Index for 
     unverifiable offenders is a clever and strong answer to a 
     persistent question. Many offenders may be coerced into 
     updating their registration information by the threat of 
     inclusion on that list. It is a practical, no-nonsense 
     solution.
       We support your efforts and commend your interest in child 
     protection.

  Mr. GRAMM. Mr. President, let me begin with a tragic story, and then 
talk about a Texas law, what other States have done in the area of 
sexual predators, why what they are doing cannot work unless we do our 
part, and then outline what we are trying to do in this bill.
  Three years ago, a 7-year-old girl named Ashley Estell went to a park 
in Plano, TX, which is an upscale suburb of Dallas, one of the finest 
communities in America, and certainly we would assume one of the 
safest. She went to the park that day to watch her brother play soccer. 
Ashley's brother played in the second of three games to be played that 
day and while her parents stayed to watch the final game, Ashley went 
to play on a swing set. Although there were 2,000 people in the park 
that day, this little girl was, nevertheless, abducted, raped, and 
brutally murdered.
  The FBI stepped in to investigate the case, and asked parents who 
were there that day to turn in any video cassette recordings they might 
have taken of games on the playground. The FBI, using the 14 tapes that 
were turned in, was able to go back and identify a known sexual 
predator who had been there the day Ashley was abducted. They 
apprehended him, and after a change of venue to Midland, TX, he was 
convicted and sentenced to death. His record was a record that we read 
about every day in the newspaper--he had been previously convicted, had 
been sentenced to 10 years in prison, had gotten out in just 18 months, 
and then went to this park and abducted and murdered a little girl.
  What shocked Plano, the whole metroplex and, to some degree, the 
entire country, was not just this tragic crime, but the fact that the 
FBI, in looking at these 14 tapes, identified not one, but two sexual 
predators who were there in the park on that day. It turned out that 
the referee of all three soccer games played that day was a convicted 
sexual predator, who had fled from North Carolina to Texas to avoid 
being sent to prison for 10 years.
  One of the greatest tragedies was that the soccer league had no way 
of knowing who this person was and no way of checking his record. 
Further, there is no national database that can be used to check the 
records of anybody else who wants to be a scoutmaster for the Girl 
Scouts or the Boy Scouts, who wants to work for the Boys and Girls 
Club, or wants to be a Big Brother or Big Sister.
  And so, in light of this terrible tragedy, Florence Shapiro, an 
outstanding young State senator in my State of Texas, wrote a series of 
bills called Ashley's laws, named after this little girl. These bills 
sought, among other things, to set up a statewide tracking system for 
sex offenders, and required a minimum mandatory sentence of life 
imprisonment without parole for a second sexual offense or for 
aggravated sexual assault.
  Under the tracking system in Texas, before convicted sexual predators 
can be released from prison, they have to be photographed, 
fingerprinted, and have a file built on them. Then, when they leave 
prison, they have to register with law enforcement authorities in the 
town that they move into. The law enforcement authorities then notify 
the school system, print a notice in the newspaper, and make the data 
available to local civic organizations, local groups, and other groups 
where you have substantial concentrations of children. With this 
system, which is in place today, if somebody wants to be a scoutmaster 
in Plano, TX, the scouting council can go to the local police 
department and say, ``This person wants to be a scoutmaster. Can you 
look on your computer data base and see if there is a reason that we 
should be concerned about trusting young children to this person?'' 
This system has been set up in Texas, 46 other States have established 
similar programs, and I believe Texas' is a model system.

  The problem is, since each State has its own individual program, when 
someone commits a sex crime in Texas and moves to Arizona, there is no 
mechanism to pick them up in Arizona. The same, obviously, is true if 
somebody commits a sex crime in Chicago, goes to prison, gets out, and 
then moves to College Station, TX. There simply is no mechanism to pick 
them up once they cross State lines.
  Senator Biden, Senator Hutchison, Senator Faircloth, and I have 
offered a bill to change this by having the FBI set up, working with 
the States, a national data base on sexual predators. As the Presiding 
Officer knows, we are in the process of building a massive criminal 
data base which is expected to be on-line by the year 2000. This system 
will be the most comprehensive data base on criminals in the history of 
mankind. I was chairman of the Commerce, Justice, and State Department 
Appropriations Subcommittee last year when Florence Shapiro, our State 
senator, was writing her bill, and it struck me, in providing $88 
million for this program, that this sexual predator effort is never 
going to work as long as sexual predators can move across State lines 
and escape the system. Needless to say, we are already beginning to get 
evidence which proves this. Even though most of these State laws are 
already in effect, it is becoming increasingly clear that exactly what 
you would expect happen has indeed happened; that is, sexual predators, 
in Texas and elsewhere, who are required to register when they move 
into a community are trying to escape this increased scrutiny. Although 
we do not have enough data yet to show this conclusively, I think it is 
increasingly clear that the interstate migration of convicted sexual 
predators has exploded as these convicts try to exploit the weakness of 
the current system.
  What we are trying to do in this bill is to have the FBI set up a 
national data base in conjunction with those States that have 
registration laws, and set up a data base for the three States that 
have not yet acted in this area, in

[[Page S3423]]

order to develop a national system that all States can participate in 
as partners. Under this system, any time a sexual predator is released 
from prison, we will have a comprehensive file on them, and wherever 
they move we will ensure that the local law enforcement authorities are 
notified. We will leave it up to the State and local officials as to 
how they want to use this information. Some States, like Texas, have 
very aggressive programs which provide for school notification, public 
notification, and a program through which volunteer civic organizations 
can use the data base to determine whether someone should be put in a 
position of trust with regard to children. We do not get into telling 
the States how to use the data base, we simply assure that they have 
access to a nationwide sexual offender registry.
  Let me, in conclusion, provide an example of how this system might 
work once this bill is passed and the data base is operating. Let us 
say that in Tucson you had the principal of an elementary school call 
up the police chief and say, ``We have a strange guy hanging around our 
school, and maybe I am overreacting to this, but our janitor thinks he 
saw this guy looking into a bathroom window.'' What would happen with 
this system in place is that the police chief in Tucson could send a 
police officer out to the school, get a description of this individual, 
get any evidence there might be--a footprint, for example--and if they 
had a computer in the patrol car, they could actually put the data into 
the computer at that moment and ask the data base, ``Can you take this 
description and match it against any registered sexual predator within 
25, 50, 100, or 1,000 miles of Tucson, AZ?'' The computer could 
then generate, for example, six people who meet this description, and 
produce color, digitized photographs of those individuals. These photos 
could then be immediately shown to the principal, to the kids, to the 
teachers, and to the janitor, and, hopefully, they could identify this 
person.

  In my State, it is a felony for a person who has previously been 
convicted as a sexual predator against children to be within a certain 
distance of the school whether they are still on parole or not, and so 
in Texas the police could go out and arrest this person and put them 
back in jail before they could hurt someone.
  It is important to note that sexual predators have a recidivism rate 
that is higher than any other known class of criminal activity. The 
probability that someone who is convicted of being a sexual predator, 
especially if it is a crime against a child, committing that crime 
again is estimated to be 10 times higher than the probability that an 
armed robber who is apprehended, convicted, and sent to prison will 
commit the act of armed robbery again. As a result, we have a special 
obligation to be vigilant in protecting society from sexual predators.
  Finally, I see this bill as being a first step toward using the power 
of the information age to deny criminals the one thing they need to 
prey on society, and that is a dark corner to hide in. I believe that 
with the explosion of the information age, if we are willing to commit 
the resources to hire and train law enforcement officials, to build 
prisons, and to elect and appoint judges that are serious about 
protecting society, we have the ability to protect our children from 
people for whom the preponderance of the evidence shows that they are 
guilty. I think the power of the information age in denying criminals--
in this case, sexual predators--a dark corner to hide in is going to 
give us the ability to have the safest society we have had in over half 
a century.
  I want to be certain that we take this opportunity to achieve these 
goals and I hope my colleagues will look at this bill and will join us 
in this effort. We hope to see this bill become law this spring and do 
not know of any organized effort against it. The ACLU opposed similar 
provisions in my State, arguing that we were violating the right to 
privacy of people who had previously been convicted as being sexual 
predators. My response to this charge, however, is that you do not have 
to be on this list. If you are concerned about your privacy, do not 
molest our children. If you do not commit a sexual crime, then you will 
not lose your privacy. But if you do commit this kind of terrible 
crime, part of our response will be to take extraordinary procedures to 
protect society.
  So I recommend this to my colleagues, I thank the Chair, and I yield 
the floor.
  Mr. BIDEN. Yesterday, Senator Gramm, Senator Hutchison, Senator 
Faircloth, and I introduced Senate bill 1675--legislation to strengthen 
and improve the Jacob Wetterling Crimes Against Children and Sexually 
Violent Offender Registration Act.
  The Jacob Wetterling Act requires States to enact laws to register 
and track the most violent, the most horrible--and least likely to be 
rehabilitated--criminals our Nation faces today. I refer to those 
criminals who attack our children and criminals who are sexually 
violent predators.
  These criminals must be tracked. And local law enforcement must know 
when these criminals are in their communities. This was the reason I 
worked to include this important measure in the 1994 crime law. And I 
will also point out that almost all States have taken great strides to 
build an effective tracking system.
  Now we seek to build upon this progress to meet three specific goals:
  First, we must have a nationwide system that will help State and 
local law enforcement track these offenders as they move from State to 
State and will help by providing a backup system of tracking.
  Second, while most States have established or are about to establish 
these systems, if any States fail to act, we cannot allow there to be a 
black hole where sexual predators can hide--and are then lost to all 
States. A nationwide system will track offenders if States do not 
maintain registration systems.
  Third, we must ensure that the most serious sexual predators are 
required to remain registered with law enforcement officials for the 
rest of their lives.
  All of these key goals will be met by this legislation. In addition, 
our bill will offer some improvements which are made possible by the 
nationwide system this bill will provide. For example, our bill will--
  Require all offenders to verify their address on a regular basis by 
returning verification cards with their fingerprints.
  Require that a nationwide warning is issued whenever an offender 
fails to verify their address or when an offender cannot be located.
  Institute tough penalties for offenders who willfully fail to meet 
their obligations to register with the nationwide system in States 
where there is no registration and in cases of offenders who move from 
one State to another.
  Notify law enforcement officials not only when an offender moves to 
their area, but also when an offender moves out of their neighborhood.
  To offer just one of the practical problems a national data base will 
help local law enforcement address--Delaware law enforcement, because 
Delaware is so close to other States, will certainly need to know if a 
sexual predator lives just over the line in Pennsylvania. And only a 
national data base can provide this information.
  To offer a real life example of why a nationwide system is needed--in 
Delaware, a sex offender was released last year. Fortunately, 
Delaware's offender registration law requires this offender--Freddy 
Marine--to be tracked by Delaware law enforcement. Since his release, 
Marine has moved to another State. The nationwide system established by 
this bill will help make sure that if Freddy Marine moves back to 
Delaware--our State law enforcement will know, and knowledge is the key 
to effective enforcement.
  Let me also point out that our bill would still allow States the 
flexibility to decide when a community should be notified of the 
presence of a sexual offender, as State and local law enforcement is in 
the best position to decide when and how notification in their area is 
warranted. Frankly, our bill has erred on the side of registering many 
more offenders than may be necessary. Therefore, the specific decision 
to require community notification must be left to the State and local 
officials.
  In summary, the sex offender tracking and identification bill is 
possible because States such as Delaware and Texas have done the hard 
work to build statewide registration systems. We

[[Page S3424]]

now seek to build a system where all movements of sexually violent and 
child offenders can be tracked and we will go a long way toward the day 
when none of these predators will fall between the cracks.
  Mr. DORGAN. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent to extend morning 
business time for 10 minutes so that I might speak in morning business.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER (Mr. Coverdell). Without objection, it is so 
ordered.
  Mr. DORGAN. I say to the Senators who are handling the bill that when 
they come to the floor I will certainly immediately relinquish the 
floor.
  Let me say to the Senator from Texas before he leaves the floor that 
I am interested in cosponsoring that piece of legislation. I met with a 
group of law enforcement officers recently in Dickinson, ND, in fact, 
last week. We talked about a wide range of subjects, including the 
triple ``i'' index, the interstate identification index, the criminal 
records base, and there are two things that are deficient. One is there 
are a great many criminal records dealing with the criminal history of 
someone who is below 18 years of age, someone who has committed a 
murder, a rape, armed robbery, and so on, that you cannot get at. If 
you inquire from a law office in Texas and this person had committed 
the act in South Dakota, North Dakota, or Nebraska, those records are 
expunged and withheld. So you do not have the complete criminal 
history.
  The other thing that they talked about was this issue of sexual 
predators. It is fine for States to have the system, but, if they are 
not together and interlocked in this interstate identification system, 
somehow it does not respond to the way we want it to respond.
  I listened to what the Senator from Texas had to say. I want to 
cosponsor the legislation and work with him and others. I think this 
makes a great deal of good sense.
  Mr. GRAMM. I thank the Senator. Let me say we are looking at exactly 
the problem of at what point should a juvenile go on this database. It 
is clear to me that, in the society in which we live today, by the time 
many of these hardened criminals, these sexual predators, are adults, 
they have already committed many crimes and have established a life 
style which they are unlikely to break. Senator Biden and I are working 
on these kinds of problems, and we will happily put the Senator on as a 
cosponsor.
  We would also be happy to try to incorporate into our bill any 
suggestions the Senator or his law enforcement officials might have.
  We have a blueprint of what we want to do, but we are very open to 
try to improve it, and I thank the Senator.
  Mr. DORGAN. I appreciate the Senator's remarks. I will cosponsor the 
legislation and be anxious to work with him on the juvenile crime 
issue.

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