[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 59 (Monday, May 15, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H3002-H3005]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING IN-SCHOOL PERSONAL SAFETY PROGRAMS
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to the
concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 309) expressing the sense of the
Congress with regard to in-school personal safety education programs
for children.
The Clerk read as follows:
H. Con. Res. 309
Whereas there were more than 84,000 confirmed cases of
sexual abuse in the United States in 1997 and 90 percent of
the victims under 12 years old knew their offender;
Whereas 867,129 individuals were reported missing in 1999
and 85 to 90 percent of these missing persons were children;
Whereas according to Department of Justice research, there
are approximately 114,000 nonfamily abductions in any one-
year period;
Whereas a central element of the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children's (NCMEC) congressionally
mandated mission is to prevent the victimization of children;
Whereas NCMEC examined the state of child safety education
in the United States, focusing on what works and what does
not;
[[Page H3003]]
Whereas nearly every primary and secondary school in the
Nation conducts some sort of child safety education program,
but NCMEC concluded that most such child safety programs were
inadequate to promote personal safety for children;
Whereas guidelines, such as those developed by NCMEC, will
help ensure that educators and child-serving organizations
have the best possible tools and information to make
decisions regarding child safety curriculum selection and
development; and
Whereas child safety guidelines should be developed in
collaboration with leading educational, public policy, and
child-serving organizations and the NCMEC's guidelines have
been endorsed and are supported by many such organizations:
Now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate
concurring), That--
(1) it is the sense of the Congress that States should
encourage their primary and secondary schools to implement
quality child safety curricula so that each child receives
instruction that is positive, comprehensive, and effective;
and
(2) the Congress recognizes the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children's ``Guidelines for Programs to Reduce
Child Victimization'' as one of the tools to guide the
selection of quality child safety programs when local schools
develop such programs.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentlewoman from Hawaii (Mrs. Mink) each
will control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).
General Leave
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members may
have 5 legislative days in which to revise and extend their remarks on
this resolution, H. Con. Res. 309.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Delaware?
There was no objection.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today in support of H. Con. Res. 309, expressing
the sense of Congress with regard to in-school personal safety
education programs for children.
I introduced this resolution along with the founder and chairman of
the House missing and exploited children's caucus, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Lampson), to help focus our attention on the important issue
of child safety. I am sure we have all seen the posters, the fliers and
the special news reports on children who have been abducted from their
families or who have been otherwise harmed by the adults in their
lives.
In fact, in 1997, there were more than 84,000 confirmed cases of
sexual abuse in the United States, and 90 percent of the children who
were under 12 years knew their offender. And, according to the
Department of Justice, there were nearly 114,000 nonfamily abductions
just last year. I believe that these statistics point to the desperate
need for comprehensive, age-appropriate safety programs to reduce the
rate of victimization among our children. And because children can
learn a great deal in the classroom about basics of personal safety,
schools have increasingly become the center of our prevention efforts.
Yet according to a recent survey, while nearly every primary and
secondary school in the Nation conducts some sort of child safety
education program, most programs are inadequate to actually prevent
victimization and promote personal safety.
For this reason, H. Con. Res. 309 does two things. First, it
expresses the sense of Congress that States should encourage their
primary and secondary schools to implement child safety curricula so
that each child receives instruction that is positive, comprehensive
and effective.
Second, the resolution recognizes the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children's guidelines for programs to reduce child
victimization as one of the tools to guide the selection of quality
child safety programs. I hold up a copy of this. This is as good and as
substantive a document as I have read. I would encourage every office
to get hold of a copy of that.
{time} 1645
As the Nation's preeminent resource for programs and materials to
prevent child victimization, the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children is often asked to endorse specific programs and
provide guidance to schools, community groups and individuals who are
trying to choose among different child safety programs. Although the
National Center does not endorse specific products or programs, they
recently completed a comprehensive assessment of available education
materials, and they have developed guidelines, as I have already shown,
to help parents and educators identify and implement quality child
safety programs. Their criteria was developed in collaboration with
experts from the fields of education and law enforcement, and they are
now supported by a number of organizations, including the American
Academy of Pediatrics, the National Association of Elementary School
Principals, the National Association of Attorneys General, the Boys and
Girls Clubs of America, and many others.
I believe their products, the guidelines to reduce child
victimization, is one way to help ensure that the child safety programs
are locally designed, but that they are also effective in increasing
our children's ability to recognize and avoid potentially dangerous
situations.
In closing, I hope all Members will join with me to support the
National Center throughout the month of May and help us picture our
lost children home. For these children, school-based safety programs
may be too late, but we can take a few moments to view the pictures of
missing children on the National Center's web site and return these
children to their families' loving embrace. In the meantime, we can
pass this resolution and encourage our schools and our educators to
obtain the necessary tools to help our children avoid a similar fate.
I would like to thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) again
for his efforts and involvement with child safety issues, and I would
encourage the adoption of this resolution.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
(Mrs. MINK of Hawaii asked and was given permission to revise and
extend her remarks.)
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I rise in support of H. Con. Res.
309, bipartisan legislation introduced by the gentleman from Delaware
(Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) in support of
guidelines issued by the National Center on Missing and Exploited
Children on child safety and abuse programs.
One of the most important concerns for parents today is the safety of
their children. Whether they are walking to school, riding bicycles
around town, or even going to the mall, children need to be aware of
their surroundings and cautious about contact with adults they do not
know. Since 357,000 child abductions happen every year, these issues
are critical to our families and our communities.
The resolution that the House is considering today recognizes the
National Center's guidelines as one of several tools that should guide
the selection of child safety programs, particularly in our schools.
Specifically, the guidelines provide background information as a
general framework to assist schools, communities and individuals in
choosing, implementing and evaluating programs to prevent and reduce
child abuse and to generally promote child safety. It does not endorse
or recommend specific programs or methods, but does describe practices
and techniques which appear to be most effective in attaining the goals
of these programs.
Clearly, this guide can be an essential tool for school districts
seeking to improve child safety programs and to reduce child abuse. We
need to establish programs that provide useful information to children,
encourage self-confidence and teach assertiveness skills so that they
can recognize danger and avoid abduction.
Mr. Speaker, in closing, I want to congratulate again both the
gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from Texas (Mr.
Lampson) for their conscientious efforts and for collaborating together
on a bipartisan basis and bringing this resolution for consideration by
the House today.
Mr. Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the
gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Goodling), Chairman of the Committee
on Education and the Workforce.
[[Page H3004]]
Mr. GOODLING. Mr. Speaker, I also rise today in support of H. Con.
Res. 309, expressing the sense of Congress with regard to in-school
personal safety education programs for children. You have heard the
horrible statistics as the subcommittee chair recited them. I would add
one more to those. As I drive behind school buses and notice every time
they stop and see children jump off and run across in front of that bus
without looking either way, assuming that the cars are going to stop as
they are supposed to, but each year we read about the number of cars
that do not stop, unfortunately.
H. Con. Res. 309 will help draw attention to these devastating
statistics that are so drastically impacting our Nation's young people
and make information available regarding personal safety education
programs to schools across the country.
The resolution is simple and straightforward. First, it states the
sense of Congress that States should encourage their primary and
secondary schools to implement quality child safety curricula so that
each child receives instruction that is positive, comprehensive and
effective. Let me be clear about this point: H. Con. Res. 309 does not
promote a specific child safety curriculum. It simply says that States
should encourage their schools to implement locally appropriate child
safety education programs.
Second, this resolution recognizes the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children and their guidelines for programs to reduce
child victimization as one of the tools to guide the selection of
quality child safety programs when local schools develop such programs.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is a nonprofit
organization that serves as a focal point in providing assistance to
parents, children, law enforcement, schools and the community in
recovering missing children and raising public awareness about ways to
help prevent child abduction, molestation and sexual exploitation.
Their mission is twofold: The Center works to find missing children,
and they try to prevent future victimization of children. To prevent
the victimization of children, the Center argues that every child
should receive instructions on personal safety that are positive,
comprehensive and effective.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children examined the
state of child safety education in the United States. On a positive
note, they found that nearly every primary and secondary school in the
Nation conducts some sort of child safety education program.
Unfortunately, the Center concluded that most of these child safety
programs were inadequate to promote successful personal safety for
children.
The Center does not endorse specific products or programs. However,
because of their examination of child safety programs, they have
developed guidelines for educational programs in the hope that
educators and parents will use these criteria to review proposed
programs. These guidelines are not legal standards and they are not
community-specific. They are simply intended to provide a framework for
communities when selecting safety programs and making curriculum
decisions.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children guidelines
came about as a result of exhaustive research and significant
experience in the field of child safety. These guidelines argue that
training and educational materials proposed for use by schools and
organizations that serve children should, first, be based on accepted
educational theories, be appropriate for the age and educational and
developmental levels of the child, offer concepts that will help
children build self-confidence in order to better handle and protect
themselves in all types of situations, have multiple program components
that are repeated several years in a row, and utilize qualified
presenters who use role-playing behavioral rehearsal feedback and
active participation.
Mr. Speaker, I reiterate that H. Con. Res. 309 does not endorse a
child safety curriculum from Washington. Rather, it urges schools to
consider child safety guidelines when selecting or creating a localized
curriculum. We are not trying to assert local control of education; we
are merely trying to help ensure that educators and child-serving
organizations have access to and consider available information in
making decisions regarding the development of child safety education
programs.
I want to thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle), the
Chairman of the Subcommittee on Early Childhood, Youth and Families,
for introducing this legislation, and I also want to commend the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for his yeoman work in helping to
ensure a safer world for our Nation's youth. I urge my colleagues to
support H. Con. Res. 309.
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to yield 4 minutes to
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson), who has demonstrated tremendous
leadership on this whole issue of missing and unaccounted for children.
The gentleman has been on the floor and has done so much to awaken the
consciousness of the Members of this Chamber, and, through us, the rest
of the country.
Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from Hawaii for
yielding me time, and for both you and the gentleman from Delaware (Mr.
Castle) for all the hard work that you and many others have done on
this particular issue.
It was about April of 1997 that I became involved with what became
the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children, and that
happened after a 12-year-old constituent of mine was abducted and
murdered within my district. To date, this bipartisan caucus is one of
the largest in the House of Representatives, with about 145 Members.
That is significant.
The goals of the caucus are threefold: First, to build awareness
around the issue of missing and exploited children for the purpose of
finding children who are currently missing and to prevent future
abductions; second, to create a voice within Congress on the issue of
missing and exploited children and to introduce legislation that would
strengthen law enforcement, community organizing and school-based
efforts to address child abduction; third, to identify ways to work
effectively in our districts to address child abduction. By developing
cooperative efforts that involve police departments, educators and
community groups, we can heighten the level of awareness of this issue
and pool resources for the purpose of solving outstanding cases and
preventing future abductions.
Today's vote of the National Center for Missing and Exploited
Children's Taskforce guidelines meet the objectives that I just stated.
I am so pleased to be the lead Democrat on this resolution, with my
friend, the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle). The gentleman from
Delaware (Mr. Castle) has been involved with this issue for many years,
sponsoring legislation to authorize funding for the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, which in turn enables the Center to
establish task forces such as its Education Standards Task Force in
1999 to assess leading research and create meaningful guidelines and
criteria.
This resolution urges nationwide implementation of standards-based,
high-quality child safety curricula. Hopefully schools across the
Nation will follow these guidelines and develop programs implementing
these guidelines, while addressing local needs and concerns.
Personal safety is something many young people do not think about.
But in this rapidly changing and unpredictable world, we, as parents,
teachers, neighbors and coaches, must teach our children that they
cannot take anything for granted. I would like to emphasize that it
takes each and every one of us, the entire community, to keep our kids
safe, happy and healthy. We cannot bury our heads in the sand and
ignore these risks. We must act and we must educate to save another
family from the heart-breaking tragedy of a child abduction or
exploitation.
Mr. Speaker, I can honestly say this issue means more to me than any
other. Keeping our children safe has become my mission while serving as
your Congressman.
Let me conclude by stating that the caucus would not be nearly as
effective in producing innovative legislation and helpful district
safety workshops without the advice and programs offered by the
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The Center's
outreach programs range from helping
[[Page H3005]]
chiefs of police and sheriffs to develop fast response plans to reports
of missing children, to educational public service campaigns designed
to help children escape potentially dangerous situations, to developing
guidelines like those we are talking about today. These guidelines need
to be in every school across America. With the passage of H. Con. Res.
309, they will be.
Mrs. MINK of Hawaii. Mr. Speaker, I have no further requests for
time, and I yield back the balance of my time.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, I would just like to say in final closing, I cannot
thank the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) enough for his continuing
work on this issue, not just this legislation, but he truly has been
the stalwart in the task force dealing with an issue which, as he said,
is as important to him as anything we are doing in Congress, and I
think it is to everybody.
Again, I would point out that this is a wonderful pamphlet, it is not
a pamphlet, it is a little more than that, for anybody who has read it.
It does not advertise any particular program, but it is a guideline for
programs to reduce child victimization, a resource for communities when
choosing a program to teach personal safety to children. I would
encourage everybody to get a copy of this. You can contact any of the
offices, I am sure, to get a copy of it. I think it is tremendously
helpful to give to your schools back home.
Ms. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, today I support H. Con. Res.
309 that expresses the sense of the Congress with regard to in school
personal safety education programs for children.
I applaud Congressman Castle and Congressman Lampson's leadership on
bringing this issue to the forefront.
As this resolution states, we as parents and leaders in our
communities must encourage primary and secondary schools to implement
quality child guidelines on how to protect themselves from abuse.
Unfortunately, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
has concluded that most child safety programs are inadequate to promote
personal safety for children.
It is estimated that instances of child abuse and neglect are over
three times greater than what is reported to authorities. Already more
than 3 million American children annually are reported as suspected
victims of child abuse and neglect and children every day are abused.
This amounts to a child abused every 10 seconds in this country.
In 1999, there were 867,129 confirmed missing individuals with around
90 percent of these being children.
Further, it is reported that in 1997 there were 84,000 confirmed
cases of sexual abuse in the United States whereas 90 percent of these
victims, who were under 12, knew of their offender.
In my district alone, there were 6,064 cases of child abuse or
neglect in the Harris County area. That amounts to almost 30 percent of
the children in my district being abused or neglected. In the State of
Texas we have 44,532 children who have been abused or neglected.
In a Children's Task Force meeting I attended sponsored by my
colleague Mr. Lampson, Mr. Ernie Allen, president of the National
Center further explained that the current school programs are
dysfunctional because most abductions and abuse of children are the
result of a known relative or family friend. Thus, the ``Don't Talk to
Stranger'' campaign supported by most programs, fails to educate
children about potential dangers in the home as well.
That is why I already support national organizations like Childhelp
USA, and local organizations like Initiatives for Children in Houston
which are helped educate both parents and children about child abuse
and are instrumental in preventing future social problems related to
child abuse.
I support this Resolution recognizing the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children. Since, The National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children has already recently released research-based
guidelines to assist schools as they select curricula aimed at reducing
crimes against youth and I urge this Congress to pass this resolution
in support of these guidelines.
Mr. ETHERIDGE. Mr. Speaker, I am in strong support of House
Concurrent Resolution 309, the sense of Congress with regard to in-
school personal safety education programs for children. I want to thank
my colleagues from Texas, Congressman Nick Lampson and my colleague
from Delaware, Congressman Mike Castle for their leadership on this
important issue. The safety of our children should be a bipartisan
effort, and I am pleased my colleagues have worked in cooperation to
advance this important cause.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart to share with my
colleagues the mourning that is taking place in and around Wake Forest,
NC in my Congressional District. Four months ago, 9-year-old C.J.
Wilkerson was reported missing from his home community. Month after
month, friends, family members and even perfect strangers have prayed
for the safe return of this little boy with the infectious smile who
captured the heart of Wake County. Tragically, C.J.'s body was found
last week in a wooded area in Raleigh.
As C.J.'s family lays to rest a young boy taken from this world far
too soon, our thoughts and prayers go out to his family, friends and
the broader community. As the former superintendent of North Carolina's
schools, I want to call attention to the special needs of C.J.'s fellow
students at Rolesville Elementary School. These children need
individual attention from caring adults in order to come to grips with
the trauma of a classmate plucked from within their midst. I know that
the counselors, teachers and leaders of Rolesville Elementary have come
together in mutual support to help our children through this tragedy.
Schools can play a unique role to help children deal with acts of hate
that make no sense. And schools can and do provide children with
instruction and resources to keep them safe. Mr. Speaker, I know all of
my colleagues join me in wishing our most sincere condolences for the
family of C.J. Wilkerson. I want to thank my colleagues on the Missing
and Exploited Children Caucus for their leadership on this issue to
protect other communities from knowing the grief being experienced by
those who today mourn C.J. Wilkerson.
Mrs. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Pease). The question is on the motion
offered by the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) that the House
suspend the rules and agree to the concurrent resolution, H. Con. Res.
309.
The question was taken.
Mr. CASTLE. Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX and the
Chair's prior announcement, further proceedings on this motion will be
postponed.
____________________