[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 126 (Tuesday, October 1, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H6834-H6837]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




EXPRESSING THE SENSE OF CONGRESS REGARDING PERSONAL SAFETY FOR CHILDREN

  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and agree to 
the concurrent resolution (H. Con. Res. 484) expressing the sense of 
the Congress regarding personal safety for children, and for other 
purposes.
  The Clerk read as follows:

                            H. Con. Res. 484

       Whereas 840,279 individuals were reported missing in 2001, 
     and 85 to 90 percent of these missing persons were children;
       Whereas approximately 58,200 children were abducted by 
     nonfamily members in 1999, often in connection with another 
     crime;
       Whereas 115 of all nonfamily abductions (those perpetrated 
     by strangers) resulted in the child being kept overnight, 
     held for ransom, or killed;
       Whereas over 50 percent of the children kidnapped in 
     nonfamily abductions were taken away from the street in a 
     vehicle or from a park or wooded area;
       Whereas a central element of the congressionally-mandated 
     mission of the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
     Children (NCMEC) is the prevention of child victimization;
       Whereas the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
     Children, with the help of parents, local communities, and 
     law enforcement, has assisted in the recovery of 
     approximately 67,000 children;
       Whereas the Departments of Justice, Health and Human 
     Services, and Education recently developed a booklet, 
     entitled ``Personal Safety for Children'', which offers easy-
     to-read tips for parents to discuss safety and protection 
     measures with their children;
       Whereas parents and educators need to teach children about 
     safety measures they can use to protect themselves against 
     abduction and exploitation and to encourage them to be smart, 
     strong, and safe; and
       Whereas President George W. Bush plans to convene the 
     first-ever White House Conference on Missing, Exploited, and 
     Runaway Children with policymakers, experts, community 
     leaders, teachers, and law enforcement to discuss how to 
     prevent the victimization of children: Now, therefore, be it
       Resolved by the House of Representatives (the Senate 
     concurring), That--
       (1) it is the sense of the Congress that--
       (A) Federal, State, and local law enforcement agencies and 
     communities should work together to prevent the victimization 
     of children; and
       (B) communities, schools, and parents should learn more 
     about the steps that may be taken to safeguard children and 
     teach children the skills they need to be safe; and
       (2) the Congress recognizes the booklet, ``Personal Safety 
     for Children'', as one of the tools available to help parents 
     and teachers talk with children about personal safety.

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from 
Delaware (Mr. Castle) and the gentleman from California (Mr. George 
Miller) each will control 20 minutes.
  The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle).


                             General Leave

  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all Members 
may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend their 
remarks on H. Con. Res. 484.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the 
gentleman from Delaware?
  There was no objection.
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of H. Con. Res. 484, a 
resolution which recognizes the importance of personal safety for 
children.
  Last summer, child abductions dominated the news. Five-year-old 
Samantha Runnion was taken from the driveway in front of her home in 
Stanton, California. Six-year-old Cassandra

[[Page H6835]]

Williamson was abducted from her home in St. Louis, Missouri. And 7-
year-old Erica Pratt of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, was snatched from 
her yard but managed to escape from her kidnappers.
  Last year 725,000 children were reported missing or abducted. 
Although many of these children ran away or were taken by a parent, 
3,000 to 5,000 of these child abductions did not involve a family 
member, and 115 of these cases were the most serious type, where the 
stranger was the perpetrator and the child was kept overnight, held for 
ransom or killed.
  Fortunately, increased public awareness and a more coordinated 
response to child abductions has resulted in a decline of this most 
serious type of abduction. Thanks to law enforcement, the National 
Center on Missing and Exploited Children, media saturation and a 
concerned public, the recovery rate of missing children is up from 62 
percent just 10 years ago to 93 percent.
  While we are all thankful to those who have helped return so many of 
our children safely home, I believe we can do more to prevent crimes 
against our children. Parents need to keep current photos of their 
child, as well as a detailed description, including eye color, weight 
and height, in the event of the unthinkable; and they need to talk to 
their children about personal safety.
  Recognizing that many parents do not know how to talk about safety in 
a way that does not unduly alarm children and that Federal, State and 
local law enforcement agencies and communities need to work together to 
protect children, President and Mrs. Bush are hosting a conference 
tomorrow, October 2, to raise public awareness about child 
victimization and help families and communities to share ideas how they 
can protect children.
  In addition, the Departments of Justice, Health and Education, and 
the National Center on Missing and Exploited Children created a 
booklet, ``Personal Safety for Children, a Guide for Parents,'' which 
will help parents discuss what children may be hearing about child 
abductions. Among other things, the book gives parents commonsense tips 
to help keep children safe, such as teaching them never to go anywhere 
without permission. It gives children simple-to-follow safety rules 
such as saying no if someone treats them in a way that makes them feel 
scared or uncomfortable.
  At President Bush's request, this booklet has been distributed by the 
Department of Education to every school in the country. The recent rash 
in child abductions and murders reminds us that we must work harder to 
keep children and youth from becoming victims. Our children need to 
understand that they are our number one priority and their safety is 
our number one concern. To that end, I urge parents, schools and 
communities to learn more about the steps they can take to safeguard 
their children. I encourage all parents to use the booklet ``Personal 
Safety for Children,'' available at www.missingkids.com as a tool to 
talk to their children about personal safety and keep them smart, safe 
and strong.
  Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  Madam Speaker, I rise in strong support of this legislation and the 
resolution to draw attention to the victimization of missing and 
exploited children.
  Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Lampson), who has given an extraordinary amount of his 
time and effort and public service on this issue.
  Mr. LAMPSON. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from California 
(Mr. George Miller) for yielding me time to speak on this issue that I 
have indeed considered a passion of my service in Congress and have 
done a great deal of work. I also want to thank the gentleman from 
Delaware (Mr. Castle) for the wonderful work he has done. He is the 
former Governor of Delaware. I thank the gentleman for the work that he 
has done not only when he served that State in the capacity as 
Governor; but since he has been in Congress, he has been one of the 
true leaders on the issue that has to do with child safety. We have 
worked on not just this piece of legislation today, but others; and I 
thank the gentleman for that. I think the people of the country will be 
indebted to the gentleman forever.
  Madam Speaker, I am proud to ask all of my colleagues to support H. 
Con. Res. 484. We all know now the names of Elizabeth Smart and 
Michelle VanDamme and all the other children who were tragically 
abducted this summer. This sense of Congress expresses that we, the 
representatives of children all across America, care about their well-
being and safety.
  In 1996 just after I was elected, shortly after I took the oath of 
office to this wonderful body, I did not even know about the issue. I 
had not spoken about it. I knew a little bit about it because I have 
children myself; but it came to my attention in such a way that it was 
dramatic in that a little girl, Laura Kate Smither, was abducted and 
murdered in my district. The search for her went on for 2\1/2\ weeks 
before her body was found in a drainage ditch. The outpouring of 
support that came from Friendwood, Texas, the support that the friends 
and neighbors of the Smithers showed, and in the hurt that I saw in the 
eyes of Bob and Gaye Smither when they learned of the death of their 
daughter was phenomenal to me; and I vowed to come back here to 
Washington, D.C. to do my best to make some kind of a difference on 
these horrendous issues that affect so many of our children.
  We soon found the wonderful people at the National Center for Missing 
and Exploited Children and learned of the need to have a coordinated 
effort here in the House of Representatives, that we might be able to 
work on legislation that so many different Members were working on in a 
coordinated manner. So I was proud to be the person who spearheaded the 
founding of the Congressional Caucus on Missing and Exploited Children. 
The goal of that caucus was to serve as a unified voice for missing and 
exploited children and to increase awareness on this issue.
  This resolution serves both of those purposes. I stand here today 
with my Republican and Democratic colleagues to say that missing kids 
are not a partisan issue. We have worked together on this legislation 
and many other pieces of legislation, including legislation on the 
Amber Plan and Code Adam and the wonderful work that the gentleman from 
Delaware (Mr. Castle) has done on curriculum that has been distributed. 
And one of the things I often tell people at home when they ask, What 
is it we can do? What can we do? It is easy for folks to pick up the 
telephone and call a local school and ask them what their curriculum is 
to teach children and at what levels. They need to be taught all the 
way through school about what they can do.
  It is no longer a simple matter of telling people, Do not talk to 
strangers. The issue is much more significant than that. We say to the 
public, Congress is concerned about our American children and their 
safety. We believe that Federal, State and local law enforcement and 
communities should work together to prevent the victimization of 
children, and we are indeed trying to do just that.
  The program that we have been hearing about with the Amber Alert that 
I have just mentioned is one where the public becomes a partner with 
law enforcement and extends law enforcement's ability to do 
significantly greater things within our communities.

                              {time}  1530

  We say to communities, schools and parents should learn more and 
teach their children the skills they need to be safe.
  I want to thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) for 
introducing this legislation and letting me join him in the work on it 
and all of our other colleagues. Together, Republican and Democrat 
alike, we can make a difference in the lives of children everywhere. We 
are doing so with this and other pieces of legislation.
  I urge my colleagues to support H. Con. Res. 484.
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself 30 seconds just to thank 
the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Lampson) for all the work he has done. 
They say nice things about the rest of us in terms of what we have 
done, but he has spearheaded the movement to help in this area of 
safety of children and deserves a tremendous amount of credit for that. 
I just wanted to make sure that was understood.

[[Page H6836]]

  Madam Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume to the 
distinguished gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas).
  Mr. GEKAS. Madam Speaker, I thank the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. 
Castle) for yielding me the time.
  I rise in support of the resolution that he has brought to the floor 
and commend him for the timeliness of it, the timeliness of it in 
several different respects. It is very timely with respect to the 
national discourse that is taking place on the exploitation of 
children, the victimization of children in every kitchen across the 
Nation, abduction of children, murder of children, kidnapping, 
exploitation of every type. So it is timely in the national discourse.
  But in the work of the Congress it is also timely, because tomorrow 
the Committee on the Judiciary will be putting finishing touches on an 
omnibus bill that includes many of the elements outlined in the 
resolution that we are now considering.
  I myself remember that about a month ago or so, I introduced a bill 
which passed the House that had to do with offering more monitoring 
capability on the part of judges to watch a sexual predator of children 
after he is convicted and after his release to make sure that perhaps 
even for a lifetime of that offender there is monitoring taking place. 
That bill, which passed the House, is going to be part of this omnibus 
bill tomorrow, as will several other items of new ideas in the question 
of victimization of children.
  Then, as the gentleman himself observed, tomorrow many of us will be 
joining the President and the First Lady in the conference on 
victimization on children, missing children, exploited children, and 
that will highlight even more the awareness to which the gentleman from 
Delaware has contributed by this resolution.
  It seems to me that we are all on our way as Members of Congress in 
reflecting the high level of concern that our families across the 
Nation are feeling about the new wave of dastardly things that are 
happening to our children, and so we are now in a position well poised 
with the President and some of the initiatives to actually adopt 
concrete measures dealing with the problem.
  Mr. GEORGE MILLER of California. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such 
time as I may consume.
  I just would say in closing that again I want to thank the gentleman 
from Texas (Mr. Lampson) and the gentleman from Delaware (Mr. Castle) 
for their work on this legislation, and the fact that this legislation 
is on the floor, I think, is a tribute. I am sure many of us have heard 
our parents or grandparents say, out of a dark cloud comes a silver 
lining, and that is that some of these parents who have suffered some 
of the most horrible things that we could imagine happening to us, our 
families, our children, ourselves, have found the energy to carry on in 
the name of their children, efforts at the local community level and 
now at the national level with the national center. There are so many 
local organizations.
  I know in my own area in Contra Costa County and Solasta County, we 
have had a number of children who have gone missing; not only gone 
missing and later found, but clearly children who have gone missing and 
were killed and violently assaulted, that local organizations have come 
into existence because of the energy of these parents and of the 
community to help other parents and families when this happens to them 
and in a number of instances have, because of their quick response, 
because of their understanding of the nature of this crime and what 
needs to be done in the first few hours of the discovery, have 
facilitated the rescue of some children. And the national center has 
continued that effort and has provided recognition of those local 
programs, of those local individuals who really have taken a tragedy 
and turned it to positive energy, and have taken the tragic loss and 
victimization of a child and used that to save other children and to 
prevent other children and families having to go through this.
  I would say as part of this resolution to recognize those 
individuals, I think almost tragically so, but almost every Member of 
Congress has experienced this in their own congressional district where 
these individuals have gone on, where we think one would be so 
devastated that they would cease to function, they have gone on to 
provide an incredible amount of leadership, and fortunately the 
national center has recognized these individuals and their efforts.
  We had a young girl, Ms. Sanchez, who I had the opportunity to give 
an award to because of her courage, who was abducted, kidnapped, taken, 
but somehow found it within herself at a given moment when her abductor 
happened to look the other way, since he stopped to ask directions from 
somebody, she ran from his vehicle and was saved by a passing truck 
driver. Her own personal courage has been an example, and she shared 
that with other children.
  Amber Schwarz, who many years ago disappeared from our community in 
Pinole. Her mother has gone on to develop the Amber Foundation, which 
has provided assistance to law enforcement, assistance to families and 
to communities to cope with these incidents and to bring resources to 
try and save and recover these children, and the Amber Alert in 
California that was so successful just recently and now many States are 
looking at replicating.
  We owe a great deal of thanks to those families who have been able to 
summon the courage and the wherewithal to share their tragedy with 
others to try and avoid that tragedy from happening to other children 
and to the families. And again, I thank the gentleman from Delaware 
(Mr. Castle) so much for shepherding this resolution to the floor of 
the House.
  Madam Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, 
which will not be much.
  Let me start by thanking the gentleman from California, whose 
interest in children is well-defined and well-known throughout this 
body, particularly in that of education; again, the gentleman from 
Texas (Mr. Lampson) for his abiding and continuing concern for the 
children of America; for the gentleman from Pennsylvania (Mr. Gekas) 
for the same, for his abiding and continuing concern for the children 
of America, indeed for all the Members of the House and of, I am sure, 
the Senate. It is a concern of all of us, and I am delighted this 
conference is going to take place.
  I think we all realize that the Presidential conference will call 
attention to an issue as much as anything that can happen. So I look 
forward to that happening tomorrow, and today we look forward to 
passing this resolution.
  Mr. BOEHNER. Madam Speaker, I rise today in support of this 
resolution, which expresses the sense of Congress about the safety of 
America's children and points out the need for parents and educators to 
teach our children about safety measures they can use to protect 
themselves against abduction and exploitation.
  During the past spring and summer, the American public has watched in 
horror as daily news reports have highlighted numerous stories of 
kidnapped children. According to the National Incidence Studies of 
Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, there were 203,900 
children abducted by family members and 58,200 children abducted by 
non-family members in 1999, the most recent year of collected and 
analyzed data. The U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile 
Justice and Delinquency Prevention released part of this study in 
August 2002, and the remainder of study will be released in November 
this year. Non-family abductions are the smallest category of missing 
children, but the one in which the child is at greatest risk of injury 
or death.
  These statistics highlight the need for communities, schools, and 
parents to learn more about the specific steps that can be taken to 
facilitate children's safety and teach children the skills and know-how 
they need to enable them to stay safe. I commend the Departments of 
Justice, Health and Human Services, and Education for their recently 
developed booklet, ``Personal Safety for Children,'' which offers tips 
to parents for discussing safety and protection measures with their 
children. For example, the booklet instructs parents to make a list 
with their children of their neighborhood boundaries, choosing 
significant landmarks and telling their children whose homes they are 
allowed to visit.
  I would also like to commend the National Center for Missing and 
Exploited Children for their fight to prevent child victimization and 
their assistance in the recovery of countless missing children. 
Furthermore, the President will convene a White House Conference on

[[Page H6837]]

Missing, Exploited and Runaway Children tomorrow, October 2. The 
Conference will promote public awareness of the cause of missing, 
exploited and runaway children, and it will bring policymakers, 
experts, key officials, community leaders, teachers and law enforcement 
officials together to share progress made and generate new ideas to 
help prevent the victimization of children. In August the President 
stated that the ``Personal Safety for Children'' handbook holds 
practical advice to help families and communities make their homes, 
their schools, and their neighborhoods safer and added that he was 
calling on ``all Federal, State and local law enforcement agencies and 
our communities and our citizens to work together to do everything in 
our power to better protect our children.''
  I would also remind my colleagues that the House more than six months 
ago overwhelmingly passed bipartisan legislation, H.R. 3839, the 
Keeping Children and Families Safe Act, to help ensure that assistance 
is provided in the most effective manner for children caught in abusive 
situations. That bipartisan bill is the product of efforts by members 
on both sides of the aisle to ensure that all children grow up in a 
safe and loving environment.
  I am pleased that my colleague and friend from Delaware has brought 
this issue to the Floor of the U.S. Congress, and I urge my colleagues 
to support this resolution.
  Mr. CASTLE. Madam Speaker, I have no further requests for time, and I 
yield back the balance of my time.
  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mrs. Biggert). 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. 
484.
  The question was taken; and (two-thirds having voted in favor 
thereof) the rules were suspended and the concurrent resolution was 
agreed to.
  A motion to reconsider was laid on the table.

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