[Congressional Record Volume 152, Number 98 (Monday, July 24, 2006)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1499-E1500]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      CONGRATULATING MR. RON LANEY

                                 ______
                                 

                             HON. TOM DAVIS

                              of virginia

                    in the house of representatives

                         Monday, July 24, 2006

  Mr. TOM DAVIS of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to recognize Mr. 
Ron Laney for his forward-looking leadership and commitment to child 
protection.
  After retiring trom the Marine Corps as a result of injuries 
sustained during combat in

[[Page E1500]]

Vietnam, Ron Laney worked his way through college as a juvenile 
probation counselor, earning a degree in criminology and a masters in 
criminal justice. Mr. Laney soon found his calling in policy 
development at the Federal Government's Law Enforcement Assistance 
Agency, LEAA. Continuing his career in public service, he joined the 
Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency Prevention, OJJDP, as a law 
enforcement program manager. Mr. Laney quickly made his presence known 
developing OJJDP's first law enforcement training program entitled 
Police Operations Leading to Improved Children and Youth Services, 
POLICY.
  Mr. Laney continued to develop new and dynamic programs for the 
Federal Law Enforcement Training Center, including Child Abuse and 
Exploitation Investigative Techniques, CAE; Managing Juvenile 
Operations, Gang Investigations, and Gang and Drug Policy; and School 
Administrator for Effective-Policy, SAFE-Policy, which is one of the 
first comprehensive interagency efforts to improve school and community 
safety. For approximately 10 years, Ron trained over 96,000 
participants including law enforcement, legal professionals, social 
service personnel, as well as medical and other child protection and 
enforcement professionals.
  In 1998, Congress appropriated funding to combat child exploitation 
through the internet. Mr. Laney seized upon this opportunity to create 
a national prototype program, called the Internet Crimes Against 
Children Task Force Program, ICAC. Initially, the ICAC Program 
consisted of 10 regional task forces made up of local, State, and 
Federal agencies all working together to provide expertise to 
investigate child sexual exploitation via the internet. The ICAC Task 
Force now also provides community outreach programs to teach children 
and parents of the dangers of internet usage, and has expanded to 
include 46 regional task forces, with over 500 local, state, and 
federal law enforcement officers covering all areas of the United 
States. Since ICAC's creation, investigations of sexual victimization 
of children involving the use of internet technology have spanned the 
globe and have sparked the training of other foreign governments on 
ICAC techniques. The ICAC programs have come to represent the most 
comprehensive effort to recognize, investigate, and prosecute adult 
child sex offenders using internet technology.
  In addition to working to create the ICAC, Mr. Laney contributed to 
the development of the Amber Alert program, advocated for the National 
Center for Missing and Exploited Children and provided policy and 
funding assistance for the American Prosecutors' research institute. 
Throughout his exemplary civil service career, Mr. Laney has provided 
outstanding leadership, advice, and sound professional judgment to his 
colleagues. Mr. Laney's commitment to child protection for over 30 
years is evidenced by the training of over 500,000 child protection 
specialists trom multiple disciplines. Additionally, he has provided 
training to educators and school administrators impacting the safety of 
over 750,000 K-12 students. Mr. Laney's legacy to our society is the 
protection of our children and advocacy for abused children and their 
parents.
  Mr. Speaker, in closing, I call upon my colleagues to join me in 
applauding his past accomplishments and wishing him the best of luck in 
all future endeavors.

                          ____________________