[Congressional Record Volume 158, Number 115 (Tuesday, July 31, 2012)]
[House]
[Pages H5450-H5452]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
ADAM WALSH REAUTHORIZATION ACT OF 2012
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I move to suspend the rules and pass
the bill (H.R. 3796) to reauthorize certain programs established by the
Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006, as amended.
[[Page H5451]]
The Clerk read the title of the bill.
The text of the bill is as follows:
H.R. 3796
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of
the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
This Act may be cited as the ``Adam Walsh Reauthorization
Act of 2012''.
SEC. 2. SEX OFFENDER MANAGEMENT ASSISTANCE (SOMA) PROGRAM
REAUTHORIZATION.
Section 126(d) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. 16926(d)) is amended to read as
follows:
``(d) Authorization of Appropriations.--There are
authorized to be appropriated to the Attorney General
$20,000,000 for each of the fiscal years 2013 through 2017,
to be available only for--
``(1) the SOMA program; and
``(2) the Jessica Lunsford Address Verification Grant
Program established under section 631.''.
SEC. 3. REAUTHORIZATION OF FEDERAL ASSISTANCE WITH RESPECT TO
VIOLATIONS OF REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS.
Section 142(b) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. 16941(b)) is amended by
striking ``such sums as may be necessary for fiscal years
2007 through 2009'' and inserting ``$46,200,000 for each of
the fiscal years 2013 through 2017''.
SEC. 4. DURATION OF SEX OFFENDER REGISTRATION REQUIREMENTS
FOR CERTAIN JUVENILES.
Subparagraph (B) of section 115(b)(2) of the Adam Walsh
Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C.
16915(b)(2)) is amended by striking ``25 years'' and
inserting ``15 years''.
SEC. 5. PUBLIC ACCESS TO JUVENILE SEX OFFENDER INFORMATION.
Section 118(c) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. 16918(c)) is amended--
(1) by striking ``and'' after the semicolon in paragraph
(3);
(2) by redesignating paragraph (4) as paragraph (5); and
(3) by inserting after paragraph (3) the following:
``(4) any information about a sex offender for whom the
offense giving rise to the duty to register was an offense
for which the offender was adjudicated delinquent (or
otherwise convicted) as a juvenile; and''.
SEC. 6. PROTECTION OF LOCAL GOVERNMENTS FROM STATE
NONCOMPLIANCE PENALTY UNDER SORNA.
Section 125(a) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act of 2006 (42 U.S.C. 16925(a)) is amended by
striking ``shall not receive'' and all that follows and
inserting ``shall return to the Attorney General (for
reallocation in accordance with subsection (c)), from the
funds allocated to the jurisdiction for that fiscal year
under subpart 1 of part E of title I of the Omnibus Crime
Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3750 et
seq.), 10 percent of the amount the jurisdiction may retain
under paragraph (1) of section 505(c) of such Act (42 U.S.C.
3755(c)).''.
SEC. 7. COMPREHENSIVE EXAMINATION OF SEX OFFENDER ISSUES.
Section 634(c) of the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act of 2006 is amended by adding at the end the
following new paragraph:
``(3) Additional report.--Not later than one year after the
date of enactment of the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of
2012, the National Institute of Justice shall submit to
Congress a report on the public safety impact, recidivism,
and collateral consequences of long-term registration of
juvenile sex offenders, based on the information collected
for the study under subsection (a) and any other information
the National Institute of Justice determines necessary for
such report.''.
SEC. 8. JUVENILE SEX OFFENDER TREATMENT GRANTS
REAUTHORIZATION.
Section 3012(c) of title I of the Omnibus Crime Control and
Safe Streets Act of 1968 (42 U.S.C. 3797ee-1(c)) is amended
by striking ``$10,000,000 for each of fiscal years 2007
through 2009 to carry out this part'' and inserting
``$2,979,000 for each of the fiscal years 2013 through 2017
to carry out this section''.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the rule, the gentleman from
Texas (Mr. Smith) and the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott) each will
control 20 minutes.
The Chair recognizes the gentleman from Texas.
General Leave
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent that all
Members may have 5 legislative days within which to revise and extend
their remarks and include extraneous materials on H.R. 3796, as
amended, currently under consideration.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Is there objection to the request of the
gentleman from Texas?
There was no objection.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was
enacted in 2006 to honor the victims of several violent crimes against
children, including Adam Walsh, a 7-year-old boy who was abducted from
a store where his mother was shopping in July 1981 and found murdered
just 2 weeks later.
This important legislation is primarily known for its efforts to
create a national sex offender registry.
The Sex Offender Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA, created
a more uniform system of sex offender registries throughout the country
by providing minimum standards that each State must meet.
In addition to SORNA, the Adam Walsh Act made the U.S. Marshals
Service responsible for the apprehension of both Federal and State
fugitive sex offenders, as well as for the investigation of sex
offender registry violations. The Marshals Service apprehended over
11,000 fugitive sex offenders in 2010 alone.
H.R. 3796, the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of 2012, introduced by
Crime Subcommittee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner, reauthorizes the two key
programs created by the Adam Walsh Act. It provides funding for the
U.S. Marshals' sex offender apprehension activities and gives grants to
States and other jurisdictions to implement the national sex offender
registry requirements. These two programs are reauthorized for 5 years
at amounts that reflect the fiscal year 2012 appropriation levels.
The original Adam Walsh Act contained over 20 different programs and
was scored at approximately $1.5 billion over 5 years. By contrast,
H.R. 3796 is targeted, fiscally responsible legislation that only
reauthorizes the act's most primary programs at an estimated cost of
less than $300 million over the same period.
I thank Mr. Sensenbrenner for his leadership on this bill, and I urge
my colleagues to join me in support of H.R. 3796.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may
consume.
Mr. Speaker, I rise in regard to H.R. 3796, the Adam Walsh
Reauthorization Act of 2012. H.R. 3796 authorizes various grant
programs originally established pursuant to the Adam Walsh Child
Protection and Safety Act of 2006.
While I support reauthorizing these programs, I am concerned about
what is missing from H.R. 3796. Unfortunately, the bill fails to
address the many problems that the States and Indian tribes have
encountered in implementing the Sex Offender Registration and
Notification Act, known as SORNA, which is one of the provisions of the
original Adam Walsh Act. So far, only 15 States have been found by the
Attorney General to be in compliance.
Years before SORNA became law, many States had developed their own
sex offender registries and dedicated substantial resources and
research to develop effective sex offender management systems. To
ignore these efforts in favor of SORNA'S prescriptive ``one size fits
all'' system is not only wasteful, but it could adversely affect public
safety. I offered 10 amendments in the full committee markup of the
bill seeking to provide States and tribes with more flexibility to cost
effectively manage sex offenders and to more fully comply with SORNA.
Despite the committee's failure to adopt all of these proposed
improvements, there are several positive aspects of H.R. 3796 that make
changes to the underlying bill which will assist States in this regard.
For example, the bill, as amended, ensures that provisions of the
Byrne JAG grant funding, intended for distribution to local governments
and entities, are not penalized by the States' noncompliance with
SORNA.
In the absence of this provision, States that have been unable to
comply with SORNA would soon suffer up to a 10 percent reduction in
their Byrne JAG grant awards, which is a particularly harsh penalty in
these difficult economic times. H.R. 3796 at least ensures that the
localities that have no control over whether or not a State complies
with SORNA are not penalized.
Three other positive aspects of the bill, as amended, are the
following: the bill gives flexibility to put juveniles on a law
enforcement agency registry only, not on the public registry, that is,
juveniles can be only in the law enforcement-only registry, but not
publicized. We had heard testimony that putting juveniles on a public
registry
[[Page H5452]]
would actually be counterproductive, and this bill protects that.
{time} 1930
The bill reauthorizes funding under the Adam Walsh Act for treatment
of juvenile sex offenders. And the bill requires the public safety
impact of long-term or lifetime registration on juvenile registrants to
be studied.
Finally, H.R. 3796 lowers the age after which certain juveniles
adjudicated delinquent with a clean record can apply for removal from
the sex offender registry from 25 years down to 15 years. This is an
improvement to current law, given the research documenting that sex
offender treatment reduces recidivism by more than 90 percent for
juveniles and that long-term public registry adversely impacts the
rehabilitation of teenage offenders, though for the same reasons it
would have been best to eliminate the requirement to put juveniles on
the registry in the first place.
I am pleased, therefore, that H.R. 3796, in reauthorizing the Adam
Walsh Act, has improved at least in these aspects. I regret that it
didn't improve some of the things that weren't addressed in the bill.
But I think it's important that we pass the bill, and I urge my
colleagues to vote in favor of this bill.
I reserve the balance of my time.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield such time as he may consume
to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner), former chairman of
the Judiciary Committee and the sponsor of this legislation.
Mr. SENSENBRENNER. Mr. Speaker, the Adam Walsh Child Protection and
Safety Act, enacted in 2006, is landmark legislation intended to keep
our communities--and most importantly our children--safe from sex
offenders and other dangerous predators.
This bipartisan bill strengthened sex offender registry requirements
and enforcement, extended Federal registry requirements to Indian
tribes, and authorized funding for several programs intended to address
and deter child exploitation.
The centerpiece of the Adam Walsh Act is the national Sex Offender
Registration and Notification Act, or SORNA. SORNA's goal is to create
a seamless national sex offender registry to assist law enforcement
efforts to detect and track offenders. SORNA provides minimum standards
for State sex offender registries and created the Dru Sjodin National
Sex Offender Public Website, which allows law enforcement officials and
the general public to search for sex offenders nationwide from just one
Web site.
H.R. 3796, the Adam Walsh Reauthorization Act of 2012, reauthorizes
two key programs from the original Adam Walsh Act--grants to the States
and other jurisdictions to implement the Adam Walsh Act sex offender
registry requirements, and funding for U.S. Marshals to locate and
apprehend sex offenders who violate registration requirements. These
programs are crucial to efforts to complete and enforce the national
network of sex offender registries, particularly in light of the
already-passed July 2011 deadline for the States to come into
compliance with SORNA. H.R. 3796 reauthorizes both these programs at
levels commensurate with their fiscal year 2012 appropriations.
The bill also makes changes to the SORNA sex offender registry
requirements in response to feedback from the States. The bill changes
the period of time after which juveniles adjudicated delinquent can
petition to be removed from the sex offender registry for a clean
record from 25 years to 15 years, and provides that juveniles do not
need to be included on a publicly viewed sex offender registry.
Instead, it is sufficient for juveniles to be included on registries
that are only viewed by law enforcement entities. The bill, as amended
by the Judiciary Committee, also reauthorizes grants for the treatment
of juvenile sex offenders. I believe these provisions strike an
appropriate balance between being tough on juveniles who commit serious
sex crimes but understanding that there can be differences between
adult and juvenile offenders.
The Adam Walsh Act has already been a public safety success. To date,
the Justice Department has deemed 50 jurisdictions substantially
compliant with the SORNA requirements, with two Indian tribes meeting
this goal in just the 2 weeks since the Judiciary Committee considered
H.R. 3796 at markup.
I urge my colleagues to support this bill.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my
time.
Mr. SMITH of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I yield back the balance of my time.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. The question is on the motion offered by the
gentleman from Texas (Mr. Smith) that the House suspend the rules and
pass the bill, H.R. 3796, as amended.
The question was taken.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. In the opinion of the Chair, two-thirds
being in the affirmative, the ayes have it.
Mr. SCOTT of Virginia. Mr. Speaker, I object to the vote on the
ground that a quorum is not present and make the point of order that a
quorum is not present.
The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to clause 8 of rule XX, further
proceedings on this question will be postponed.
The point of no quorum is considered withdrawn.
____________________