[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 17]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Page 24300]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



               CHILD ABUSE PREVENTION AND ENFORCEMENT ACT

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                          HON. GARY G. MILLER

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Tuesday, October 5, 1999

       The House in Committee of the Whole House on the State of 
     the Union had under consideration the bill (H.R. 764) to 
     reduce the incidence of child abuse and neglect, and for 
     other purposes:

  Mr. GARY MILLER of California. Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support 
of H.R. 764, the Child Abuse and Protection Act of 1999--the CAPE Act.
  As a cosponsor of H.R. 764, I would like to extend my gratitude to 
Congresswoman Deborah Pryce for her hard work on this important 
measure.
  Today at least 500,000 children in the United States are enrolled 
into foster care or institutions because living situations are so bad, 
they must be removed from their homes.
  In 1997 alone, there were 3 million reported cases of child abuse and 
neglect.
  The challenge for this Congress was to craft legislation which would 
alleviate this suffering by our children while giving states and 
localities the resources combined with the flexibility to deal with the 
child abuse problems in their own communities.
  The CAPE Act meets this challenge beautifully.
  H.R. 764:
  (1) Allows state and local officials to use existing law enforcement 
grants for child abuse prevention.
  (2) Allows state and local officials to use existing Identification 
Technology Act grants to provide child protection agencies access to 
criminal history records.
  (3) And what I like best about this bill, is that it increases direct 
funding for child abuse related services in the Crime Victims Fund--all 
of which comes from forfeited assets, bail bonds, and fines paid to the 
government by criminals--Not the Taxpayers!
  The CAPE Act is an effective piece of legislation that gives those 
who know how to help abused children the resources they need to do 
their job, as they see fit.
  Once again, Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this much-
needed piece of legislation.

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