[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 147 (2001), Part 7]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages 10094-10095]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]



 COMMENDING CLEAR CHANNEL COMMUNICATIONS AND AMERICAN FOOTBALL COACHES 
  ASSOCIATION FOR THEIR DEDICATION AND EFFORTS FOR PROTECTING CHILDREN

                                 ______
                                 

                               speech of

                        HON. SHEILA JACKSON-LEE

                                of texas

                    in the house of representatives

                         Tuesday, June 5, 2001

  Mrs. JACKSON-LEE of Texas. Mr. Speaker, I rise to add my commendation 
of the American Football Coaches Association for its efforts in 
providing fingerprint kits to parents that would be used to help locate 
missing, kidnapped or runaway children.
  As founder and co-chair of the Congressional Children's Caucus, I 
applaud this group's work to help children who are desperately in need. 
I also thank my colleague Representative Duncan for introducing this 
resolution.
  It is particularly timely that we recognize this group, because we 
just observed National Missing Children's Day on May 25. Every day in 
this country, 2,100 children are reported missing to the FBI's National 
Crime Information Center. There are at least 5,000 children missing per 
year in Houston.
  The National Child Identification Program was created in 1997 with 
the goal of fingerprinting 20 million children. This program provides a 
free fingerprint kit to parents, who then take and store their child's 
fingerprints in their own homes. If this information were ever needed, 
fingerprints would be given to the police to help them in locating a 
missing child. The American Football Coaches Association, in 
partnership with a large chain of radio stations, has agreed to raise 
funds to help provide such a fingerprint kit for every child in 
America.
  It is crucial that, in each of our districts, we support this and all 
other efforts to protect our children and help those who are missing 
and exploited. In addition to this program, we must also support 
initiatives such as internet safety for children, law enforcement 
efforts, child safety programs in our schools and communities, the 
distribution of photos of missing children, and the efforts of 
organizations such as the National Center for Missing and Exploited 
Children.
  I have taken initiative to protect the very youngest of such victims 
by introducing H.R. 72, the Infant Protection and Baby Switching 
Prevention Act. This legislation would require certain hospitals 
reimbursed under Medicare to have in effect security procedures to 
reduce the likelihood of infant patient abduction and baby switching, 
including procedures for identifying all infant patients in the 
hospital in a manner that ensures that it will be evident if infants 
are missing.
  Another successful nationwide effort is the AMBER plan (America's 
Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response), which permits law enforcement 
agencies and broadcasters to rapidly exchange information in the most 
serious child abduction cases and quickly alert the public during the 
critical first few hours of a child abduction. This program is named 
after

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Amber Hagerman, who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas 
several years ago. This program has been responsible for the amazing 
recovery of at least ten children. One of these programs is based in my 
district of Houston, Texas. In response to the May 1 abduction of 11-
year-old Leah Henry of Houston, the Amber plan has been made more 
flexible, permitting alerts to air more frequently and through radio 
and television stations, rather than resorting to the emergency 
broadcast system. It is my hope that cities around the nation will 
adopt this valuable program.
  We must all take a stand against child abduction and victimization. I 
am grateful to the American Football Coaches Association and all other 
concerned organizations and citizens for doing so.

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