[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 148 (2002), Part 8]
[House]
[Pages 11353-11354]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




                               CODE ADAM

  (Mr. LAMPSON asked and was given permission to address the House for 
1 minute.)
  Mr. LAMPSON. Mr. Speaker, I will digress again from my stories about 
Ludwig Koons, whom we desperately want returned from Italy to the 
United States where he is being held illegally, to talk about one of 
the scariest situations that a parent can experience when they are out 
shopping, perhaps they turn around and their child is not with them. In 
many cases they return in a matter of moments, but sometimes it can 
seem like an eternity. What if that son or daughter cannot be found? Or 
do stores have a system in place that can help protect their child from 
harm?

[[Page 11354]]

  The answer is yes. The gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) and I 
are joining together to urge Members to support a resolution to 
encourage retailers across the Nation to adopt a special child safety 
alert program known as Code Adam.
  Code Adam works. Since 1994, it has been a powerful preventive tool 
against child abductions and lost children in more than 25,000 stores, 
making it the largest child safety program in the Nation. Code Adam is 
a special alert issued through the store's public address system when a 
customer reports a missing child. The measure was established in 1994 
and named in the memory of 6-year-old Adam Walsh whose abduction from a 
Florida shopping mall and murder in 1981 brought the horror of child 
abduction to national attention.
  We owe it to the kids of America to do everything that we can to 
ensure their safety. Join us in supporting this important resolution. 
Bring our children home.

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