[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 155 (2009), Part 14]
[House]
[Page 18642]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]




      H.R. 1933, A CHILD IS MISSING ALERT AND RECOVERY CENTER ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Florida (Mr. Klein) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. KLEIN of Florida. Mr. Speaker, I rise today to commend my 
colleagues for passing H.R. 1933, the A Child Is Missing Alert and 
Recovery Center Act. I introduced this bipartisan legislation with my 
good friend from Texas (Mr. Gohmert), who is the distinguished ranking 
member of the Crime Subcommittee and a former Texas State judge. I 
should also thank the distinguished chairman and ranking member of the 
Judiciary Committee, Mr. Conyers of Michigan, Mr. Smith of Texas, and 
Mr. Scott, the chairman of the Crime Subcommittee, for their leadership 
in moving H.R. 1933 out of committee and to the floor.
  Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1933 would expand the widely praised A Child Is 
Missing nonprofit organization into a national program with regional 
centers under the Department of Justice. It would accomplish this 
expansion through annual grants from the Attorney General in the amount 
of $5 million from 2010 through 2015. The funds would allow for the 
purchase of future technologies and techniques, centralized and onsite 
training, and for the distribution of information to Federal, State and 
local law enforcement agency officials on the best ways to utilize the 
round-the- clock services provided by the A Child Is Missing Alert and 
Recovery Center.
  Currently, A Child Is Missing is the only program of its kind that 
assists in all missing cases involving abduction, children who are 
lost, wander or run away, or adults with special needs such as the 
elderly who suffer from Alzheimer's or dementia, which is a major 
problem in my district in south Florida. When a person is reported 
missing to law enforcement, A Child Is Missing utilizes the latest 
technology to place 1,000 emergency telephone calls every 60 seconds to 
residents and businesses in the area where the person is last seen. It 
works in concert with the AMBER Alert system which you see on the 
highways, on those billboards or radio announcements, also known as the 
Silver Alert, and all child-safety programs, and has the support of law 
enforcement agencies all over the country.
  A Child Is Missing also fills a critical gap in time in the most 
dangerous cases. Although the AMBER Alert has been an extremely 
successful program, there is still a crucial void in time when a child 
is first reported missing and when an AMBER Alert, which is activated 
only in cases of criminal abduction, can be issued, which is sometimes 
3 to 5 hours later. This critical period of time can be the difference 
between whether a child lives or dies.
  Recently, a Washington State Attorney General's office study showed 
that among cases involving children abducted and murdered, 74 percent 
were slain in the first 3 hours. So it is the first hours, the first 
minutes that are critical. And to the extent we can alert people in the 
local area by this telephone system to businesses and residences, we 
get the information about the potential child or abductor to the law 
enforcement as quickly as possible.
  Adding to the problem is the resource and manpower limitations facing 
many local law enforcement agencies. Roughly half of these offices in 
the United States had 25 or fewer officers, and an average 12-hour 
search for a missing child can cost up to $400,000 in law enforcement 
expenses. That is a great fiscal burden during these difficult times of 
shrinking budgets. A Child Is Missing helps to fill this critical gap 
in time as well as complement the AMBER Alert during its ongoing 
search. We have heard this over and over again from law enforcement 
agencies that have received this; the real issue is that not enough 
communities have access to the program.
  The founder and president of A Child Is Missing in Florida, Sherry 
Friedlander, who has done a remarkable job spreading the program to all 
50 States, says that we're going to bring this program to every 
community, but we need there to be the leverage and logistics and some 
minor amount of resources that can help make it do so. And that is 
exactly what H.R. 1933 does. It has broad bipartisan support in 
Congress. I count cosponsors from all over the United States. On the 
Senate side companion legislation was introduced by Senator Menendez 
and Senator Hatch, the distinguished former chairman of the Senate 
Judiciary Committee.
  Because we are so proud of this great effort, we understand that 
children are not Democrats or Republicans, they are Americans, and they 
are our children and our responsibility. And their protection requires 
all of us to work together to do what is best for their continued 
safety. So as a result of all this, I appreciate this support we have 
got, and I urge our colleagues to support H.R. 1933.

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