July 28, 2006

Child Protection Law will Make
Our Communities Safer

COLUMBUS , OH - Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) today submitted the following editorial:  

Polly Klaas. Dru Sjodin. Megan Nicole Kanka. Jessica Lunsford. Tragically, their names are forever burned in the public lexicon, all having been abducted from their homes and neighborhoods and murdered by violent sexual predators. In a nation that places the protection of our children at the pinnacle of our moral priorities, the mere mention of their names conjures both dread and rage among Americans.

I am elated to report that there has been a great victory in the war against sexual predators. Last week, after passing both the House and Senate, "The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006" was signed into law. This historic legislation will overhaul the nation's sex offender registration and community notification laws by addressing significant shortcomings in the current system, and by cracking down on offenders who fail to comply with its requirements.

The bill was signed on the 25 th anniversary of the abduction of Adam Walsh – the bill’s namesake. Adam was kidnapped from a shopping mall in Hollywood, Florida, and found murdered 16 days later, a crime for which, sadly, no one was ever charged. His abduction and murder helped spark the nation’s missing children’s movement, and his parents, John and Reve Walsh, went on to become our nation’s most passionate and effective advocates for protecting children from criminals.

In no small part due to the advocacy of John Walsh and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which he helped create, Congress has put sexual predators in its crosshairs over the past decade, culminating with important tools and resources to better protect children. Through the sexual offender registries created under Megan’s Law, parents concerned for the safety of their children can search online for offenders in the neighborhoods. Similarly, the Amber Alert system created a partnership among law-enforcement agencies, broadcasters, and transportation agencies to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases, with a goal of instantly galvanizing an entire community to assist in the search for and safe recovery of the child.

Unfortunately, however, up until the Child Protection Act, sexual offender registries have had some limitations – they were largely reliant upon the offender to voluntarily report his or her whereabouts, and while most comply, some do not. Of Ohio’s more than 15,000 registered sexual offenders, the Ohio Attorney General reports that nearly 5% are currently out of compliance, and their whereabouts uncertain. Additionally, because the various state databases are independent of each other and penalties for offenders failing to reregister were weak, offenders often moved from state to state undetected, unpunished. Hurricane Katrina further illuminated weaknesses in Megan’s Law --the disaster displaced roughly 10,000 convicted sex offenders from the Gulf Coast region, and law enforcement was hamstrung in its ability to monitor their relocation.

At its signing on Thursday, the Child Protection Act was hailed as “the toughest and most important piece of legislation in the past 25 years in helping to save children’s lives” by the NCMEC, and rightly so. Among other things, t he new law improves the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Program to ensure that sex offenders register – and keep current – where they reside, work, and attend school. If they fail to comply, they go to jail. It creates the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website – a nationwide database -- to give communities the ability to search for sex offender information in every neighborhood. The Act further requires states to notify each other when sex offenders move from one state to another, increases penalties for using the Internet for the sexual exploitation of children, and enhances law enforcement’s ability to combat child pornography.

As a former prosecutor and judge, I know too well the devastating and lasting impact that the exploitation of children can inflict upon individuals, families, communities, and in some cases, the nation. And, as the mother of a little girl, I want our communities to be as safe as we can possibly make them, and believe the Child Protection Act brings us ever closer to that objective.