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Jessica Lunsford. Sarah Lunde. Megan Kanka. Jacob Wetterling. The names of these children stir compassion in our nation’s collective soul for the many youths who have been sexually assaulted or murdered in recent years. They also invoke feelings of anger which motivate us to crack down on sexual predators and prevent future tragedies.
Like most Americans, I find it absolutely deplorable that anyone would kidnap or abduct a child, particularly when the victim is sexually assaulted and killed. These heinous crimes against the most innocent and vulnerable of our society must not be tolerated and must, when they occur, be severely punished. That is why I have cosponsored H.R. 1505, the Jessica Lunsford Act.
H.R. 1505 would increase current annual address verification of convicted sex offenders to ensure that their whereabouts are monitored more frequently. In addition, the bill would increase penalties for sex offenders who fail to register with their state of residence or notify state law enforcement of a change of address. The Jessica Lunsford Act would require sex offenders to wear ankle monitoring devices if they fail to report to the state or fail to respond to an address verification mailer more than two times. H.R. 1505 has been referred to the House Committee on the Judiciary and is awaiting legislative action.
The United States Congress already has enacted several laws designed to protect our nation’s children by imprisoning sex offenders for longer periods and tracking their movements upon release from prison. Most recently, the 108th Congress approved the Prosecutorial Remedies and Tools against the Exploitation of Children (PROTECT) Act (Public Law 108-21), which created a nationwide AMBER Alert system to help find missing children and toughened penalties for criminals who kidnap, harm, and kill children.
I voted for the PROTECT Act, which gave judges the discretion to extend the term of supervision of released sex offenders for their entire lives, denied pretrial release for child rapists or child abductors, and established a mandatory sentence of life in prison for twice-convicted child sex offenders. The law also mandated a minimum 20-year prison sentence for the kidnapping of a person under the age of 18 by a non-family member and authorized funding for local law enforcement sex offender apprehension programs.
Many bills have been introduced in the 109th Congress to combat sexual predators and to protect our children from the evil they seek to perpetrate. As a cosponsor of the Jessica Lunsford Act, I am working with my colleagues to secure enactment of strong laws to prevent these terrible crimes against children and to severely punish those who commit them. It is up to all of us – local communities, law enforcement, state legislatures, Congress, and the judicial system – to protect those who cannot protect themselves.
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