:: A Bittersweet Victory ::  

As a father of four, it was a difficult moment to hear first-hand the nightmarish story of Mark Lunsford. He had recently buried his nine-year old daughter Jessica, who was abducted and murdered by a convicted sex offender. When he sat across from me in Washington last summer, my heart went out to him as he told his story. Most amazing was his courage to be an advocate for the cause of children he will never know. He can never regain what he lost, but made it clear to me and other Members of Congress that we needed to take action. As we talked, he shared with me what we could do to improve the system of protection.

One year later, his story and tireless work, and the efforts of many other victimized parents-turned advocates, resulted in a bittersweet victory for the security of children. This week in Washington, Congress passed legislation to protect those who often cannot protect themselves. I was proud to support this important bill which builds on the progress began with the work of John Walsh in creating the Center for Missing and Exploited Children. No legislation is more important than legislation that will protect their lives, rights and future. Signed into law by President Bush on July 27, this bill covers new ground in the laws of our land in combating sexual predators both in our communities and over the internet.

The Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act, H.R. 4472, will improve the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Program to ensure that sex offenders register – and keep current – where they reside, work and attend school. It will create the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website to search for sex offender information in each community, require states to notify each other when sex offenders move from one state to another, and increase law enforcement’s ability to combat child pornography by ensuring that law enforcement has access to the same information across the United States. In addition, it will increase penalties for using the internet for the sexual exploitation of children.

The watchful eyes of parents become less appealing as children grow older. And a parent learns that children, sometimes, must learn lessons on their own. If you’ve ever been in the grocery store with four young children, you know the difficulties of keeping all of them in plain sight. Unfortunately, sometimes with this independence - even a second of freedom – can go terribly wrong. A child disappears in a department store, from the backyard, or while they are sleeping. A child is lured away from the computer screen by an invitation from a predator to meet for ice cream, just to chat or to go out on a date. 

These experiences evoke sadly familiar names: Adam Walsh, Jessica Lunsford and Dru Sjodin. These children were gone for a moment, and never returned. The predators capitalized on an opportunity of weakness; acted with unforgivable cruelty, and left Mark Lunsford, John Walsh, and too many other parents with unanswered questions like ‘Why me? Why my child?’ These parents have triumphed by their tireless crusade to improve our national system for missing and exploited children. This work protects other parents from the unspeakable anguish – parents they will never meet.

These parents experienced an incident in their lives that turned their world upside down. Like many parents, they watched their children with a careful eye, but in an instant, their daughter or son vanished. Our children deserve to live without a fear of predators. By empowering parents, communities and law enforcement officials with better information and improved tools and technology, we can only hope that these heartbreaking stories will cease.