Dru's Law

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

I am pleased to bring to the House floor today H.R. 3132, the Children's Safety Act of 2005.

I introduced this legislation on June 30 in a bipartisan effort to address the growing epidemic of violence against children and the need for greater protection from convicted sex offenders through State registration and notification programs.

This year our country has been shocked by a series of brutal attacks against children at the hands of convicted sex offenders. In June, our Nation was horrified by the kidnapping and murders of members of the Groene family by a convicted sex offender.

Two well-publicized tragedies earlier this year in Florida, in which 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford and 13-year-old Sarah Lunde were murdered by convicted sex offenders further underscore the need for quick congressional action to address the danger posed by individuals who prey on children.

In addition to the widely reported tragedies that have rightly brought this issue to the forefront, the statistics regarding the frequency with which such heinous crimes occur are staggering. Statistics show that one in five girls and one in 10 boys are sexually exploited before they reach adulthood. Yet less than 35 percent of the incidents are reported to authorities.

According to the Department of Justice, one in five children between the ages of 10 and 17 receive unwanted sexual solicitations online. Additionally, statistics show that 67 percent of all victims of sexual assault were juveniles under the age of 18, and 34 percent were under the age of 12.

In June of this year, the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security held a series of three hearings on child crimes issues, focusing on violent crimes against children, sexual exploitation of children, and the Sex Offender Registration and Notification program and related legislative proposals.

On July 30, the Judiciary Committee considered this bill and ordered it favorably reported by an overwhelming vote of 22 to 4.

Mr. Chairman, there are over 550,000 sex offenders in the country; and it is conservatively estimated that at least 100,000 of them are lost in the system, meaning that nonregistered sex offenders are living in our communities and working at locations where they can, and likely will, come into contact with our children.

This is simply unacceptable, and the legislation specifically targets this problem to enhance the safety of America's families and communities. The Children's Safety Act will make much needed reforms to the Sex Offender and Registration program by expanding the scope and duration of sex offender registration and notification requirements to a larger number of sex offenders.

The legislation also requires States to provide Internet availability of sex offender information, requires timely registration by sex offenders, and then enhances penalties for their failure to register and increases the disclosure requirements regarding their whereabouts.

The bill authorizes United States marshals to apprehend sex offenders who fail to register and increases grants to States to apprehend sex offenders who are in violation of registration requirements contained in the legislation.

Additionally, H.R. 3132 would authorize demonstration programs for new electronic monitoring programs such as anklets and global position system monitoring, which will require examination of multijurisdictional monitoring procedures.

H.R. 3132 also revises the use of DNA evidence; increases penalties for violent crimes committed against children, and sexual exploitation of children; streamlines habeas review; State death penalties are imposed against child killers; and protects foster children by requiring States to perform more complete background checks before approving a foster or adoptive parent program and placement.

This legislation is strongly supported by America's Most Wanted, John Walsh; Ernie Allen from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; Robbie Calloway from the Boys and Girls Clubs of America; and many victims and representatives of victims organizations.

The courage of some, such as the father of Jessica Lunsford, to speak out on this important issue in the face of unmistakable grief is truly admirable. They have provided critical input throughout the process and have urged Congress to enact this legislation as quickly as possible.

Mr. Chairman, the time to protect our Nation's children from sexual predators in our communities and online on the Internet is now.

The scope of this problem requires a swift congressional response, and I urge Members of this body to move swiftly to help protect America's children from violent sexual offenders.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 5 minutes to the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Green).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Keller).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from Florida (Mr. Foley).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 1 minute to the gentlewoman from Ohio (Mrs. Schmidt).

Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer an amendment to the bill which makes a number of technical changes and substantive improvements to title I of the bill dealing with the sex offender registration and notification requirements and related issues. Let me briefly summarize some of the most important provisions.

First, the amendment includes a requirement that the Bureau of Prisons provide adequate treatment programs for sex offenders in all six of the regions and that they have adequate access to treatment in both residential and nonresidential programs.

Second, the amendment authorizes grants to States for prosecution of cases solved by DNA evidence. With the overwhelming passage of the Justice for All Act last Congress, this body recognized that DNA is a valuable tool for solving crimes. The amendment incorporates the proposal by the gentleman from California (Mr. Gallegly) which will further assist States in hiring more prosecutors and investigators for cases solved by DNA evidence.

Third, the amendment includes proposals contained in H.R. 3687, offered by the gentleman from Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), the gentleman from Massachusetts (Mr. Delahunt), and the gentleman from Texas (Mr. Poe), and specifically authorizes technical assistance grants to improve the quality of criminal investigation and prosecution of child abuse cases.

Fourth, the amendment expands on the pilot program for electronic monitoring programs for sex offenders. As technology develops, we need to use tracking technologies to monitor sex offenders' locations and movements so that the public can be protected and law enforcement can intervene before another tragic attack against a child occurs.

Mr. Chairman, I urge my colleagues to support this amendment in the bill.

Mr. Chairman, I rise to offer this amendment to respond to the law enforcement problems being faced by Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Texas, and other States as a result of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.

It is estimated that at least 15,000 sex offenders have been relocated from the affected area as a part of disaster relief efforts. Criminal records and sex offender information are, in many cases, not available to law enforcement or the community to track these offenders as they move to new areas. But this is just the tip of the iceberg.

It has been reported by the Texas Department of Justice, for example, that the State is experiencing significant increases in violent crime. There are 1,350 sex offenders unaccounted for in Houston alone after being evacuated from Louisiana. The parole department in Louisiana has no idea where these people are and can provide no identifying information, fingerprints or photos.

Reports also indicate that crimes against children in Texas shelters are rising. These States are in desperate need of Federal assistance. My amendment does just that by directing the Justice Department to provide technical assistance to help law enforcement in these areas and to identify sex offenders who have been relocated.

It is critical we protect our children while disaster relief is being provided, and I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for yielding. I will be happy to accept his amendment. I think it makes a useful addition to the bill.

Mr. Chairman, as with the previous amendment, I believe this amendment also improves the bill, and I would urge support of it.

Mr. Chairman, I believe this amendment is a constructive addition to the bill. It might need a little fine-tuning regarding the structure of the office, but we can do that in conference. I urge the House to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment sounds good to me, and I am happy to accept this amendment as well.

Mr. Chairman, I believe the gentleman has an instructive amendment, and I am prepared to support it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment deletes the 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for a sex offender who crosses State lines to fail to register in the new State and also deletes the 5-year mandatory minimum for making false statements in a sexual abuse investigation.

Let me say that the whole issue of the sentencing guidelines has been a very vexatious one. Earlier this year, the Supreme Court decided two cases that made the sentencing guidelines only advisory, rather than mandatory. So if this amendment is adopted, judges will be given the power to place on probation those who were convicted of not registering in a new State or making a false statement to law enforcement relative to a sexual abuse investigation.

I do not think that probation is advisable in these instances, and that is why this amendment should be defeated.

The most significant enforcement issue that exists today in the sex offender program is that over 100,000 sex offenders, or nearly one- fifth in the Nation, are ``missing,'' meaning they have not complied with the sex offender registration requirements. This typically occurs when the sex offenders move from one State to another.

To ensure compliance with the registration requirements, States are required to inform the sex offender of his or her obligations and obtain a signed form indicating he or she understands those obligations and will comply with them. In order to address the problem of the missing sex offenders, that is, those who fail to comply with moving from one State to another, sex offenders will now face Federal prosecution with a mandatory minimum of 5 years.

The combination of incentives for the sex offender to comply and stiff criminal penalties and additional law enforcement resources to focus on this problem should help address the overwhelming number of noncomplying or ``missing'' sex offenders in our community.

The 5-year mandatory minimum penalty is a critical component of this new enforcement scheme, and this amendment punches a hole in that enforcement scheme and allows a loophole to have the current situation continue to fester. The mandatory minimum applies for a knowing violation that will help ensure that sex offenders comply with all registration requirements.

Never again should our communities have to suffer from the fear of unidentified sex offenders in their communities, their schools, and their youth organizations.

Similarly, the 5-year mandatory minimum for false statements made during a sexual abuse investigation is critical. The facts surrounding the Jessica Lunsford case in Florida demonstrate that time is of the essence and false statements can make the difference between life and death of a missing child.

In the Lunsford case, three witnesses knew that John Couey, the alleged rapist and murderer of 9-year-old Jessica Lunsford, was living within 150 yards of Jessica's house but failed to tell investigators. If they had told the truth, maybe, just maybe, Jessica Lunsford would be alive today.

A 5-year mandatory minimum penalty would ensure truthful and full cooperation by witnesses in such investigations. It is an important policy goal, and these penalties send a strong deterrent message.

I strongly urge opposition to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I think this study is a good idea. I believe that child abusers should be tracked the same way as sex offenders.

If the gentleman is prepared to yield back, I will be happy to accept his amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will make the same offer I have made to others. This is a great amendment, and we are happy to accept it.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendments.

Mr. Chairman, the gentleman from Virginia's opposition to both mandatory minimum penalties and the death penalty is well-known and respected. I believe in this case he is wrong.

First of all, we do need to have a swift and effective death penalty in the case of violent offenders who murder children. There have been several scientifically balanced, statistical studies that consistently show that the death penalty is a deterrent; and I think that if it is just a little bit of a deterrent when we are dealing with our kids, that is enough to say that the amendment should be defeated.

Secondly, we have talked quite a bit about mandatory minimum penalties in the context of the previous amendment that was offered by the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis). Let me say that if all mandatory minimum penalties contained in this bill for sexual abuse and exploitation of children are eliminated, it does allow judges to send out into society on probation people who have been convicted of sex offenses for or against children. When I think of anybody who does something like that, we should tell society and those who might be thinking of committing such a crime that if you do the crime, you are sure to do some time.

I kind of listened with interest and with respect to the argument of the gentleman from South Carolina (Mr. Inglis) on mandatory minimums in the previously debated amendment. He says that if judges do not comply with sentencing guidelines, then maybe what Congress should do is impeach them.

Impeachment is a severe penalty, and if you look at the 17 impeachments that the House of Representatives has voted on in its history, the only time where there has been an impeachment voted is when a Federal civilian official ends up conducting himself or herself in a manner that obstructs the functioning of government, whether it is the branch that that official serves in or the other two equal and separate branches.

Simply saying that if a judge makes a discretionary call to give a child sex offender probation even when the crime is terrible is an impeachable offense I do not think comports with the history of impeachment, because it is within the discretion of the court.

I am saying that, in this case, the discretion of the court should be eliminated and those who are convicted should go to jail, and that is why the mandatory minimums ought to stay in this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I urge the defeat of this amendment en bloc.

Mr. Chairman, I will make the same offer on this amendment. I am prepared to accept it if the gentleman will yield back his time.

Mr. Chairman, this sounds like a good amendment, and I would be happy to accept it.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment that I am offering contains two provisions. The first would amend title XVIII to eliminate any statute of limitations on criminal prosecutions for kidnapping a child, committing a felony sex offense, or a human trafficking violation.

Eliminating these statutes for these crimes reflects the increased use of the success of DNA in solving decade-old crimes. We have all heard about individuals who have been exonerated by DNA evidence. However, there are even more reports of unsolved cases that have been solved and a perpetrator identified by DNA evidence years after the crime was committed.

This provision reflects this new reality and allows Federal prosecutors to prosecute sex offenders and child abusers who have escaped apprehension because of the statute of limitations.

I would note that this same provision was passed by the House in the 108th Congress as a part of the Child Abduction Prevention Act by the overwhelming vote of 410 to 4. It was modified in conference with the Senate as a part of the Protect Act.

The second provision in this amendment raises the class on the existing misdemeanor for failure to report child abuse, thereby raising the maximum penalty for such an offense from 6 months' imprisonment to a year imprisonment.

I strongly urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment makes technical changes to section 503 of the bill relating to access to Federal crime information databases by child welfare agencies.

The amendment requires fingerprint-based checks when conducting background checks for a limited purpose, to verify that a prospective adoptive or foster parent does not have a criminal record.

Before we allow foster or adoptive parents to take children into their homes, we must ensure that these applicants do not have prior convictions, let alone prior sex offense convictions. I urge my colleagues to support this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I will be happy to accept this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I am happy to accept this amendment. I would point out that this is nearly identical to H.R. 3088, which passed the House 380 to 19 in October of 2000.

Mr. Chairman, this is also a good amendment. I would just point out that it has been carefully drafted to ensure compliance with the Supreme Court decisions approving of such laws in Kansas v. Hendrick 1997, and Kansas v. Crane in 2002.

I am happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve a point of order on the amendment.

I do, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, I make a point of order against the amendment because it is in violation of section 302(f) of the Congressional Budget Act of 1974. This amendment would provide new budget authority in excess of the allocation made under section 302(a) of the Committee on the Judiciary and thus is not permitted under section 302(f) of the Act.

I ask for a ruling of the Chair.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman. I believe the Chair has not called for further amendments to title V, and the proposed amendment of the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler) is to title VI. I do not think title V has been closed out yet.

Mr. Chairman, the amendment bans possession and transfer of firearms by a convicted misdemeanor sex offender against a minor, and I am happy to accept the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I will make the gentlewoman an offer she cannot refuse. I am happy to accept the amendment if the gentlewoman will yield back the balance of her time.

Mr. Chairman, I would just like to add my words of support for the amendment of the gentleman from Indiana (Mr. Pence). I think it makes a very important addition to this bill.

Mr. Chairman, I am prepared to accept this amendment, but I think it needs a little bit of work on it. I am concerned about the drafting and application of the provision and am concerned about what might be construed as, quote, personally identifiable information of a person who is under age 18.

The amendment requires clarification of these issues, but I am willing to work with my colleague on this amendment to possibly modify or clarify the language at a conference later on. So I am prepared to accept the amendment and hope that it passes.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong opposition to the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, this is a poison pill to a very good and strongly supported bill; and regardless of whether or not one favors or opposes the Federal hate crimes law, I would ask the membership not to put highly controversial legislation of this nature on a bill that has attracted such strong and bipartisan support.

Earlier today, when we were considering the bill granting immunity from civil liability to Good Samaritans who are going down to help the victims of Hurricane Katrina, the Members of the minority party complained about the fact that there had been no hearings, there had been no committee consideration of this legislation, which is arguably of an emergency nature.

There have been no hearings. There have been no markups to this legislation, and we are talking about a major amendment to the Federal Criminal Code, one that poses constitutional problems of double jeopardy and whether Congress is exceeding its constitutional authority, which is something that should go through the regular order. I do not think the changes to the criminal code should be taken lightly.

Statistics on hate crimes prosecution should be fully considered in a very thoughtful way, including testimony that scholars have presented that says that hate crimes legislation actually increases those types of crimes, rather than decreases them.

We also should consider the case of United States v. Morrison, where the Supreme Court considered whether or not section 8 of the Commerce Clause or section 5 of the 14th amendment would allow Congress to enact a Federal civil remedy for victims of gender-motivated violence. There the Supreme Court said the Congress did not have the constitutional authority to do that.

I think both on the merits and on the process and on the practicalities of putting a controversial piece of legislation such as this amendment on a bill that has attracted broad and bipartisan support, this amendment should be strongly rejected. Do not kill the bill with this amendment. Vote it down.

Mr. Speaker, on that I demand the yeas and nays.

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself 7 minutes.

Mr. Chairman, we all abhor the horrific cases of child murders or sex offenses committed by those who are referenced in the bill. But the question before us is whether what we are doing in the bill will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation or actually increase it.

We should certainly seek to avoid enacting legislation that expends scarce resources in a manner that is not cost effective or that exacerbates the problem. It is clear that having police supervision and police awareness of the location and identification information about sex offenders is appropriate and helpful.

But it is not clear that putting that information indiscriminately on the Internet, regardless of the dangerousness of the individual, with no guidance or restriction of what people should do with the information, it is unclear whether that is helpful or harmful.

There have been incidents of vigilantes and other activities where offenders have actually been driven underground, so you actually do not know where they are. That is certainly not good for children. And try to sell your home when a sex offender moves a few blocks away. Are children actually helped by that? That would be a necessary problem; but there is no evidence that putting that information on the Internet actually reduces the incidence of child molestation, so the real estate prices all over the neighborhood go down.

Now, research shows that 90 percent of sex offenses against children involve either family members or someone well known to the victim. So when you put names and addresses on the Internet, 90 percent of the offenses are not even covered. We also have the situation where those on the Internet are ostracized and subjected to public notoriety, embarrassment, ridicule, and harassment.

In one actual case, a teacher was reading the names of offenders to grade school students in an apparent effort to protect them, when one student blurted out the question to another student: ``Is that not your father?''

This victimizes the victim twice and may well discourage offense reporting that is already considered very low in these situations. Many offenders identified on the Internet will not only become unemployed and unemployable because of that notoriety, but they may also have to leave their home to avoid embarrassment or other consequences to themselves and their families, and having done that, may just go underground and not bother to register again.

Where an offender clearly represents a threat to the public, perhaps the consequences to the victims and their family members cannot be avoided; but where the individual clearly does not present a threat to the public, informing the general public may do more harm than good.

Law enforcement and child-serving authorities should have access to the information. Until they have reliable information to show that the impact of the Internet will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation, we should be circumspect on how we use this information.

Now, we have taken a step in the right direction in the bill by encouraging those States and localities that are not already doing so to consider whether there are offenders who should be required to register, but may not have to be put on the Internet.

I am pleased, Mr. Chairman, that the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) has indicated his willingness as the bill moves towards conference to continue to look for ways we might support the States and localities who are already making such assessments while encouraging those who are not making those assessments to do so.

There are effective things we can do, and hopefully we will have amendments that will deal with this. Because research has shown that intensive, therapeutic sexual offender treatment cuts sexual offense recidivism in half. Fortunately, the evidence is that, even without the treatment, recidivism is low amongst sexual offenders of children. This is not what the legend is, but the facts are that a recent study by the Department of Justice showed that the rearrest rate among child molesters is 3.3 percent, much less than the recidivism rate of other criminals.

Any recidivism rate is too high, so I am pleased that we are working together to fashion a provision that will assure that all sex offenders in the Federal system will receive appropriate, effective treatment prior to their release; and I hope that we can continue to work together to provide a similar system for State offenders where we could significantly reduce child victimization by assuring access to effective treatment for all.

Now there are provisions in this legislation that are not based on research or sound reasoning like the death penalty, mandatory minimums, both of which have been studied and shown not to have any effect on crime. We also have the anomaly in this because it is Federal legislation that because Indian reservations, their sole access to courts is the Federal system, they will all be under the Federal system but most others will not. So it will have a disproportionate effect against Native Americans.

Now, day by day we are seeing more and more evidence that the death penalty administration is fraught with mistake, racial discrimination and it is applied in an arbitrary way. We have also seen the mandatory minimums have been shown to waste the taxpayers' money, been racially discriminatory, and the Judicial Conference reminds us every time we have a mandatory minimum for consideration that mandatory minimums violate common sense compared to traditional sentencing approaches.

This bill includes a 5-year mandatory minimum for any technical violation involved in registration. For example, if you are already registered and you attend the local community college but forgot to recognize that the community college is in a different jurisdiction and you should have registered there, too, well, that offense is subject to a 5-year mandatory minimum. Notwithstanding the fact that the original offense was 15 years ago, was a misdemeanor for which no time was imposed, it is a 5-year mandatory minimum for the technical violation of not registering correctly.

Another provision that is in the bill that will not have much effect on reducing child molestation is eliminating the access to habeas corpus. That will not reduce sex crimes. All of these are good, politically appealing sound bites that will help politicians get elected but which have no evidence that they will actually reduce the incidence of child molestation.

This bill will cost over $500 million over the next few years. We need to

make sure that when we spend that kind of money that we actually do something constructive. Here we have a bill with mandatory minimums, death penalties that have been shown that have nothing to do with reducing crime, it is primarily focused on Native Americans, and I would hope that we would support amendments to eliminate such extraneous matters on the bill so we can concentrate the $500 million on effective crime-reducing approaches.

Mr. Chairman, I reserve the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2\1/2\ minutes to the gentleman from Illinois (Mr. Emanuel).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 3 minutes to the gentleman from North Dakota (Mr. Pomeroy).

Mr. Chairman, I yield 2 minutes to the gentleman from Alabama (Mr. Cramer).

Mr. Chairman, I yield myself such time as I may consume.

During the last few minutes, we have heard a lot of praise of mandatory minimums. I just want to remind the House that the Judicial Conference writes us frequently and reminds us that mandatory minimums violate common sense. That is because if the offense requires the mandatory minimum and that makes common sense, it can be applied; but if it makes no sense, mandatory minimums require us to impose that sentence anyway.

Many of the provisions of the bill are crimes which we do not think would be subject to 5- or 10-year mandatory minimums. There is a provision in the bill that says that felonious assaults against a juvenile, which could be two juveniles having a fist fight in the school yard, if it gets into a big fight, that that is a 10-year mandatory minimum if no injury occurs. Now, of course, if an injury occurs in the fight, then you are talking about 20 years. I think common sense should prevail and a more appropriate sentence could be given.

This entire registration program that requires people to register has not been shown to reduce the incidence of child molestation. For someone who commits a crime, even as a juvenile, they will be subject to lifetime registration. There is no suggestion and there is no evidence that that reduces crime. It may actually increase crime.

We know that 90 percent of the offenses against children were people that would not be covered by the legislation, and 3.3 percent of those covered by the legislation might offend. We have other ways of dealing with that in such a way that we can actually reduce that 3.3 as much as 50 percent. We ought to be focused on that.

Mr. Chairman, we need to focus on the things that will actually reduce crime. This bill, many of the provisions of it, obviously, do not; and I would hope that we would focus appropriately to actually protect the children.

Mr. Chairman, I have no further requests for time, and I yield back the balance of my time.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to consider amendments No. 4 and 7, preprinted in the Congressional Record, when we call up title III. These amendments primarily affect title III. However, there is a little portion that affects title I.

Mr. Chairman, I would incorporate by reference the comments I have made on mandatory minimums, and I think it would apply to this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in opposition to the amendment and would just point out that this requirement for a driver's license just adds another little ``gotcha'' for which someone could be subjected to a 5-year mandatory minimum and, therefore, would oppose the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

I join in support of the amendment. It is money that will be extremely well spent and actually deals with the problem. I thank the gentleman for introducing the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, this amendment eliminates the 5-year mandatory minimum for failing to properly register and the 5-year mandatory minimum for falsifying registration information, with the possibility still of 20 years.

The amendment keeps the 20-year maximum for both crimes and leaves it to the Sentencing Commission and the courts to determine the gradations of seriousness and the punishment for violations based on the facts and circumstances of the violation.

It is absurd that misdemeanants and other minor offenders who get a suspended sentence for a crime that was committed 15 years ago could get a 5-year mandatory minimum sentence for a technical violation of a registration requirement such as showing up at 5:30 on the last day of registration when the office closed at 5 o'clock or failing to register the fact that they are in a community college that has different sites. Do they have to register everywhere they might take a class or just the main registration place for the community college? Or if they work in construction, if they register at the home office of the construction company, do they also have to register at each location where they are doing construction? If they guess wrong, 5 years mandatory minimum, no discretion on the part of the judge.

Are our children going to be safer or less safe if an offender knows that he is in technical violation? If he shows up to register after he has been in technical violation, he knows he is looking at a 5-year mandatory minimum. Is he going to show up or not?

Mr. Chairman, it is also absurd that an offender would be sentenced to a minimum 5 years for giving a technically false statement regarding this registration when, under the same section of the law, there is a maximum of 8 years, no minimum sentence, for either making a false statement in connection with international or domestic terrorism. A false statement on terrorism, 8 years maximum, no minimum; technical violation on registration, 5 years mandatory minimum, 20 years possibility.

Again, this amendment retains the 20-year maximum for cases such as those cited by the chairman, but it allows common sense in determining which offenders would get what sentence for what violations.

We have been told by the Sentencing Commission and the Judicial Conference time and time again that mandatory minimum sentences violate common sense. For someone who deserves the time, the mandatory minimum has no effect because they will get the time. For those who do not deserve the time, that violates common sense. They will get that time anyway.

In everyday experiences judges can see differences, great and small, in the facts and circumstances in the cases before them. The name of the crime is often a poor indicator of the facts and circumstances of the crime. So it makes sense to have a rational assessment by one who has heard and seen the evidence and facts and circumstances of the case making the appropriate decision within the guidelines set by the Sentencing Commission relating to the gradations in seriousness of the crime and the other characteristics. That is why we set up the Sentencing Reform Act that set up the Sentencing Commission, and these mandatory minimums obviously violate that entire system.

Of course, under the Federal system, the ones who will primarily be affected will be Native Americans because they try all their cases in Federal courts; and it is unfair to them and unfair to common sense where identical offenses can be committed, one by a Native American, another a few miles away, the same crime and vastly different sentences because the Native American is stuck in Federal court with the 5-year mandatory minimum. These mandatory minimums violate common sense, and so I am delighted to join the gentleman from South Carolina in this amendment and hope our colleagues will support it.

Parliamentary inquiry, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. Chairman, are we in title III?

Mr. Chairman, I offer amendments 4 and 7, which unanimous consent was granted to consider at this point.

Mr. Chairman, these amendments eliminate section 302 from the bill. Section 302 is extremely problematic.

First of all, it includes a death penalty that applies to unintentional deaths. That raises severe constitutional problems that you could be put to death for an unintentional act. We already have penalties for the death penalty for intentional acts. This would add unintentional acts.

Over 100 people have been totally exonerated or otherwise released from death row due to erroneous death penalties, and one study showed that 68 of death penalties were overturned as illegal. That does not include the ones where mistakes were made for which the error was so- called ``harmless.'' Other studies have shown that death penalties have been discriminatory against minorities, either affecting the consideration, undue consideration of the race of the defendant or the race of the victim.

We, a few years ago, passed the Innocence Protection Act, which provides for effective counsel and case development to be well-funded, but we have not fully funded that Innocence Protection Act, so until it is fully funded, we should not be passing more death penalties.

In addition, section 302 includes mandatory minimums. Let us see what

these mandatory minimums are for. Any felonious attack on someone under 18 years of age. That would include a schoolyard brawl which gets bad enough when they start throwing chairs at each other or something like that. If there is no injury in that situation, that is a 10-year mandatory minimum. If a dangerous weapon, whatever that means, is used, then you get 15 years, if there is no injury. Now, if there is actually an injury, then the mandatory minimum for this brawl for teenagers fighting teenagers would be 20 years; and if the crime of violence is a more serious offense, then 30 years mandatory minimum.

Starting with 10 years mandatory minimum for a schoolyard brawl, Mr. Chairman, is why these mandatory minimums make no sense. If the felony has been committed, maybe they should be sentenced to 10 years, maybe 20 years. This says no less than 10 years, even if there is no injury.

I would hope, Mr. Chairman, as we consider mandatory minimums that we would look at this as being excessive. Give the judge the discretion to apply a sentence that makes sense. But to have a mandatory minimum to apply in situations where no injury has occurred, no dangerous weapon was involved, 10 years mandatory minimum for teenagers having a fight, this just does not make any sense at all. If an injury actually occurs, it is actually 20 years mandatory minimum.

I would hope we would eliminate the entire section 302 to eliminate those mandatory minimums. There are plenty of provisions throughout this bill and throughout the Criminal Code to deal with people who deserve this kind of time, but to have a mandatory minimum in cases where no injury occurred is clearly excessive to be applied in all cases without discretion, whether it makes any sense or not.

We need to remove this section, and I hope that is what we do by adopting the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, the language in the bill is bad enough. This just makes it worse. We should eliminate the section of the bill where the bill already severely restricts the right of those convicted of sex offenses from their access to appeal.

Many who have been exonerated through DNA or other evidence have been exonerated and released due to their access to habeas corpus petitions. Restricting access to habeas will result in more innocent people being put to death or languishing in jail for crimes they did not commit.

We have a serious question, Mr. Chairman, as to whether guilty people are entitled a fair trial. If you have a person who is not suggesting that they are actually innocent, but they just did not get a fair trial, they do not have access to habeas corpus anyway. An allegation of innocence is a prerequisite to getting into habeas corpus petitions anyway. This is just going to make it worse, and more innocent people will be in jail. I would hope we would not adopt the amendment to make it worse.

I yield to the gentleman from Arizona.

Mr. Chairman, if you are going to have any review, I think it ought to be a full review: sentencing, conviction, and otherwise. I would hope that we would not make the bill any worse than it is, and the underlying provision is bad enough.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

Mr. Chairman, in the recent case of Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court indicated that if the material is not obscene it cannot be prohibited unless real children are involved. This amendment prohibits simulated conduct, digital images that may have been produced without real children being involved. If real children are not involved, the material has to be technically obscene to be prohibited.

The Supreme Court indicated in the decision that the fact that this material may whet someone's appetite or the nature of the case caused problems for law enforcement, those could not be the grounds for violating the Constitution in having material that is not obscene being prohibited.

The case, whether you like it or not, and bringing it up as a floor amendment means we cannot try to conform the language to the Supreme Court decision, so the only thing we can do is to vote against it if we believe in the Constitution and if we read Free Speech Coalition v. Ashcroft.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the amendment, and I yield to the gentleman from Michigan (Mr. Conyers),

the ranking member of the Committee on the Judiciary.

Mr. Chairman, I come reluctantly before you to re- express my desire to protect all our children from predators, and I am confident that I speak for all Members when we say that each new abduction brings a concern, an outrage that we all feel.

Child molesters prey on those that are most vulnerable in our society, and we must stop them. But how can we stop them if we are primarily creating 36 new mandatory minimum criminal penalties that are completely arbitrary, that have been shown to be ineffective at reducing crime, and a consummate waste of taxpayer money? But that is not the only reason.

Thanks to mandatory minimum sentences, almost 10 percent of all inmates in the Federal and State prisons are serving life sentences, an 83 percent increase since 1992. In two States, New York and California, 20 percent of the people in prison are serving life sentences. And what do we have to show for these statistics? Well, a system that currently houses more than 2 million Americans, almost four times the number of individuals incarcerated in 1985, at a cost of $40 billion to run and operate.

We create additional new death penalty eligibility offenses. This spring, 120 death row inmates were exonerated due to proof of their innocence. So, in the end, if we are truly serious about protecting our children from acts of sexual exploitation and violence, we have got to turn to prevention. We have got to use preventative solutions that really try to get to the root of the problem instead of after-the-fact criminal penalties that do not address the issue.

Do these sick people check the statutes to find out what the newest penalties are or whether they are mandatory or not or whether they can carry additional incarceration terms? I doubt it.

Finally, we have people that have written, professionals, scientific researchers treatment professionals, child advocates, who have serious reservations about this measure, H.R. 3132.

From the Center on Child Abuse and Neglect, the Editor-in-Chief on Child Maltreatment, the Journal of American Professional Society of the Abuse of Children, the Director of Crimes Against Children Research Center, the National Crime Victims Research and Treatment Center, Dr. Friedrich of the Mayo Clinic and Mayo Medical School, from the Board of Directors Association of the Treatment of Sexual Abusers, all these letters have poured in urging that we put more prevention into this measure rather than less.

Please let us turn this measure back.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, my amendment creates a national Office of Children's Safety within the Department of Justice, which would be run by a Presidential appointment and would report to the Attorney General. The director's duties would be to track State compliance with new registration requirements in the bill and report back to Congress on their progress. It would coordinate the Federal Government's response to the sexual abuse of minors and provide expertise and resources for the unique crime of child sexual abuse to States, local, and Federal authorities.

It is important that this amendment, if accepted, be run by someone qualified for the job. The FEMA incident illustrates this part of the provision.

The large number of sexually exploited children in this country is certainly an emergency. That is why I ask my colleagues to support this amendment to ensure our Department of Justice makes combating the exploitation of children one of its highest priorities.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman for his acceptance of the amendment. I would be happy to work on any suggested improvements to the amendment.

I think we have special offices in the Department of Justice concerning Violence Against Women and Cops on the Beat programs, and I think our children deserve no less.

Mr. Chairman, while there are many different grant programs in the Department of Justice providing resources for initiatives fighting violent or sexual assault, we have not found any that are directly and specifically at local law enforcement's ability to protect children from sexual predators.

This provision takes an important step to make sure that after offenders are prosecuted and released, they are registered and made publicly known. However, it does nothing to prevent the abuse from happening in the first place, nor does it help officers investigate and track down offenders after complaints. So this amendment would not only help fund local sheriff and police units, implementation and enforcement of the registration, but would provide funds to make sure that local units have the resources necessary to pursue child abusers, including additional staff, training of existing personnel, and computers and software necessary to investigate predators who find children over the Internet.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) for his consideration.

There are few needs as pressing as the importance of stopping the sexual abuse of children, and I appreciate the fact that we are providing special grant programs for prescription drug abuse, telemarketing fraud; and now we can find a way to fund programs to protect the most vulnerable in our society, our children. I urge support of the amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I ask unanimous consent to offer amendment No. 23 at this time.

Mr. Chairman, I offer this amendment to the bill to address a blight on our society, the scourge of hate violence. Because, currently, we lack sufficient data to assist in determining how to address bias crime directed toward children. This amendment would correct that oversight.

For the year 2003, for example, the most recent available data, the FBI compiled reports from law enforcement agencies across the country identifying 7,489 criminal incidents that were motivated by an offender's irrational antagonism towards some personal attribute associated with the victim.

Mr. Chairman, reclaiming my time, I thank the chairman for accepting the amendment.

Law enforcement agencies have identified 9,100 victims arising from 8,715 separate criminal offenses. FBI data has also revealed that a disproportionately high percentage of both the victims and the perpetrators of hate violence were children, young people under 18 years of age.

The FBI's annual Hate Crime Statistics Act report provides the best snapshot of the magnitude of the hate violence problem in America. However, there is a paucity of regularly published information about juvenile hate crime offenses because the statute does not require data analysis for gender or juvenile categories.

This is an important omission, as indicated by a special DOJ report on the subject in 2001. This report, which carefully analyzed nearly 3,000 of the 24,000 hate crimes to the FBI from 1997 to 1999, revealed that a disproportionately high percentage of both the victims and the perpetrators of hate violence were young people under 18 years of age. For example: 30 percent of all victims of bias-motivated aggravated assaults and 34 percent of the victims of simple assault were under 18.

As we address legislation for the protection of children, we should utilize the full extent of Federal resources and data collection plays an important role. I hope that this amend will find broad support so that we can work to eliminate hate violence directed against young people.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment as the designee of the gentlewoman from Texas (Ms. Jackson-Lee).

Mr. Chairman, this question of the well-being of our Nation's children is a result of the fact that children have increasingly become targets for identity theft. There have been sharp rises in incidents of fraud involving children's Social Security numbers which have been documented. Crimes using the stolen data are typically credit card frauds or the issuance of fraudulent driver's licenses. However, it is not too farfetched to think that the misappropriations of the personally identifiable information of a person who has not attained the age of 18 could be used in a way that could bring about many of the offenses set forth in this Act.

So the objective of the amendment crafted by the gentlewoman from Texas is to protect our children at all costs, and this amendment would do this by making it a crime to knowingly misappropriate the personal identification information of a minor in interstate or foreign commerce. The offense would be punishable by fines or imprisonment not to exceed 10 years.

Identity thieves often target children for these type of crimes because they are much less likely to notice that someone else is using their identity.

I yield to the gentlewoman from Texas.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentlewoman, and I think that covers it.

Mr. Chairman, this is a very important consideration; and I offer this amendment to address a problem, the scourge of hate violence, and hope that my colleagues will carefully consider the merits of the proposal.

The larger measure before us, H.R. 3132, finally gives us an opportunity to pass a hate crimes legislation that has been supported by a majority of the House and the Senate for three Congresses. Regularly, on motions to instruct, this House voted 232 to 192 in support of hate crimes legislation. Clearly, after a series of procedural votes in favor of the bill, the time has come for us to act on the substance; and this is what brings me to the well today.

In 2003, for the most available data, the FBI compiled reports from law enforcement agencies across the country identifying 7,489 criminal incidents that were motivated by an offender's irrational antagonism towards some personal attribute associated with the victim. Law enforcement agencies have identified 9,100 victims arising from 8,715 separate criminal offenses. While every State reported at least a small number of incidents, it is important to note that the reporting by law enforcement is voluntary, and it is widely believed that hate crimes are seriously underreported.

Children are not immune from this violence. The FBI data has revealed that a disproportionately high percentage of both victims and perpetrators of hate violence were children, young people under 18 years of age. A Department of Justice report, a special one on the subject, in 2001 carefully analyzed nearly 3,000 of the 24,000 hate crimes reported and revealed 30 percent of all victims of bias- motivated aggravated assaults, and 34 percent of the victims of simple assault were under 18.

So that is the problem. Despite the pervasiveness of the problem, current

law limits Federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to incidents against protected classes that occur only during the exercise of federally protected activities such as voting. Further, the statutes do not permit Federal involvement in a range of cases where crimes are motivated by bias against the victims' perceived sexual orientation, gender disability, or gender identity.

This loophole is particularly significant given the fact that four States have no hate crime laws on the books and 21 others have weak hate crime laws.

So the amendment will make it easier for the Federal authorities to prosecute bias crimes, in the same way that the Church Arson Prevention Act helped Federal prosecutors combat church arsonists, that is, by loosening the unduly rigid jurisdictional requirements under Federal law.

State and local authorities currently prosecute the overwhelming majority of hate crimes and will continue to do so under this legislation with the enhanced support of the Federal Government. Through an intergovernmental assistance program created by this legislation, the Department of Justice will provide technical, forensic, or prosecutorial assistance to State and local law officials in cases of bias crime.

The proposal also authorizes the Attorney General to make grants to State and local law enforcement agencies that have incurred extraordinary expenses associated with the investigation and prosecution of hate crimes.

I hope in supporting H.R. 3132 we can also move forward in this important area of hate crimes with reference to protecting children.

Behind each of the statistics cited above lies an individual or community targeted for violence for no other reason than race, religion, ethnicity, sexual orientation, gender, disability or gender identity. Let us be clear that a significant number of children lie within these statistics.

These discrete communities have learned the hard way that a failure to address the problem of bias crime can cause a seemingly isolated incident to fester into wide spread tension that can damage the social fabric of the wider community. This amendment is a constructive and measured response to a problem that continues to plague our nation. These are crimes that shock and shame our national conscience and they should be subject to comprehensive federal law enforcement assistance and prosecution.

I hope that in supporting H.R. 3132 we can also move forward in this area, hate crimes, that is equally important to protecting children.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the gentleman from Virginia for his generosity in yielding to me.

Members of the Committee, there is an historical underlying importance about what we are discussing here. I mention its importance. We have never had on the Federal books, in Federal law, a prohibition against killing someone because of their race. Dr. E.B. DuBois and the NAACP brought this up in the 1930s. It was debated even further back during Reconstruction. We are at a very critical, important point.

This House has approved this, but we have never dealt with it substantively before this afternoon. So I urge the Members to seriously consider the historical nature of what it is we are considering here. This is the first substantive consideration of a hate crimes measure that makes it a Federal violation of criminal law to kill a person because of their race. It is exceedingly important from that point of view.

As I said, it has been debated down from Reconstruction times. It was debated during the 1930s. It has been dealt with indirectly here on the floor. The majority of the Members have concurred with it through other procedures. But today, for the very first time, we are now considering this matter.

I commend this to the careful attention of all of my colleagues in this 109th Congress. We have a tremendous opportunity of an historical nature before us, and I hope that we will successfully move this part of the bill forward with this amendment.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentlewoman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to commend the minority leader on the legislative history she has recounted for the benefit of us who have dealt with this across the years and add that this is a bipartisan measure. I only wish that all of our colleagues on the other side of the aisle who support this measure would also join with their voices and their votes with us on this very important day.

We can track back a record that goes back to reconstruction where we have been trying to attempt to successfully pass this measure. So I congratulate the gentlewoman on her explanation of why we are here.

Mr. Chairman, I demand a recorded vote.

Mr. Chairman, I offer an amendment.

Mr. Chairman, there is not a time that in the backdrop of the tragedy of Katrina that I cannot rise and thank the many volunteers and supporters around the Nation and particularly my home town of Houston and the State of Texas.

With that in mind, as I watched the evacuees come into the Houston Astrodome and the George R. Brown Convention Center, Mr. Chairman, one of the striking aspects of it was the enormous number of children, thousands of children. In fact, it is calculated that 300,000 to 400,000 children will be homeless and will be impacted by this tragedy.

This very bill impacts our children by seeking to protect them. So I raise an amendment and a cause of concern that I would like to include and the specific language involved, making sure that the process of adoption and foster care can be expedited through the language of a sense of Congress, that background checks conducted as a precondition to approval of any foster or adoptive placement of children, affected by a natural disaster or terrorist act should be expedited in order to ensure that such children do not become subjected to the offenses enumerated in the Children's Safety Act.

I yield to the gentleman from Wisconsin.

Mr. Chairman, I thank the chairman's generosity. I understand his generosity and if he would allow me to conclude two or three comments about what I saw, I would be happy to accept a voice vote.

Mr. Chairman, I just wanted to put in the Record, why, if you are kind enough to accept this, this is so very important. As I spoke to the evacuees, what they said to me was that in the Superdome there were outright examples of rape and abuse of children. They may not have been the family members; but in that instance, if the family members are lost, an expedited foster care and an expedited adoption would be relevant.

If in this instance of this law we can expedite those background checks and have this language in this bill, I certainly know that it would help the thousands of children that may be impacted.

Let me conclude by saying that I hope, as I indicated before, that we will initiate a children's initiative to address the concerns of these children. But if this language is placed in this bill, at least they will have a placeholder that their cases will be expedited so that their lives can be put back in place and so that sex offenders will not be the ones to be adopting and/or have foster care of these vulnerable children.

As was the case with September 11, Hurricane Katrina has left many children without their natural parents. Many kids are now wondering who will care for them and how their needs will be met. Not only is this enormous pressure on a child but it greatly diminishes the joys of childhood. My amendment would set forth a sense of Congress that background checks conducted as a precondition to approval of any foster or adoptive placement of children affected by a natural disaster or terrorist attack should be expedited in order to ensure that such children do not become subjected to the offenses enumerated in this act. While family members often step in to take care of children who have lost their natural parents, these family members usually only have limited resources and as a result, the child may be passed from family member to family member. As we all know, this can be a very unstable environment for a child. This amendment attempts to move the background check process along in a timely manner so these displaced children can enter a loving and caring family and get back to a normal life.

As we all watched the devastating stories of Hurricane Katrina unfold, it was very disturbing to me to learn that several minors were raped while waiting to be rescued from the New Orleans Superdome. This is a prime example of the many negative situations that can arise as a result of a natural disaster which displaces children from their parents, or even causes the parents lives to be lost. As a parent and Chair of the Children's Caucus, I am very concerned with the well being of our nation's children. As natural disasters seem to be more prevalent in our society, we must begin to think about how we care for those children who lose their natural parents. This amendment is not intended to circumvent the precondition background check for approval of any foster or adoptive placement; it is only intended to speed the process up so we can get these displaced children with loving and caring families.

In closing, just like most other States, Louisiana has an open and searchable sex offender registry. The primary party responsible in most communities for checking up on the status of sex offenders who have served their sentences but must register is the local police. However, the police and local law officials are swamped with the task of rescuing survivors and ensuring that every one gets out of the city. This makes it difficult to monitor the moves and whereabouts of registered sex offenders. In addition, as the citizens of New Orleans and other states wait for assistance in cities around the country, sex offenders are among innocent children who have lost their natural parents and are vulnerable. In these troubled times, let us not leave our children helpless.

[September 4, 2005]

I have a feeling I could be accused of a kind of

insensitivity, or at worst a sort of obsessiveness by

bringing this up now, but after reading about some of the

terrible things that have been said to have happened in New

Orleans after the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on

August 29, 2005, this idea occurred to me in a kind of

lightbulb moment.

Sex crimes are part of war. War produces an anarchic

mindset. So does a disaster on the scale of what we have seen

in Louisiana and Southern Mississippi. Just as invading

soldiers from various countries in the past have made sexual

assault a part of their subjugating of a native population,

so the criminals loose on the streets in New Orleans and even

inside the SuperDome have made sexual assault another part of

their overall orgy of violence. In the entry I wrote earlier

today I wrote briefly of the horrific story coming out of the

SuperDome of the rape and murder of a little girl, followed

by the beating death at the hands of 10 men of the

perpetrator.

I began thinking about how many people must be unaccounted

for in New Orleans and the surrounding region devastated by

the storm. The number must be astonishing, just as we keep

hearing the final death toll will be. Of the survivors who

have made it this long and perhaps been able to get to refuge

in other states, whatever procedures officials who run

shelters in these states have in place for registering who

stays there must certainly take into account the fact that

many people left their homes so quickly and under such duress

that they may have only the clothes on their backs--no

identification, money, etc.

Registered sex offenders, of course, are more closely

accounted for than other citizens. Louisiana has an open and

searchable sex offender registry just like many other states

across the U.S. The primary party responsible in most

communities for checking up on the status of sex offenders

who have served their sentences but must register are the

local police. As we know, it is all the New Orleans P.D. can

do at the moment to maintain their number and keep cops from

walking off or getting killed themselves. Just like everyone

else, the cops have lost family, homes, in a sense, their

lives.

We can surmise that if the death toll from Katrina in

Louisiana alone is as high as 10,000, as has been reported in

the mainstream media, a number of sex offenders will have

succumbed to the storm and its aftermath.

We can also guess that if the larger portion of the

population of New Orleans was able to leave before the storm,

or has now been taken to refugee centers in surrounding

states, a larger number of sex offenders are now not just out

of the residence registered in the Louisiana offender

database, but quite possibly off the grid completely and free

to throw off what many of them surely must view as the

shackles of having to register and have their faces placed on

the internet next to a summary of whatever crimes they were

convicted of committing.

Of that number, a percentage will be considered what many

states refer to as level III sex offender. The most likely to

use violence in the commission of their crimes, and the most

likely to re-offend.

Click on the thumbnail inserted into the first paragraph of

this blog entry to see a screen capture of a map I made at

mapsexoffenders.com, the service that matches up sex offender

databases with maps and satellite photos and marks the

registered offenders' homes with a red balloon.

The blue balloon on the large map you see when you look at

the screen cap I made represents the city center of New

Orleans. The red balloons, which you will see are numerous,

represent all the registered offenders' addresses.

As I said, some of those offenders are likely victims of

this epochal storm just like many other residents of the Big

Easy. But a larger number of them probably survived. Of those

who survived, there will be some who truly are trying to live

the `straight' life, and they will likely be dutiful in

reporting their identities and true status as a registered

sex offender. But there may even be a larger number who

realize that a remarkable opportunity has presented itself.

Mr. Chairman, will the gentleman yield?

Mr. Chairman, I am delighted to be able to cosponsor this amendment, and I thank the distinguished gentleman from Michigan for presenting this amendment on identity theft, and I thank the chairman.

I think the key element of the purpose of this amendment which we present today is to realize that children are vulnerable. Documents have

been lost, and now that we know that identity theft is as prolific, unfortunately, as Katrina was and the rain and the floods, these children need protecting.

So I would hope we could work together. I would like to work with the gentleman from Wisconsin (Mr. Sensenbrenner) if this amendment could be accepted.

As chair and founder of the Children's Caucus, I am very concerned with the well being of our Nation's children. Unfortunately, children have increasingly become targets for identity theft. Sharp rises in incidents of fraud involving children's Social Security numbers have been documented. Crimes using this stolen data are typically credit card fraud or the issuance of fraudulent driver's licenses. However, it is not too far fetched to think that the misappropriation of the personally identifiable information of a person who has not attained the age of 18 years could be used in a way that could bring about many of the offenses set forth in this act. The objective is to protect our children at all costs. My amendment would do just that by making it a crime to knowingly misappropriate the personal identification information of a minor in interstate or foreign commerce. The offense will be punishable by fines or imprisonment for not more than 10 years.

Identity thieves often target children for these types of crimes because they are much less likely to notice that someone else is using their identity. Even infants have had their identities stolen by identity thieves. These crimes may be discovered only when bewildered parents get the bill. Some children never learn that fraudulent activity has taken place in their name until they are refused a driver's license because one has already been issued to their Social Security number. Worse still, some apply for student loans only to learn that their credit has been ruined.

Sadly, the Federal Trade Commission estimates that 9 percent of children in this situation learn that a member of their own family had actually perpetrated this fraud. Fixing these credit reports can be very time-consuming and particularly expensive for young adults just entering the job market. Victims now spend an average of 600 hours recovering from this crime, often over a period of years, at an average cost of $1,400.

These crimes against unsuspecting and defenseless children are among the most insidious that can be committed because they rob children of opportunity. Instead, their entry to adulthood is a setback with massive debt, legal bills, and an extraordinary battle just to get a fair chance in life.

This amendment provides stiff penalties to criminals who prey on a child's future. I would like to thank Mr. Conyers for offering my amendment and therefore I join him as a cosponsor of this amendment. After being detained in a meeting on Hurricane Katrina, I was grateful that my amendment was able to be offered by Mr. Conyers, the ranking member.

Madam Speaker, I yield myself such time as I may consume, and I am happy to be here today to join the debate around this bill. I am hoping that my good friend, the chairman of the committee, will somewhere in the course of this suspension explain to us why three bills were mentioned but one that was added by the majority of the House, H.R. 3132, which deals with hate crimes and is arguably one of the most notable pieces of civil rights criminal enforcement protection considered by the Congress, was inexplicably left off. This makes the process very mysterious to me, because

hate crimes is a very important part of any Child Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act that is before us, and I am very disappointed that somewhere in the night this bill was dropped so that we are now combining three instead of four bills.

It is a Federal crime to hijack an automobile; it is a Federal crime to possess cocaine. It ought to be a Federal crime to drag a man to his death because of his race or to hang a man because of his sexual orientation. We should, and I hope we will through some parliamentary mechanism, seize upon the historic opportunity that is before us to enact legislation that would effectively augment existing Federal law and demonstrate that this Nation will not tolerate violence directed at any individual because of their identity. But instead of supporting this principle, the measure before us takes an opposite direction. I am really, really sorry about this because it does the House an injustice.

I am also, at the same time, wishing to register notice that an amendment offered by the gentleman from New York (Mr. Nadler), which was adopted and would have prevented the sale of a firearm to anyone convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense, was also dropped. This is very troubling. Still others will talk about the 43 new mandatory minimum penalties and over 10 new death penalties that have become eligible by offenses in this new bill.

So I am hopeful that we can work out some kind of agreement or acknowledgment about the unusual parliamentary process by which this matter has been brought to us.

I rise in strong opposition to this legislation and the manner by which it comes before us today. Introduced just over two months ago, this legislation, all 164 pages, has managed to completely circumvent the traditional legislative process.

Without the benefit of a single hearing or committee markup, the legislation has somehow found its way here to the floor of the House of Representatives. To make matters worse, it's being considered under suspension of the rules, leaving with reasonable concerns no opportunity to offer modest amendments.

Some might suggest that hearings or markups aren't necessary under these circumstances; since this measure, in large part, is a combination of three different bills, H.R. 3132; H.R. 1279; and H.R. 1751, which have all been considered by this body in the past. But, I strongly disagree. This measure differs from those various proposals in several meaningful ways.

First and foremost, this measure fails to include the hate crimes amendment that I offered--and which was adopted by a 223-199 vote as part of H.R. 3132. My hate crimes amendment arguably is one of the most notable pieces of civil rights criminal enforcement protection considered by this Congress in the last 30 years.

The FBI has reported a dramatic increase in hate motivated violence since the September 11th terrorist attacks. While the overall crime rate has grown by approximately two percent, the number of reported hate crimes have increased dramatically from 8,063 in 2000 to 9,730 in 2001, a 20.7 percent increase. Racial bias again represented the largest percentage of bias-motivated incidents, 44.9 percent; followed by Ethnic/National Origin Bias, 21.6 percent; Religious Bias, 18.8 percent, Sexual Orientation Bias, 14.3 percent; and Disability Bias, 0.4 percent).

It's worth noting that the amendment I offered would not have created new law. It simply would have amended existing law. Namely, section 245 of title 18, passed in 1968, which allowed Federal prosecution of attacks on the Freedom Riders during their historical civil rights work in the South.

The amendment of Section 245 would make it easier for Federal authorities to prosecute racial, religious, ethnic and gender-based violence, in the same way that the Church Arson Prevention Act of 1996 helped Federal prosecutors combat church arson: by loosening the unduly rigid jurisdictional requirements under Federal law.

Current law limits Federal jurisdiction over hate crimes to incidents that occur during the exercise of federally protected activities, such as voting, and does not permit Federal involvement in a range of cases involving crimes motivated by bias against the victim's sexual orientation, gender or disability. This loophole is particularly significant given the fact that four states have no hate crime laws on the books, and another 21 states have extremely weak hate crimes laws.

It is a Federal crime to hijack an automobile or to possess cocaine, and it ought to be a Federal crime to drag a man to death because of his race or to hang a man because of his sexual orientation. We should seize upon this historic opportunity to enact legislation that would effectively augment existing Federal law and demonstrate that this Nation will not tolerate violence directed at any individual because of their identity, instead of supporting legislation, such as the measure before us today, that takes us in the opposite direction.

Second, this measure fails to include an amendment offered by Mr. Nadler--also adopted by voice-vote--which would have prevented the sale of a firearm to anyone convicted of a misdemeanor sex offense.

By now, members of this body are painfully aware of the fact that sex offenders often use firearms to prey upon their unsuspecting victims. In fact, not long ago Keith Dwayne Lyons, a high-risk sex offender, was convicted of engaging in unlawful sexual intercourse with a minor.

According to published police reports, Mr. Lyons was aided by the use of a firearm in carrying out his crime. Unfortunately, and notwithstanding such tragedies, it appears to be the wisdom of a small minority that the bill before us is not the proper vehicle to address such matters and prevent them from reoccurring in the future.

Finally, the measure under consideration today includes a complex system of categories whereby sex offenders are classified based upon the nature of their offense. They are also routinely forced to verify the accuracy of their registry information based upon this system.

This new system of registration and registry verification has never been discussed by members of our committee. While some may certainly welcome such a system, others most likely will not. In either event, a change of this magnitude should not be undertaken without adequate thought, consideration and debate.

Setting aside these issues, I remained deeply concerned by the legislation's inclusion of at least 43 new mandatory minimum penalties and over 10 new death penalty eligible offenses. In the past, I've gone to great lengths to explain my deep opposition to mandatory minimum sentences and the death penalty, so I won't repeat many of those arguments here. Except, to say that such penalties are completely arbitrary, ineffective at reducing crime and a total waste of taxpayers' money.

Thanks to mandatory minimum sentences, almost 10 percent of all inmates in state and Federal prisons are serving life sentences, a near 83 percent increase from 1992. In two states alone, New York and California, almost 20 percent of inmates are serving life sentences.

And, what do we have to show for such statistics? The answer is simple. A prison system that currently houses more than 2.1 million Americans and costs an estimated $40 billion a year to run and operate.

In the end, the list of lingering concerns associated with this bill is quite staggering.

Over 33 scientific researchers, treatment professionals and child advocates have written in to express their concerns regarding the bill's overly harsh treatment of juveniles.

Advocates from the immigration community have written in to complain about the bill's provisions which will likely encourage state and local law enforcement officials to enforce Federal immigration laws.

And, groups ranging from the Chamber of Commerce to the American Library Association have expressed serious concerns that the provisions outlined in title 6 of the bill will create criminal liability for the producers and distributors of mainstream novels, photographs, Internet content, movies, and TV shows.

With so many outstanding issues and no opportunity to offer even modest amendments, it's hard to see how anyone could lend their support to this measure.

I strongly urge my colleagues to vote ``no''.

Madam Speaker, I reserve the balance of my time.

Madam Speaker, I yield 4 minutes to the gentleman from Virginia (Mr. Scott), and no one has worked harder in this area than he.