Q: What is the PROTECT Act of 2003?
A: It is every parent’s worst nightmare to experience the horror of a missing, kidnapped child. As a father, grandfather and federal lawmaker who serves on the Senate Judiciary Committee, and as a member of the PROTECT act conference committee, I take personally the responsibility to advance policies that prevent crimes against innocent children and provide our law enforcement and justice systems the tools and resources they need to track down and prosecute child predators. In April Congress overwhelmingly approved legislation aimed at protecting children in America from those who aim to do them harm. The sweeping child protection bill establishes tougher penalties against child molesters, abductors, and pornographers, defines child pornography to include morphed pictures of children, and establishes a nationwide kidnapping-notification system, widely known as Amber Alerts. These alerts are used to immediately notify the public, law enforcement and media about a missing child through radio and television bulletins and electronic roadside billboards. Last summer, the news media focused considerable attention on child abductions and a handful of high-profile kidnapping cases captured the nation’s attention about the importance of distributing information far and wide as quickly as possible. More than two-thirds of the states already use electronic roadside systems to spread the word about kidnapped children and their abductors. The bill sent to the president authorizes $20 million for electronic highway signs and $5 million in matching grants for local authorities to implement Amber alert systems. An acronym for "America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response," the Amber alert system was named to honor the memory of a nine-year-old girl abducted in 1996 in Texas and found murdered four days later.
Q: What other child protection measures are included?
A: In addition to establishing a nationwide kidnapping alert system, the bill includes legislation I co-sponsored to crack down on illicit drugs commonly consumed at "rave" parties and an amendment I sponsored requiring child pornographers to be included in the national sex offender registry. The bill also calls for a mandatory life sentence for twice-convicted sexual offenders; denies pre-trial release for people accused as child rapists or child abductors; extends the statute of limitations for child abductions and sex crimes to the life of the alleged victim; allows judges to order a lifetime of supervision for anyone convicted of a sex crime against a child; increases punishment for a range of sex crimes against children; bans child pornography on the Internet, including computer-generated images; doubles the annual grant to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to $20 million each year through 2005; and mandates a 20-year sentence for kidnapping a minor by a non-family member.