Abduction Laws

The most comprehensive child crimes prevention law established in memory of Jessica Marie Lunsford, a Florida nine-year-old who disappeared from her grandparents' home in the middle of the night on Feb. 23, 2005. Jessica Lunsford Act was initiated by Mark Lunsford and signed in to Law in the State of Florida by Jeb Bush. Since then, due to Mark Lunsford's nationwide crusade, Jessica's Law became a State law in 30 more States and will become a Federal Law in the future. It overrides all previous child predator and sex offender registration laws due to the toughest set of provisions in existence. Vote for Jessica's Law in TX.

1. Increase the penalty for lewd and lascivious molestation of a child to life in prison or a split sentence of a mandatory minimum 25 years - to life prison term, followed by lifetime electronic monitoring.

2. Increase, from 20 to 30 years, the period of time before a sexual predator is allowed to petition to have the sexual predator designation removed.

3. Increase sexual predator/offender registration and reporting requirements.

4. Sexual predators who murder their victims now qualify for the death penalty in capital cases or for second offence.

5. Designate failing to re-register as a sexual offender/predator or harboring or assisting a sexual predator/offender a third degree felony.

6. Require those already convicted of sex crimes to have electronic monitoring for the remainder of their probation.

7. Require all county misdemeanor probation officials to search the sexual offender registry when a new offender is assigned to them.
   
   See US Map of States that passed Jessica's Law
   OR see the 30 States that have passed it, by
   the name of the Protection Act.
   
   Compare Old Laws with Jessica's Law
   
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AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) ALERT was created in 1997 as a legacy to 9-year-old Amber Hagerman, a bright little girl who was kidnapped and brutally murdered while riding her bicycle in Arlington, Texas. In response to the community’s concern for the safety of local children, the Dallas/Fort Worth Association of Radio Managers teamed up with local law-enforcement agencies in northern Texas and developed this innovative early warning system to help find abducted children. In April, 2003, President Bush signed the Amber Alert legislation making it a national program. Statistics show that, when abducted, a child’s greatest enemy is time. Please be a prepared parent, an InvincaParent.

Please visit Team Amber for more.
Check out if there is currently an Aactive Amber Alert in the country
Or check out Amber Alert archives
See what you can do during an active Amber Alert to help.

is a federal law named after the tragic murder of 7-year-old Megan Kanka by a twice-convicted released sex offender living on her street. The public outcry created a call for programs to provide the public with information regarding released sex offenders. In 1996 Congress passed a federal law mandating state community notification programs. Megan’s Law, section (e) of the Wetterling Act, requires all states to conduct community notification but does not set out specific forms and methods, other than requiring the creation of internet sites containing state sex-offender information. Beyond that requirement, states are given broad discretion in creating their own policies. 

• Assists law enforcement in investigations   
• Establishes legal grounds to hold known offenders
• Deters sex offenders from committing new offenses   
• Offers citizens information they can use to protect children from victimization

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was created and named in memory of 6-year-old Adam Walsh. In 1981 Adam was abducted from a Florida shopping mall and later found murdered. Initiated in 1994 by Wal-Mart, the program is a series of steps that store associates can follow if a child is reported missing. Code Adam has been a powerful search tool for lost and abducted children in tens of thousands of establishments across the nation, and it is one of the country’s largest child-safety programs.

There are six steps employees are trained to follow when a Code Adam is activated

1. If a visitor reports a child is missing, a detailed description of the child and what he or she is wearing is obtained.
2. The employee goes to the nearest in-house telephone and pages Code Adam, describing the child’s physical features and clothing. As designated employees monitor front entrances, other employees begin looking for the child.
3. If the child is not found within 10 minutes, law enforcement is called.
4. If the child is found and appears to have been lost and unharmed, the child is reunited with the searching family member.
5. If the child is found accompanied by someone other than a parent or legal guardian, reasonable efforts to delay their departure will be used without putting the child, staff, or visitors at risk. Law enforcement will be notified and given details about the person accompanying the child.
6. The Code Adam page will be canceled after the child is found or law enforcement arrives.
   
   Adam's father, John Walsh, became an advocate for victims rights and helped spur the formation of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC). As a result of this, he became the host of America's Most Wanted.
   

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Fact Sheet:

Each year, millions of children fall prey to sexual predators. Experts estimate that one-in-five girls and one-in-ten boys in the United States are sexually exploited before they reach adulthood. These young victims are left with permanent psychological, physical, and emotional scars. That tragedy is compounded by the fact that child prostitution, human trafficking, child pornography, and international sex tourism now generate billions of dollars a year worldwide.

Seeking to reverse this trend and protect children worldwide, the Department of Homeland Security/U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) developed Operation Predator, an initiative to identify, investigate, and arrest child predators. Officially launched by Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge in July 2003, Operation Predator draws on ICE's unique investigative and enforcement authorities to safeguard children from foreign national pedophiles, human traffickers, international sex tourists, and other predatory criminals.

Coordinated nationally and internationally through ICE's headquarters, Operation Predator brings together an array of ICE disciplines and resources to target these child sexual abusers. As part of the effort:

• ICE established a single web portal to access all publicly available state Megan's Law databases.
• ICE created a National Child Victim Identification System in partnership with NCMEC, the FBI, U.S. Postal Inspection Service, U.S. Secret Service, the Department of Justice, the Internet Crimes Against Children Task Forces and other agencies.
• ICE agents stationed internationally are working with foreign governments and their foreign law enforcement counterparts to enhance coordination and cooperation on crimes that cross borders.
• ICE is working with INTERPOL to enhance foreign government intelligence on criminal child predators.

RESULTS

In the last year, ICE has arrested more than 3,200 child predators nationwide. These individuals have committed a wide range of acts of child sex exploitation.

Foreign National Child Predators
More than half of the arrests made as part of Operation Predator have been arrests of foreign national sex offenders whose crimes make them removable from the United States. To date, more than 450 of these predators have been deported. Their crimes include a Los Angeles man who repeatedly molested his own daughter and an Austrian-national soccer coach convicted of repeatedly fondling a mentally impaired minor.

International Child Sex Tourists
Working cooperatively with foreign governments through ICE's attach offices worldwide, ICE agents made the first six arrests under the new child sex tourism provisions of the PROTECT Act. The first of those arrested, Michael Lewis Clark, 70, was sentenced in June 2004 to 97 months in jail.

Human Smuggling & Trafficking of Children
The criminal networks engaged in human smuggling and trafficking have become more violent and more profit-driven than ever before. At the same time, some of their victims are getting younger and younger. In one case, a predator tried to purchase nine-to-eleven year old girls from Mexico. ICE agents arrested the individual when he traveled to Arizona to have sex with the girls.

Internet Child Pornography
Drawing on ICE's cyber crime investigative expertise, ICE is tackling the crimes that cross the nation's virtual borders. In one major investigation, ICE agents have arrested more than 100 individuals for trading, buying, and distributing child pornography online. Acting on ICE leads from the investigation, law enforcement officials in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, and Scotland have arrested an additional 500 individuals. Additionally, through the National Child Victim Identification System, more than 1,230 children have been identified in pornographic images.

PROTECTING CHILDREN WORLDWIDE
Several U.S. laws safeguard youth from sexual predators, including the Mann Act, the Child Sexual Abuse Prevention Act of 1994, and the PROTECT Act of 2003. For example, federal law bars U.S. residents from engaging in sexual or pornographic activities anywhere in the world with a child under 18. ICE is working with law enforcement agencies and advocacy groups around the globe to investigate crimes of this nature. Those convicted in the U.S. face significant penalties:

• Manufacture, distribution, possession of child pornography: maximums of 30, 20 or 10 years in prison, respectively. Manufacture also carries a mandatory minimum sentence of 15 years.
• Child sex tourist, child sex tour operator, or participant in these crimes: maximum 30 years in prison
• Sex trafficking of children for prostitution: maximum life sentence