A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery Center Act
A CHILD IS MISSING ALERT AND RECOVERY CENTER ACT -- (House of Representatives - July 20, 2009)
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I yield myself so much time as I may consume.
Mr. Speaker, H.R. 1933, the A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery Center Act helps address the terrifying experience of when a family member or friend ``goes missing.''
Under current law, there are programs such as AMBER Alert to help missing children who are abducted or victims of foul play. But these programs do not extend to situations where a child or elderly person becomes missing in other, more innocent ways.
H.R. 1933 fills this gap by authorizing money for annual grants to the A Child is Missing Alert and Recovery Center. This national nonprofit program provides assistance to local law enforcement throughout the country in all situations of missing persons, not only those involving criminal activity.
Mr. Speaker, the center helps when a small child fails to come home after school or a grandmother suffering from Alzheimer's disease walks out of her home in the middle of the night. When the terrifying event of a missing person is reported to the police, the responding police officer can call the center, which operates 365 days a year, 24 hours a day.
Based on information from the call, the center quickly prepares a recorded message that includes a description of the missing person, along with the location where the person was last seen. And within minutes, the center sends this recording to thousands of phones within a radius of the last known location.
This activity can save lives, as well as conserve critically needed enforcement resources that would otherwise be spent in extended searches for missing persons. The bill before us today will make a significant contribution to the protection of children and vulnerable adults throughout the United States.
I thank the sponsor of this bill, my good friend, Ron Klein of Florida, for his leadership on this important legislative issue.
I urge my colleagues to support this legislation, and I reserve the balance of my time.
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Mr. JOHNSON of Georgia. Mr. Speaker, I wholeheartedly agree with the comments of my good friend from Texas, Judge Poe. And he knows from practical experience what it means to a family when their loved one goes missing and then there is a positive outcome. And he's also aware of those situations that do not end on a positive note.
I also have the same experience in life, but fortunately, it's not due to a personal experience. But I just can't imagine how traumatic it must be for a mother or a father to be waiting at the bus stop for their child to disembark, and then that child is not on that bus. I can imagine the horror of waking up one morning, and my dear grandmother, who is mentally declining, has apparently been able to open the door and exit. And these are things that none of us wish on anyone.
And this bill, H.R. 1933, will hopefully add to the positive results that we have as we look for our missing children and our missing adults and the elderly.
And so, Mr. Speaker, having emphasized that I fully support this bill, I will yield back the balance of my time.
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