Klobuchar Chairs Hearing On How to Help Law Enforcement Find Missing Childre

Press Release

U.S. Senator Amy Klobuchar chaired a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing today examining ways to assist law enforcement in the search for missing children. At the hearing, Klobuchar renewed her call to grant law enforcement access to the information they need to solve these cases. Klobuchar recently introduced the Access to Information about Missing Children Act, which would help federal, state, and local law enforcement locate missing children whose whereabouts could be discovered through basic information on federal tax returns. Patty Wetterling, a Minnesota child-safety advocate whose son Jacob was kidnapped near his family's home in St. Joseph in 1989, testified at the hearing, along with experts from the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"As a former prosecutor, I know that returning missing children to their families is one of law enforcement's highest priorities," Klobuchar said. "This legislation will cut red tape and provide police and prosecutors access to critical information that would help bring missing children home."

In her testimony, Wetterling discussed the importance of improving information sharing between law enforcement agencies and stressed that Klobuchar's legislation, which she introduced with Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT), would help police better find missing children.

"I support efforts to give government agencies the authority they need to share information with law enforcement in these cases," Wetterling said. "Parents of missing children don't care about jurisdictional boundaries -- they care about getting their child back."

Under current law, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) is barred from sharing any information with law enforcement officials, even if the information would help to locate a missing child.

According to the U.S. Justice Department, over 800,000 children are reported missing each year -- and more than 200,000 of those cases are the result of family abductions.

Klobuchar said that family abductors frequently assume false identities and travel to different states to escape detection. However, a significant number of family abductors continue to file federal tax returns. According to a Treasury Department study, captors filed missing children's Social Security numbers with the IRS in more than one-third of cases.

Klobuchar is chair of the Judiciary Subcommittee on Administrative Oversight and the Courts, and she previously served for eight years as the chief prosecutor for Hennepin County.

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