My wife Rebecca and I have two young sons at home. They're normal
brothers -- they tease, they play, they sometimes pretend to have had it
with each other. But they love each other and expect to have many, many
years to keep on being brothers.
Just the thought of one of those boys being taken from us is almost too
much for Rebecca and me. We can instinctively identify with the terror felt
by parents of kids who go missing. Just imagining being in the shoes of the
parents of Tamara Brooks -- a young woman who was rescued, and is playing a
big role in today's event -- or, worse, in the shoes of Mark Lunsford,
whose precious daughter did not make it home to him -- it's enough, quite
frankly, to overwhelm me with grief.
But if, God forbid, something happened to one of my boys, the one still
with us would suffer at least as much, to have his brother ripped away, as
my wife and I would.
Without forgetting that the most important thing is to get the missing
child back, this Guide helps us remember the young child experiencing the
awful loss of a sibling. It's easy to overlook that kid. In the panic of
the moment, all eyes seem to be searching for the missing child. And they
should be-but parents and friends must also be strong enough to comfort the
frightened children who remain at home, confused, and whose fear is as
great as anyone else's.
The Guide reminds us that a sibling's sense of loss when a brother or
sister is not quickly recovered is just as great -- and that their whole
world is turned upside down.
Think of the trauma of learning, perhaps for the first time, that the
world isn't the safe place children so naturally assume it to be. Except
for being the abducted child, what is a more awful way to be introduced to
these harsh realities than to have a sibling -- a playmate, a friend, a
confidante -- suddenly taken?
How do the siblings feel about what has happened? Who is explaining the
situation to them? Who knows how to comfort such a child? How is she
supposed to react to having the media surrounding her home immediately
after a disappearance?
The Guide we are releasing today answers those questions. We know that
it will hit the mark -- because it was written by kids who have already
suffered this way. They are here with us today. I want to acknowledge their
courage -- their compassion for other kids. They know what it feels like.
They know the emotions that well up. They know what questions need to be
answered.
And they've poured these experiences out to help other children. In a
sense, they are extending a hand, so that other kids who walk that long,
hard road, will at least know that they are not alone -- that others have
felt the way they feel.
I am proud that the Department of Justice could help produce and
distribute this fine work.
But I know that everyone here agrees with me that there's no better way
to care for siblings than to stop them from being separated in the first
place.
This is, in effect, the goal of Project Safe Childhood. That
initiative, marshaling the efforts of federal, State, and local law
enforcement, and working with non-profits like the National Center for
Missing and Exploited Children, aims to create a country where no child
will be victimized-and no brother will experience the agony of not knowing
where his sister is, where no sister will have to worry about who has taken
her brother.
Project Safe Childhood turned 1-year-old yesterday. And yesterday, on
that anniversary, the Department took two steps to make it a little harder
for evildoers to hurt our kids.
First, we released proposed National Guidelines for Sex Offender
Registration and Notification. Congress directed us to provide guidance
when it passed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act of 2006.
These Guidelines spell out national minimum standards. They will assist the
States, territories, Indian tribes, the District of Columbia, and the
Federal government in working together to ensure that we know where sex
offenders are located, so we can stop them from harming any more children.
Too many kids have gone missing at the hands of people who had already
offended. Too many parents and brothers and sisters could have been spared
their losses if we had kept better track of sex offenders in the first
place.
Amanda Brown, for example, was a 7-year-old Florida girl who was
abducted in 1998. The man convicted of -- and sentenced to death for -- her
kidnapping and murder was a sex offender, who had previously been convicted
of raping five girls.
Amanda's case isn't unique. We've all seen the sickening pattern -- a
previously convicted sex offender striking again -- so many times. For
Amanda, and her family, and the many others who have suffered as they have
-- we owe them at least this much: We will do all we can to make sure that
these sex offenders can't quietly take any more kids.
The proposed Guidelines are comprehensive. They describe when sex
offenders need to register, the kinds of information they must provide, and
for how long they need to update their information. Among many other
things, we will for the first time require sex offenders to register their
e-mail and Internet messaging addresses. No longer will parents be
powerless to determine if their children are being haunted online by sex
offenders. If sex offenders register, we can protect kids from them; and if
sex offenders don't register, they're guilty of a crime, for which we will
punish them. Kids will be safer.
I hope that all interested parties will carefully review these proposed
Guidelines and give us feedback.
The second thing we did yesterday was to announce that $24 million is
available to assist States, territories, the District of Columbia, tribal,
and local governments to implement the Adam Walsh Act and to comply with
the proposed Guidelines. Jurisdictions will be able to use funds to more
effectively monitor and hold accountable sex offenders. The Department is
not satisfied to simply provide guidance -- we are determined to partner
with governments across the Nation to enforce these standards. That's how,
together, we protect our children.
Today's award recipients are remarkable people who have already
demonstrated their commitment to being part of this battle. I am proud to
have you here at the Department of Justice. And I want you each to know
that I am personally grateful for your efforts, humbled by your courage,
and committed to fighting at your side.
Thank you, and God bless you, and may God especially bless the children
of the United States.

SOURCE U.S. Department of Justice