SPEAKERS       CONTENTS       INSERTS    
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65–303

2000
AIMEE'S LAW, MATTHEW'S LAW, TWO STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT CHILD PROTECTION ACT AND STOP MATERIAL UNSUITABLE FOR TEENS ACT

HEARING

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIME

OF THE
COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

ONE HUNDRED SIXTH CONGRESS


SECOND SESSION

ON
H.R. 894, H.R. 4045, H.R. 1989, H.R 4047

and H.R. 4147
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MAY 11, 2000

Serial No. 122

Printed for the use of the Committee on the Judiciary

For sale by the U.S. Government Printing Office
Superintendent of Documents, Congressional Sales Office, Washington, DC 20402

COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY
HENRY J. HYDE, Illinois, Chairman
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, Jr., Wisconsin
BILL McCOLLUM, Florida
GEORGE W. GEKAS, Pennsylvania
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
ELTON GALLEGLY, California
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
BOB GOODLATTE, Virginia
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia
WILLIAM L. JENKINS, Tennessee
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas
EDWARD A. PEASE, Indiana
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CHRIS CANNON, Utah
JAMES E. ROGAN, California
LINDSEY O. GRAHAM, South Carolina
MARY BONO, California
SPENCER BACHUS, Alabama
JOE SCARBOROUGH, Florida
DAVID VITTER, Louisiana

JOHN CONYERS, Jr., Michigan
BARNEY FRANK, Massachusetts
HOWARD L. BERMAN, California
RICK BOUCHER, Virginia
JERROLD NADLER, New York
ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
MELVIN L. WATT, North Carolina
ZOE LOFGREN, California
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas
MAXINE WATERS, California
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
WILLIAM D. DELAHUNT, Massachusetts
ROBERT WEXLER, Florida
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
TAMMY BALDWIN, Wisconsin
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York

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THOMAS E. MOONEY, SR., General Counsel-Chief of Staff
JULIAN EPSTEIN, Minority Chief Counsel and Staff Director

Subcommittee on Crime
BILL McCOLLUM, Florida, Chairman
STEVE CHABOT, Ohio
BOB BARR, Georgia
GEORGE W. GEKAS, Pennsylvania
HOWARD COBLE, North Carolina
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
CHARLES T. CANADY, Florida
ASA HUTCHINSON, Arkansas

ROBERT C. SCOTT, Virginia
MARTIN T. MEEHAN, Massachusetts
STEVEN R. ROTHMAN, New Jersey
ANTHONY D. WEINER, New York
SHEILA JACKSON LEE, Texas

GLENN R. SCHMITT, Chief Counsel
DANIEL J. BRYANT, Chief Counsel
RICK FILKINS, Counsel
CARL THORSEN, Counsel
BOBBY VASSAR, Minority Counsel

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C O N T E N T S

HEARING DATE
    May 11, 2000

TEXT OF BILL

    H.R. 894
    H.R. 4045
    H.R. 1989
    H.R. 4047
    H.R. 4147

OPENING STATEMENT

    McCollum, Hon. Bill, a Representative in Congress From the State of Florida, and chairman, Subcommittee on Crime

WITNESSES

    Cunningham, Hon. Randy ''Duke,'' a Representative in Congress From the State of California

    Goldman, Fred, Scottsdale, AZ

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    Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress From the State of Wisconsin

    Haugaard, Jeffrey, Ph.D., Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University, New York

    Klaas, Mark, Sausalito, CA

    Larue, Janet M., Esq., senior director of legal studies, Family Research Council, Washington, DC

    Lawlor, Hon. Mike, State Representative, 99th Assembly District, Connecticut

    Salmon, Hon. Matt, a Representative in Congress From the State of Arizona

    Tancredo, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress From the State of Colorado

    Willard, Gail, Brookhaven, PA

    Zimring, Franklin, professor of law, University of California, Berkeley, CA

LETTERS, STATEMENTS, ETC., SUBMITTED FOR THE HEARING
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    Cunningham, Hon. Randy ''Duke,'' a Representative in Congress From the State of California: Prepared statement

    Goldman, Fred, Scottsdale, AZ: Prepared statement

    Green, Hon. Mark, a Representative in Congress From the State of Wisconsin: Prepared statement

    Haugaard, Jeffrey, Ph.D., Human Development and Family Studies, Cornell University, New York: Prepared statement

    Klaas, Mark, Sausalito, CA: Prepared statement

    Larue, Janet M., Esq., senior director of legal studies, Family Research Council, Washington, DC: Prepared statement

    Lawlor, Hon. Mike, State Representative, 99th Assembly District, Connecticut: Prepared statement

    Salmon, Hon. Matt, a Representative in Congress From the State of Arizona: Prepared statement

    Tancredo, Hon. Tom, a Representative in Congress From the State of Colorado: Prepared statement
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    Willard, Gail, Brookhaven, PA: Prepared statement

    Zimring, Franklin, professor of law, University of California, Berkeley, CA: Prepared statement

APPENDIX
    Material submitted for the record

AIMEE'S LAW, MATTHEW'S LAW, TWO STRIKES AND YOU'RE OUT CHILD PROTECTION ACT AND STOP MATERIAL UNSUITABLE FOR TEENS ACT

THURSDAY, MAY 11, 2000

House of Representatives,
Subcommittee on Crime,
Committee on the Judiciary,
Washington, DC.

    The subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 2:05 p.m., in Room 2226, Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Bill McCollum [chairman of the subcommittee] presiding.

    Present: Representatives Bill McCollum, Robert C. Scott, Steven R. Rothman, and Sheila Jackson Lee.

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    Staff present: Glenn R. Schmitt, chief counsel; Veronica L. Eligan, staff assistant; and Bobby Vassar, minority counsel.

OPENING STATEMENT OF CHAIRMAN MCCOLLUM

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. The Subcommittee on Crime will come to order. Today the subcommittee holds a hearing on four bills. While each differs from the others, each sounds a common theme: an attempt to provide for greater protections for our most precious national asset—our children. And each has another thing in common, each was offered and adopted overwhelmingly as an amendment to H.R. 1501, The Juvenile Justice Reform Act, which passed the House last June.

    H.R. 894, Aimee's Law, was introduced by Congress and Matt Salmon.

    [The bill, H.R. 894, follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
    1ST SESSION
  H. R. 894
To encourage States to incarcerate individuals convicted of murder, rape, or child molestation.
     
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 2, 1999
Mr. SALMON (for himself, Mr. WELDON of Pennsylvania, Mr. DELAY, Mr. LARGENT, Mr. FROST, Mr. WELLER, Mr. GRAHAM, Mr. CHABOT, Mr. SMITH of Washington, Ms. PRYCE of Ohio, Mr. KASICH, Mr. CANNON, Mrs. FOWLER, Ms. DANNER, Mrs. BONO, Mr. GILMAN, Mrs. MYRICK, Mr. LOBIONDO, Mr. SCHAFFER, Mr. SCARBOROUGH, Mr. HILLEARY, Mr. ENGLISH, Mr. LAZIO, Mr. SAXTON, Mr. HORN, Mr. TRAFICANT, Mr. HAYWORTH, Mr. SMITH of New Jersey, Mr. BRADY of Texas, Mr. PITTS, Mr. BURR of North Carolina, Mrs. KELLY, Mr. KING of New York, Mr. HALL of Texas, Mr. BARTLETT of Maryland, Mr. FOLEY, Mr. MICA, Mr. GARY MILLER of California, Mr. LINDER, Mr. BARTON of Texas, Mr. CUNNINGHAM, Mr. NEY, Mr. GOODE, Mrs. CUBIN, Mr. SHADEGG, Mr. CALVERT, Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin, Mr. PACKARD, Mr. GREEN of Texas, Mr. REGULA, Mr. TIAHRT, Mr. SESSIONS, Mr. SWEENEY, Mr. RILEY, Mr. ADERHOLT, Mr. PICKERING, Mr. KNOLLENBERG, and Mr. KINGSTON) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
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A BILL
To encourage States to incarcerate individuals convicted of murder, rape, or child molestation.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ''No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists, or Child Molesters Act of 1999'' or ''Aimee's Law''.
SEC. 2. SENSE OF CONGRESS.
    It is the sense of Congress that—
    (1) any individual convicted of murder should receive the death penalty or be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole; and
    (2) any individual convicted of rape or a dangerous sexual offense involving a child under the age of 14 should be imprisoned for life without the possibility of parole.
SEC. 3. REIMBURSEMENT TO STATES AND VICTIMS FOR CRIMES COMMITTED BY CERTAIN RELEASED FELONS.
    (a) PENALTY.—
    (1) IN GENERAL.—In a case in which a State convicts a person of murder, rape, or a dangerous sexual offense, who has a prior conviction for one of these offenses in another State, the Attorney General shall administer the transfer of the following amounts from Federal law enforcement assistance funds that have been allocated to but not distributed to the State that convicted such person of the first offense:
    (A) Up to $100,000 shall be transferred to each victim (or if the victim is deceased, the victim's estate) of the subsequent offense.
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    (B) The cost of incarceration, prosecution, and apprehension of such person shall be transferred to the State that convicted of a subsequent offense. Half of the amounts transferred shall be paid to the State entity designated to administer crime victim assistance, and half shall be deposited in a State account that collects Federal law enforcement funds.
    (2) MULTIPLE STATES.—In a case in which a State convicts a person of murder, rape, or a dangerous sexual offense, who has a prior conviction for one of these offenses in more than one State, the Attorney General shall administer the transfer of the following amounts from Federal law enforcement assistance funds allocated to but not distributed to each State that convicted of a prior offense:
    (A) Up to $100,000 shall be apportioned equally among the States that convicted of prior offenses and transferred to each victim (or if the victim is deceased, the victim's estate) of the subsequent offense.
    (B) The cost of incarceration, prosecution, and apprehension of such person shall be apportioned equally among the States that convicted of prior offenses and transferred to the State that convicted of a subsequent offense. Half of the amounts transferred shall be paid to the State entity designated to administer crime victim assistance, and half shall be deposited in a State account that collects Federal law enforcement funds.
    (b) STATE APPLICATIONS.—To receive funds under this section, the chief executive of a State shall submit an application to the Attorney General in such form and containing such information as the Attorney General may reasonably require, including a certification that the State has convicted a person of murder, rape, or a dangerous sexual offense, who has a prior conviction for one of these offenses in another State.
    (c) SOURCE OF FUNDS.—Any amount transferred as a result of subsection (a) shall be derived by reducing funds from Federal law enforcement assistance programs received by the State that convicted of the first offense prior to distribution of funds to the State. The Attorney General, in consultation with the chief executive of the State that convicted of the first offense, shall develop a payment schedule.
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    (d) CONSTRUCTION.—This section shall not be construed to diminish or modify any court ordered restitution.
SEC. 4. COLLECTION OF RECIDIVISM DATA.
     (a) IN GENERAL.—The Attorney General shall seek to obtain information for each calendar year, starting with calendar year 1999, about—
    (1) the number of convictions for murder, rape, and any sex offenses in the United States where the victim has not attained the age of 14 years and the offender has attained the age of 18 years; and
    (2) the number of such convictions that are second or subsequent convictions of the defendant for a crime described in paragraph (1).
    (b) REPORT.—The Attorney General shall report to Congress in each calendar year, starting with calendar year 2000, the information obtained under subsection (a), broken down by State. Such report shall also include the percentage of cases in each State in which a person convicted of a crime described in subsection (a)(1) was previously convicted of another such crime in another State.

SEC. 5. DEFINITIONS.
    For purposes of this Act—
    (1) MURDER.—The term ''murder'' means the unlawful killing of a human being with malice aforethought, and includes murder—
    (A) perpetrated by poison, lying in wait, or any other kind of willful, deliberate, malicious, and premeditated killing;
    (B) committed in the perpetration of, or attempt to perpetrate, any arson, escape, murder, kidnapping, treason, espionage, sabotage, aggravated sexual abuse or sexual abuse, burglary, or robbery; or
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    (C) perpetrated from a premeditated design unlawfully and maliciously to effect the death of any individual other than the individual who is killed.
    (2) RAPE.—The term ''rape'' includes the carnal knowledge of an individual forcibly and against the will of such individual.
    (3) DANGEROUS SEXUAL OFFENSE.—The term ''dangerous sexual offense'' means sexual abuse or sexually explicit conduct committed by an individual who is over the age of 18 against a child under the age of 14.
    (4) SEXUAL ABUSE.—The term ''sexual abuse'' includes the employment, use, persuasion, inducement, enticement, or coercion of a child under the age of 14 to engage in, or assist another person to engage in, sexually explicit conduct or the rape, molestation, prostitution, or other form of sexual exploitation of children, or incest with children.
    (5) SEXUALLY EXPLICIT CONDUCT.—The term ''sexually explicit conduct'' means actual or simulated—
    (A) sexual intercourse, including sexual contact in the manner of genital-genital, oral-genital, anal-genital, or oral-anal contact, whether between persons of the same or of opposite sex;
    (B) bestiality;
    (C) masturbation;
    (D) lascivious exhibition of the genitals or pubic area of a person or animal; or
    (E) sadistic or masochistic abuse.
    (6) SEXUAL CONTACT.—The term ''sexual contact'' means the intentional touching, either directly or through clothing, of the genitalia, anus, or groin, breast, inner thigh, or buttocks of any person with an intent to abuse, humiliate, harass, degrade, or arouse or gratify sexual desire of any person.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It is similar to a bill he introduced during the 105th Congress, H.R. 4258 on which the Subcommittee on Crime held a hearing on September 17, 1998. A provision similar to H.R. 894 was adopted as an amendment to H.R. 1501 by a roll call vote of 412–15. The bill will provide that whenever someone convicted of murder, rape, or dangerous sexual offense is released from prison in one State and commits another of those offenses in a different State, the State from which the offender was released will lose a portion of the Federal law enforcement assistance funds, to which it otherwise would be entitled, which will be given to the State in which the second offense was committed.

    The amount to be transferred is the cost of incarceration, prosecution, and apprehension by the second State. As introduced, the bill would also award up to $100,000 to the victim or the family of persons injured by offenders who commit these crimes. These funds would also be paid by the State or States in which the offender previously committed one of the offenses that trigger the statute.

    H.R. 4045, Matthew's Law, was introduced by Congressman Duke Cunningham.

    [The bill, H.R. 4045, follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
    2D SESSION
  H. R. 4045
To amend the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to provide enhanced penalties for crimes of violence against children under age 13.
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IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 21, 2000
Mr. CUNNINGHAM (for himself, Mr. HAYES, Mr. PACKARD, and Mr. BILBRAY) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
     
A BILL
To amend the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 to provide enhanced penalties for crimes of violence against children under age 13.
    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as ''Matthew's Law''.
SEC. 2. ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR CRIMES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN UNDER AGE 13.
    (a) IN GENERAL.—Title XVII of the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 is amended by adding at the end the following:
''Subtitle C—Enhanced Penalties for Crimes of Violence Against Children Under Age 13
''SEC. 170301. ENHANCED PENALTIES FOR CRIMES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST CHILDREN UNDER AGE 13.
    ''(a) IN GENERAL.—The United States Sentencing Commission shall amend the Federal sentencing guidelines to provide a sentencing enhancement of not less than 5 levels above the offense level otherwise provided for a crime of violence, if the crime of violence is against a child.
    ''(b) DEFINITIONS.—In this section—
    ''(1) the term 'crime of violence' means any crime punishable by imprisonment for a term exceeding one year that has as an element the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against the person of another; and
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    ''(2) the term 'child' means a person who has not attained 13 years of age at the time of the offense.''.
    (b) CONFORMING REPEAL.—Section 240002 of such Act (28 U.S.C. 994 note) is repealed.
    (c) CLERICAL AMENDMENT.—The table of contents of such Act is amended by striking the item relating to subtitle C of title XVII and the items relating to sections 170301 through 170303 and inserting the following:
    ''Subtitle C—Enhanced Penalties for Crimes of Violence Against Children Under Age 13
    ''Sec. 170301. Enhanced penalties for crimes of violence against children under age 13.''.
SEC. 3. FEDERAL BUREAU OF INVESTIGATION ASSISTANCE AVAILABLE TO STATE OR LOCAL LAW AUTHORITIES IN INVESTIGATING POSSIBLE HOMICIDES OF CHILDREN UNDER THE AGE OF 13.
    To the maximum extent practicable, the Federal Bureau of Investigation may provide to State and local law enforcement authorities such assistance as such authorities may require in investigating the death of an individual who has not attained 13 years of age under circumstances indicating that the death may have been a homicide.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It is similar to a provision adopted as an amendment to H.R. 1501 by a recorded vote of 401–27. H.R. 4045 would direct the sentencing commission to amend the Federal sentencing guidelines to increase the penalty range for every Federal crime by five sentencing levels if the crime involves violence to a person under 13 years of age. The bill also authorizes the FBI to assist State and local authorities in any case involving a homicide of a person under the age of 13.

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    H.R. 4047, the Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act, was introduced by Congressman Mark Green.

    [The bill, H.R 1989, follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
    1ST SESSION
  H. R. 1989
To amend title 18 of the United States Code to provide life imprisonment for repeat offenders who commit sex offenses against children.
     
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MAY 27, 1999
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. GARY MILLER of California, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. SHOWS, Mr. FOLEY, Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi, Mr. ENGLISH, and Mr. NEY) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
     
A BILL
To amend title 18 of the United States Code to provide life imprisonment for repeat offenders who commit sex offenses against children.
    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ''Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act of 1999.''
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SEC. 2. MANDATORY LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR REPEAT SEX OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN.
    Section 3559 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
    ''(e) MANDATORY LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR REPEATED SEX OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN.—
    ''(1) IN GENERAL.—A person who is convicted of a Federal sex offense in which a minor is the victim shall be sentenced to life imprisonment if the person has a prior sex conviction in which a minor was the victim, unless the sentence of death is imposed.
    ''(2) DEFINITIONS.—For the purposes of this subsection—
    ''(A) the term 'Federal sex offense' means an offense under section 2241 (relating to aggravated sexual abuse), 2242 (relating to sexual abuse), 2243 (relating to sexual abuse of a minor or ward), 2244 (relating to abusive sexual contact), 2245 (relating to sexual abuse resulting in death), 2251 (relating to sexual exploitation of children), 2251A (relating to selling or buying of children), 2252 (relating to sexually exploitative material), 2252A (relating to child pornographic material), 2422 (relating to coercion and enticement), or 2423 (relating to transportation of minors);
    ''(B) the term 'prior sex conviction' means a conviction for which the sentence was imposed before the conduct occurred forming the basis for the subsequent Federal sex offense, and which was for either—
    ''(i) a Federal sex offense; or
    ''(ii) an offense under State law consisting of conduct that would have been a Federal sex offense if, to the extent or in the manner specified in the applicable provision of title 18—
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    ''(I) the offense involved interstate or foreign commerce, or the use of the mails; or
    ''(II) the conduct occurred in any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in a Federal prison, on any land or building owned by, leased to, or otherwise used by or under the control of the Government of the United States, or in the Indian country as defined in section 1151;
    ''(C) the term 'minor' means any person under the age of 18 years; and
    ''(D) the term 'State' means a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, and any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States.''.
SEC. 3. TITLE 18 CONFORMING AND TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS.
    (a) SECTION 2247.—Section 2247 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting '', unless section 3559(e) applies'' before the final period.
    (b) SECTION 2251.—The first sentence of section 2251(d) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking the first occurrence of '', but if'' and all that follows through ''nor more than life''.
    (c) SECTION 2252.—
    (1) Section 2252(b)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking '', but if'' and all that follows through ''30 years''.
    (2) Section 2252(b)(2) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking '', but if'' and all that follows through ''10 years''.
    (d) SECTION 2252A.—
    (1) Section 2252A(b)(1) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking '', but, if'' and all that follows through ''30 years''.
    (2) Section 2252A(b)(2) of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking '', but, if'' and all that follows through ''10 years''.
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    (e) SECTION 2426.—Section 2426 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting '', unless section 3559(e) applies'' before the final period.
    (f) TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS.—Sections 2252(c)(1) and 2252A(d)(1) of title 18, United States Code, are each amended by striking ''less than three'' and inserting ''fewer than 3''.

    [The bill, H.R 4047, follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
    2D SESSION
  H. R. 4047
To amend title 18 of the United States Code to provide life imprisonment for repeat offenders who commit sex offenses against children.
     
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 21, 2000
Mr. GREEN of Wisconsin (for himself, Mr. ARMEY, Mr. GARY MILLER of California, Mr. SHIMKUS, Mr. SHOWS, Mr. FOLEY, Mr. TAYLOR of Mississippi, Mr. ENGLISH, Mr. NEY, Mr. RAHALL, and Mr. CALVERT) introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
     
A BILL
To amend title 18 of the United States Code to provide life imprisonment for repeat offenders who commit sex offenses against children.
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    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ''Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act''.
SEC. 2. MANDATORY LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR REPEAT SEX OFFENDERS AGAINST CHILDREN.
    Section 3559 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:
    ''(e) MANDATORY LIFE IMPRISONMENT FOR REPEATED SEX OFFENSES AGAINST CHILDREN.—
    ''(1) IN GENERAL.—A person who is convicted of a Federal sex offense in which a minor is the victim shall be sentenced to life imprisonment if the person has a prior sex conviction in which a minor was the victim, unless the sentence of death is imposed.
    ''(2) DEFINITIONS.—For the purposes of this subsection—
    ''(A) the term 'Federal sex offense' means an offense under section
2241 (relating to aggravated sexual abuse),
2242 (relating to sexual abuse),
2243 (relating to sexual abuse of a minor or ward),
2244 (relating to abusive sexual contact),
2245 (relating to sexual abuse resulting in death),
or
2251A (relating to selling or buying of children),
or
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an offense under section 2423 (relating to transportation of minors) involving the transportation of, or the engagement in a sexual act with, an individual who has not attained 16 years of age;
    ''(B) the term 'prior sex conviction' means a conviction for which the sentence was imposed before the conduct occurred forming the basis for the subsequent Federal sex offense, and which was for either—
    ''(i) a Federal sex offense;
or
    ''(ii) an offense under State law consisting of conduct that would have been a Federal sex offense if, to the extent or in the manner specified in the applicable provision of title 18—
    ''(I) the offense involved interstate or foreign commerce, or the use of the mails; or
    ''(II) the conduct occurred in any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States, within the special maritime and territorial jurisdiction of the United States, in a Federal prison, on any land or building owned by, leased to, or otherwise used by or under the control of the Government of the United States, or in the Indian country as defined in section 1151;
    ''(C) the term 'minor' means any person under the age of 18 years;
and
    ''(D) the term 'State' means a State of the United States, the District of Columbia, and any commonwealth, territory, or possession of the United States.''.
SEC. 3. TITLE 18 CONFORMING AND TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS.
    (a) SECTION 2247.—Section 2247 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting '', unless section 3559(e) applies'' before the final period.
    (b) SECTION 2426.—Section 2426 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by inserting '', unless section 3559(e) applies'' before the final period.
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    (c) TECHNICAL AMENDMENTS.—Sections 2252(c)(1) and 2252A(d)(1) of title 18, United States Code, are each amended by striking ''less than three'' and inserting ''fewer than 3''.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It is similar to a provision passed as an amendment to H.R. 1501 last June by a voice vote. The bill would provide for a mandatory minimum life sentence for any person convicted of a Federal sex offense if they had previously been convicted of a similar offense under either Federal or State law. The bill defines Federal sex offense to include offenses involving sexual abuse, sexual contact, and the interstate transportation of minors for sexual purposes, but only if the offense involved a crime against a person under the age of 16.

    H.R. 4147, the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act was introduced by Congressman Tom Tancredo.

    [The bill, H.R. 4147, follows:]

106TH CONGRESS
    2D SESSION
  H. R. 4147
To amend title 18, United States Code, to increase the age of persons considered to be minors for the purposes of the prohibition on transporting obscene materials to minors.
     
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
MARCH 30, 2000
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Mr. TANCREDO introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary
     
A BILL
To amend title 18, United States Code, to increase the age of persons considered to be minors for the purposes of the prohibition on transporting obscene materials to minors.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.
    This Act may be cited as the ''Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act''.
SEC. 2. AGE INCREASE.
    Section 1470 of title 18, United States Code, is amended by striking ''16'' each place it appears and inserting ''18''.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It is similar to a provision offered by Congressman Charles Canady which passed as an amendment to H.R. 1501 by a voice vote. Under current law, it is a crime to knowingly transmit obscene material through the mails or otherwise in interstate commerce. Federal law also provides for higher punishment if the obscene material is transfered to a person under the age of 16. This law was enacted as a part of a bill I introduced in the 105th Congress. As I introduced the bill and as the bill passed the House, the age that triggered the higher punishment was 18. The bill was modified by the Senate, however, and the age lowered to 16. H.R. 4147 would raise the age triggering the higher punishment back to 18.

    The administration, in its written views on H.R. 1501 as passed by the House, has stated its opposition to H.R. 894, H.R. 4045, and H.R. 4047. A copy of the portion of the administration's letter that expresses its views on these bills is attached to the legal memorandum in each member's packet for their review. In addition, in a letter to Mr. Scott and me last week, the members of the United States Sentencing Commission have expressed concern over H.R. 4045, H.R. 4047, and H.R. 4147; and a copy of that letter is also attached to the memorandum. Yesterday, the administration provided the subcommittee with another view letter concerning these four bills; and a copy of that is also enclosed in each member's folder.
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    We have a large number of witnesses here today to testify. I want to welcome them all for coming. Members are scheduled to go first. Before we do that, I am going to allow Mr. Scott to make any opening remarks that he may desire.

    Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We are here today to hear testimony on four bills which, by their title, make it sound as if we are doing something to reduce or prevent crime. The No Second Chance for Murderers, Rapists, or Child Molesters Act of 1999, Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act, the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act, and Matthew's Law all sound good until you read the bills.

    There is a rule in politics when you deal with the crime from a political perspective and that is if it rhymes, it must be good criminal justice policy. And there is another admonition that a good politician never votes against a crime bill named after someone. But when you read the bill, not the title, the substance is frequently lacking.

    For example, when you read the provisions of the No Second Chances Bill, you find it has a lot more to do with bureaucratic processing and exchanging of Federal funds between the Department of Justice and the States than it does with preventing offenders from having a second chance to offend. Aside from the impracticability of implementing the provisions of the bill as the Department of Justice outlined in their letter to us, even if the bureaucratic exchanges of funds between the States did occur, the result would very much likely be a wash as to the impact of each State's ultimate funding level. And the Matthew's Law approach seems to be that whatever the sentence is today, let's increase it without giving any focus on evidence that might reflect what its effect may be on preventing or reducing crime.
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    The Sentencing Commission has gone through and assessed those sentences. Now we would be saying that whatever you did to increase sentences in a studied and reasoned manner consistent with the reason we created the Commission, now go ahead and increase them again in an indiscriminate manner just for good measure. And however the sentences are set, when you ask in the next election season whether the sentences for sex offenders against children are high enough, obviously the answer will be they are not high enough, whatever they get this year it ought to be more next year.

    I am not sure whether the Two Strikes and You're Out Bill is designed to suggest that three strikes and you are out was a failure or a success. However, I do know that there is no empirical evidence to suggest that the baseball metaphor approach does anything to prevent or reduce crime. Such approaches merely describe what you do after the crimes are committed. The Department of Justice, in their letter, and the Sentencing Commission's letter to us also point to a significant practical effect, practical difficulty in implementing such an approach because of the variations on how offenses are named and treated amongst the States in the Federal system.

    If you are to name the bill in that regard, you probably want to say no strikes and you are in which would focus on preventing crimes before they occur rather than counting up a certain number of crimes before we focus on preventing them. With the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act, while I understand the rationale for it, it has a practical situation where you would have the absurd result of creating a crime for an 18-year-old to show his 17-year-old girlfriend dirty pictures, but it would not be a crime for them to engage in sex.

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    A big problem with these bills is that they presume that Congress is in a better position to determine sentences for crimes than the institutions Congress established to do just that, the Sentencing Commission and the courts. The practical difficulties in presenting—presented in these bills reflect this problem. I also believe that rather than legislating titles which leave the public with the impression that we have done something about preventing or reducing crime, we should actually take steps that we know will actually reduce crime.

    Last spring this subcommittee held a hearing on how to reduce juvenile—how can we reduce crime among juveniles. A bipartisan-sponsored panel of 10 witnesses including judges, system administrators, researchers, and advocates of juvenile justice reform from conservatives to liberals stated what was needed to reduce crime. None of them talk about the approaches in these bills.

    Then last summer, I was part of a bipartisan group of Members from conservative to liberal in their philosophical approach to crime to take a hard look on what reduces crime amongst juveniles. We each identified witnesses we had confidence in to come in and brief us on the issue. Again they talked about none of the things that these bills suggest. Ironically, the things they talked about and recommended are in a bill which passed the subcommittee with unanimous sponsorship of all members but which is currently locked up in the stalled juvenile justice conference process.

    But what is even more ironic, rather than the bipartisanship research and expertise-based provisions in the conference report being pulled out to address crime, we are here instead to consider some of the most controversial and least effective measures because they sound like they do something about crime.
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    So, Mr. Chairman, I question the effectiveness and practicality of some of the bills before us today. We should be looking at the research and take the approach of a research-based approach to crime so that we will know that what we do and what we focus on will actually have the effect of reducing the incidence of crime in our nation.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Mr. Scott. Does any other member have an opening comment to make before we move on to the panels? If not I would like to invite Senator Rick Santorum who is here to come up and introduce a witness on the second panel since he has to go back to the other body. He was a former colleague of ours. We are very glad to have the senator from Pennsylvania who has a great interest in this legislation. We welcome you and wish you Godspeed over in the other body, but we are delighted you are back over here.

    Mr. SANTORUM. Thank you. I hope to see you over there soon.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you.

    Mr. SANTORUM. Let me say to my colleagues having been in this body and seen Senators come over and get jumped ahead of you, I know what you must be thinking right now. So I will be very brief. And you have my apologies for jumping ahead, but I do appreciate the indulgence of the Chair and your indulgence too. So thank you very much.

    I just want to first say thanks to Congressman Matt Salmon. I am going to be introducing Gail Willard. She is the mother of Aimee Willard who Aimee's Law is named after, but Matt has done an outstanding job in working with this legislation, coming up with the idea and sharing that idea with me. And I have carried the Senate bill, and Matt has done an outstanding job in carrying the legislation here in the House. This is legislation that passed overwhelmingly here in the House, and I think it was 87—81–17 in the United States Senate. So it got overwhelming support in both bodies.
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    In my mind, I think it is very clear it will reduce crime. More than 14,000 murders, rapes, and sexual assaults are committed every year by people who are let out of jail who were murderers, rapists and sexual assaulters. So if those people are not out there, those 14,000 crimes do not get committed. I think it is very directly a crime-reduction piece of legislation and one that is a long time coming. But I am not here to talk in the specifics about the legislation other than I very strongly believe that sentences to be served—the sentences are given like Arthur Bowmar's, in this case, which was a life sentence when he served only 12 years of that life sentence and goes out and commits these horrible crimes.

    States should enforce—if the judiciaries come up with the sentences, then they should simply carry out those sentences, and that is one of the things that this legislation attempts to correct or at least to provide incentives for the States to carry out what the judiciary which has been mentioned here should be the rightful arbiter. If the judiciaries at least made that decision, the sentences should simply be carried out by the States; and we want to encourage that with this piece of legislation.

    My principal reason for being here is to recognize the outstanding work of Gail Willard from my State of Pennsylvania and the Philadelphia area, Delaware County. There are several—I am sure this subcommittee has heard of several heroic people who have taken tremendous adversity in their lives and have sought to try to find some rationale while this would happen to them and try to turn what is a devastating and horrible experience into something that is positive that could have a positive impact on the community and leave some sort of positive legacy of a life that was needlessly shortened in the case of Aimee.

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    Gail has been just an incredible strong and courageous figure in moving this legislation and working here in Washington. She is not a politician. She is a nurse. She is not someone who has been involved in government. She is a mom and a great citizen of my State, and I just wanted to thank her for her terrific efforts in this legislation. Her willingness even today to come back from a trip overseas, a vacation trip overseas, to be here at this hearing just speaks volumes of her commitment to this cause and to make sure that what happened to her daughter doesn't happen again. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Senator Santorum. We look forward to hearing Gail Willard's testimony when she comes up here on the second panel. We appreciate your coming over to do that introduction.

    At this time I am going to introduce the first panel which consists of our colleagues who have introduced these bills. I might add as I do that the reason we are here again is we had all four of these attached to the juvenile crime bill; and unfortunately even though it passed the House and a version passed the Senate, we have been unable to produce that bill and there is no assurance that we will though I would love to see it happen coming out of the conference committee. We are here to redo those bills if we can, and we want to hear from the witnesses.

    The first one is Randy ''Duke'' Cunningham. Congressman Cunningham has represented California's 51st District for the last 10 years. He is the sponsor of H.R. 4045, Matthew's Law, which we will consider today. Before his election to the House, he was a highly decorated U.S. naval aviator and an instructor at the Navy Fighter Weapons School and a successful businessman. Mr. Cunningham received his bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Missouri and later went on to receive his MBA from the National University.
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    The second witness on the panel is Congressman Mark Green who represents Wisconsin's 8th District. He is the sponsor of H.R. 4047, Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act, which we are also considering today. He was first elected to Congress in 1998. He currently serves as the assistant majority whip. Prior to his election, he served in the Wisconsin State legislature from 1992 until 1998 where he chaired the assembly committee on the judiciary from 1995 to 1998. Mr. Green received his B.A. From the University of Wisconsin Eau Claire and his law degree from the University of Wisconsin Law School.

    The third panelist is Congressman Matt Salmon who represents the 1st District of Arizona, having been first elected in 1994. He is the sponsor of H.R. 894, Aimee's Law, which was the subject of Senator Santorum's comments a moment ago. Prior to his election in the House in 1994, Mr. Salmon served 4 years in the Arizona State senate. He is a graduate of Arizona State University and holds a master's of public administration from Brigham Young University.

    Our final panelist is Congressman Tom Tancredo, who was elected to represent Colorado's 6th District in 1998. He is the sponsor of H.R. 4147, the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act. Prior to his service in Congress, Mr. Tancredo was president of the Independence Institute, a conservative public policy research organization in Golden, Colorado. His first elected office was in Colorado State legislature where he later resigned to accept an appointment in the Reagan administration. He also served in the Bush administration. Mr. Tancredo holds his bachelor degree from the University of Northern Colorado.

    We want to welcome all of you here today. Congressman Cunningham, you are first on the list, and by the way before we go, your entire—each Member's entire written statement will be admitted into the record without objection, and it is so ordered. Mr. Cunningham, you may proceed with any fashion you would like.
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STATEMENT OF HON. RANDY ''DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Thank you, Chairman McCollum and ranking member Scott, members of the committee. I want to thank you for having this for the third time. It is frustrating to try and go through these bills, actually have them pass and not be tied up in other legislation that isn't featured on the floor itself. But Aimee Willard, Polly Klaas, Megan Kanka, Matthew Cecchi have got one thing in common, Mr. Chairman. They are children that were struck down by killers.

    Mr. Chairman, I believe in all my heart that every Member in this House is tired of having to name these bills after children. We must work to prevent the killing, not just to prevent it but to catch and let those perpetrators, those slime balls that do this, to catch them and let them know if they take a child's life, they are going to die or have life imprisonment.

    If they maim a child, that they are going to go through a long period, and we are going to make it just as painful as we can. I would like to submit for the record the article from the San Diego Union Tribune from the Cecchi family in which they state, we have been waiting for this and praying for this for a year. And this is a man that murdered—followed Mr. Cecchi's son into a bathroom. This was not a child that was abandoned. This is not a child that was let to roam loose. This is not a child that was even abducted. This is a child that went into a public bathroom, and a cobra followed him in and murdered him and then had the gall to say that he would have done the same thing over again if allowed. These are the type individuals that we are going after.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Your request for that to be admitted without objection is so ordered.

    [The information referred to follows:]

65303A.eps

65303B.eps

65303C.eps

65303D.eps

    Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Thank you.

    Mr. Scott said this sounded like it would stop crime; it sounds good, but it doesn't. Well, two times the same amendment has gone through the House of the floor and over 400 members refuted Mr. Scott's opinion, and I resent Mr. Scott.

    You are my friend. And you have been my friend for a long time, but I resent the implication that we are trying to bring bills that do nothing. We are tired of these children being killed, and we want to try to do everything to work with you and this committee to stop it.

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    Mrs. Lee, if you had a child that was murdered, I think you would do every single thing you could to not only prevent it but to stop it and see what we could do in the future. Matthew Cecchi was brutally murdered in Oceanside, California. He simply walked into a rest room alone, and then he was murdered. His killer has been sentenced to death. The crime shocked our community, struck fear in the hearts of our parents.

    We even tried to establish coeducational bathrooms. I myself have got two daughters and have let my daughters go into the bathroom because I am not going to go in there, but I would also like to know that they are not going to be killed. I think every parent whether you have walked in a department store, had your child in tow with you, are always concerned. Megan's law. Some of the members on this same panel said that Megan's law was worthless, that it did nothing.

    I want to tell you it has already saved lives. You talk to the chief of police in San Diego and every single one of you, look at the computers of these previously convicted sexual abusers. There are multiple members in every community and in your neighborhoods, and we have had cases where children have been abducted in San Diego and because of this computer printout, two of our children, they went right to the house and caught those people going out the door and yet this committee said, no, that it wouldn't do any good, that it was a ''sound good.'' we saved two children's lives in a small area.

    This Matthew's Law I think will do the same thing, Mr. Chairman. First of all, we want to prevent and let the knowledge that we are going to catch it and if you are going to do this, it is going to hurt you and for a long time and again if you kill a child, we are going to take your life or at least put you a life sentence. It directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission.
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    You said the Sentencing Commission gives letters. There is no organization that likes to be told what to do, including this one, including the committees that I sit on. You like to think that you have got a handle on everything, but sometime when you are sitting in a glass bubble looking out, it is better for the people, the parents, not Congressmen, that the people and the parents that have asked us to submit these laws have come forward and say do this to help our children. And that is what we are doing here, and I think it hurts so much when some Members chastise what they think our intent is in this.

    In most cases, this will result in doubling the punishment; in most violent cases, increase the chance for life in prison. For example, current law if you don't have someone that goes across a border or something, you can't bring in the FBI. What this does, it also allows the agencies to use every single resource that they have, including the FBI without something happening on Federal lands, without having to cross a boarder, to use computers if you have a child that is abducted or even if in the case the child is killed, then they can go in and use every resource to catch these rascals and do them some bodily harm as they have done to our children.

    Matthew Cecchi wasn't—he was innocent and his killer made him uninnocent. I want to tell you if you talk to the families of any of the members here that are representing these children, they are suffering today and that suffering will never go away. I propose that this committee will pass this on as it has in the past. As I said, it has passed by over 400 votes in the House. The House has spoken. They see merit in this unbeknownst to some of the members on this committee. They do want to care, and they do care about changing children's lives for the better. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Mr. Cunningham, for your testimony.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Cunningham follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. RANDY ''DUKE'' CUNNINGHAM, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA

    Chairman McCollum, Ranking Member Scott, members of the Committee, it is an honor to be here before you today. I appreciate this opportunity to discuss my ''Matthew's Law'' legislation before you today.

    Aimee Willard, Polly Klaas, Megan Kanka, and Matthew Cecchi, have one thing in common. They were children struck down by killers. Mr. Chairman, I believe that every Member in this House is tired of having to name bills after murdered children. We must work to prevent the killing, and to severely punish the taking of young lives.

    In November of 1998, 9-year-old Matthew Cecchi was brutally murdered in Oceanside, California. Matthew was not a troubled runaway. He was not a child that was allowed to wander far from his parents. He was not abducted or stolen. He simply walked into a public restroom alone. While his aunt waited outside, he was brutally murdered. His killer Brandon Wilson carefully stalked and hunted down this young and helpless child.

    This crime shocked our community and struck fear in the hearts of parents. Even today my local communities are building co-ed bathrooms for parents to use with children to ensure that this doesn't happen again. But parents shouldn't fear taking their children to the park. They shouldn't fear letting their children go to the bathroom. Our parks and public lands should be free from crime, free from fear and free from terror.
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    That is why I have introduced Matthew's Law, to ensure that those who seek to harm the helpless are met with severe punishment, and to prevent crime by increasing the certainty of justice.

    Matthew's Law will increase sentencing requirements for those individuals who commit federal violent crimes against children under 13 years of age. It directs the U.S. Sentencing Commission to increase by five levels the punishment for a crime of violence against a child. In most cases, this will result in a doubling of the punishment, and in the most violent cases increase the chance for life in prison or the death penalty.

    I believe that this additional punishment is important to deter violence against our children. Last year and four years ago, during debate on this subject there were objections from members of this committee about this legislation. I understand the motivation of those members who say that we should not dictate to the sentencing commission.

    But while I understand those concerns, I do not agree with them. Congress established the sentencing commission to make decisions. However, if Congress feels that additional measures are needed, we can and should direct the commission to take them without micromanaging the commission's work.

    My ''Matthew's Law'' bill also directs the FBI to make available, when possible, assistance if requested by local law enforcement when a child is killed. In the case of Matthew Cecchi, it wasn't until his killer made another attack that he was captured. When a killer takes one of our children, we must mobilize our resources to stop that killer before he strikes again.
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    Mr. Chairman, this legislation tells killers and violent felons that as summer approaches, when people are going on vacation, that our parks and public lands are for families and children, not for murderers.

    This legislation is about national leadership, to tell the states and local communities that the federal government will not tolerate violence against our children. And hopefully, other entities in our nation will follow our lead on this issue. This legislation is supported by the National Office of the Fraternal Order of Police, the Law Enforcement Association of America, and the family of Matthew Cecchi who never wants another family to face the tragedy they have seen.

    Mr. Chairman, this legislation or a similar version has passed received more than 400 votes twice on the House floor, once on June 16, 1999, as an amendment to juvenile justice, and once as a similar bill on May 7, 1996. This is sound legislation, which will protect our children, and this Congress should pass it right away.

    I thank you for your time and consideration of this issue.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Green, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF HON. MARK GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

    Mr. GREEN. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for holding this important hearing today. I think, needless to say, you can tell from the comments you have already heard, this hearing today represents a great new opportunity to protect our children and to protect our communities. I am here to talk about one bill in particular, H.R. 4047, Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act. It has already been referred to as controversial, but I would point out it was passed on a voice vote as an amendment to the juvenile crime bill not so very long ago.
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    What I would like to do, if I can, is to begin with a story. In January 1960 in my hometown of Green Bay, a 19-year-old man named David Spanbauer forced his way into a home, tied a 16-year-old baby-sitter to a bed, raped her at knife point—actually using the knife to tear away her clothes. When the homeowner returned, Spanbauer shot the man in the face at point-blank range. Based on multiple convictions in three counties in northeastern Wisconsin, Spanbauer was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

    Believe it or not, in May of 1972, less than 12 years later—less than 12 years later, he was freed on parole, released early. Of course it shouldn't be any surprise, in a matter of months, he raped a young hitchhiker and was sentenced to another 12 years in prison. He was again released on parole early. Just a few years later, a homeowner near Appleton caught Spanbauer trying to break into a house. He tackled him and called the police. The police checked Spanbauer's car and they found in it burglary tools and materials similar to those used in the sexual assaults of a woman and a girl in their homes in October and November of that year.

    The following week Spanbauer confessed to raping and killing a 12-year-old girl, a 10-year-old girl, as well as a 21-year-old adult. On December 8 of that year, Spanbauer pled guilty to numerous felonies.

    Now, of course, Spanbauer was and is a truly sick individual, a monster. Yet, I can't help believing that we, as elected leaders, have to bear at least a little bit of responsibility here for his continued assaults upon women and children. There is no escaping the fact that we had him behind bars and we let him loose. Even though overwhelming evidence from sources across the spectrum has told us that repeat child molesters like Spanbauer literally cannot help themselves.
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    Now, a number of States, including my own State of Wisconsin, have enacted sexual predator laws as a tool to deal with the David Spanbauer's of the world. These laws permit corrections officials to extend the periods of custody for certain offenders. The problem is getting the necessary psychiatric reports to declare someone a predator. It is often difficult.

    In any case, in so many States as they are learning the hard way, sexual predators must still be released one day. And again that is even though all of us know that these offenders are extraordinarily likely to commit their crimes again. Sexual predator laws are a great tool in many cases; but, simply put, they are not enough. The only truly effective answer comes from a very simple principle: Repeat child molesters must be locked away for life, and that is what H.R. 4047 would do for repeat molesters who commit certain Federal sex crimes against kids.

    H.R. 4047 states that if someone commits one of a modest list, a narrow list, of Federal sex crimes against a child or a comparable State crime that would have been one of these crimes had to have been committed in Federal jurisdiction and then after serving his sentence and being released, he does it yet again, that under this bill he will go to prison for the rest of his life. No more chances and, most importantly to all the members of this panel and I am sure this committee, no more victims.

    Let me be quick to add in response to what I have already heard, this legislation is not merely an effort to pile on. It is carefully tailored and narrowly focused. It does not federalize any State crimes, nor does it create any new Federal crimes. This wasn't done in an indiscriminate manner, and I would argue that Congress isn't saying here it is better suited to making sentencing decisions. It is merely that Congress is being the voice of the people. This is what people want us to do. And if we fail to enact these laws, I think the cynicism that is out there will only increase.
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    This legislation specifically covers seven of the most serious Federal sex crimes including aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a minor, sexual abuse resulting in death, and the selling and buying of children for the purposes of engaging in prostitution. This is a relatively small number of terrible sick individuals involved. But this small number causes tremendous devastation, devastation out of proportion to the numbers; and, in my view, devastation that can be measured in two ways.

    The first is the sheer number of victims. Child molesters are four times more likely than other violent criminals to recommit. A typical molester, according to a number of studies, will commit 30 to 60 offenses before they are ever arrested and, believe it or not, nearly 400 crimes during their lifetime. A study from Emory University of 453 admitted child molesters had them admitting—molesting more than 67,000 children in their lifetime, and this number is supported by the Department of Justice.

    What is America's response? According to the KlaasKids Foundation, you will hear from Marc Klaas shortly, the average child molester spends only 2 years and 9 months in prison. And the second most important way to measure the devastation caused is that damage caused to children, to families, and to communities. Every victim is an innocence stolen and in too many cases, a life destroyed.

    The State of Wisconsin already has a two-strikes law which I authored and which went into effect 2 years ago. Other States are also looking at this. Please note that this is not the first time Congress has taken up two-strikes legislation.

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    In 1996, thanks to the work of Congressman Frost, Congress passed a two-strikes law for one specific crime, aggravated sexual abuse. He was overwhelmingly supported by Members of both sides of the aisle despite, I am sure, protests from the Sentencing Commission. It was a good bill; and if I had been in Congress at the time, I would have supported it. H.R. 4047 improves and expands on the good work of Congressman Frost. It recognizes that repeat molesters are not just those who fall under the crime of aggravated sexual abuse and that we can stop them before the crimes continue, before the victims continue, and before their crimes escalate.

    Mr. Chairman, the evidence shows that repeat molester—that each repeat molester represents literally hundreds of victims. We can break the chain of violence with simple straightforward proposals like this bill. I hope you will consider moving this bill as quickly as possible and thank you so very much for holding this hearing today.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Congressman Green, for being here and presenting the bill in the first place.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Green follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MARK GREEN, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF WISCONSIN

    Chariman McCollum and Members of the Subcommittee:

    Thank you for holding this very important hearing today. Needless to say, the bills before you today represent a great new opportunity to help protect our children and our communities. I am here to talk about one bill in particular, HR 4047, the ''Two Strikes You're Out Child Protection Act.''
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    If I may, let me begin with a story. In January 1960, in Green Bay, a 19-year old man named David Spanbauer forced his way into a home and tied a 16 year-old babysitter to a bed. He raped her at knifepoint, actually using the knife to tear away her clothes. When the homeowner returned, Spanbauer shot the man in the face. Based on multiple convictions in 3 counties, Spanbauer was sentenced to 70 years in prison.

    Believe it or not, in May 1972, Spanbauer was freed on parole. In a matter of months, he raped a young hitchhiker, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.

    In 1991, Spanbauer was again released on parole. Just three years later, a homeowner near Appleton caught Spanbauer trying to break into a home, tackled him and called police. Spanbauer's car contained burglary tools and materials similar to those used in the sexual assaults of a woman and girl in their homes on Oct. 20 and Nov. 5. The following week Spanbauer confessed to raping and killing a 12 year old and a 10 year old girl (as well as a 21 year old adult). On Dec. 8th of that year Spanbauer pleaded guilty or no contest to 18 felonies in 5 counties.

    Of course, Spanbauer was and is a monster, a truly sick individually. Yet, I can't help believing we, as elected leaders must bear at least a little responsibility for his continued assaults upon women and children. We had him safely behind bars and yet we turned him loose. Overwhelming evidence shows us that repeat molesters like Spanbauer literally cannot stop themselves.

    Many states, including my own state of Wisconsin, have enacted ''Sexual predator'' laws in an effort to deal with the David Spanbauer's of the world. These laws permit correction officials to extend the period of custody for certain offenders. However, getting the necessary psychiatric reports to declare someone a ''predator'' is often difficult. And, in any case, as so many states are learning the hard way, sexual predators must still eventually be released . . . even though they will very likely reoffend. The sexual predator laws are a good tool in many cases, but they are simply inadequate.
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    The only truly effective answer comes from a simple principle: repeat child molesters must be locked away for life. My bill, H.R. 4047, the Two Strikes You're Out Child Protection Act, would accomplish that—at least for repeat molesters who commit certain federal sex crime against kids.

    H.R. 4047 states that if someone commits one of a modest list of federal sex crimes against a child (or a comparable state crime), and then, after serving out his sentence, commits yet another such crime, he'll be sent to prison for the rest of his life. No more chances, and more importantly no more victims.

    Let me be quick to add that this legislation is not just another effort to ''pile on'' in being tough on crime. It has been carefully tailored and narrowly focused. It does not federalize any state crimes, nor does it create any new federal crimes.

    This legislation specifically covers seven of the most serious federal sex crimes including aggravated sexual abuse, sexual abuse of a minor or ward, sexual abuse resulting in death, and selling or buying of children for the purpose of engaging in prostitution.

    This legislation focuses on a relatively small number of terribly sick individuals who cause tremendous devastation—devastation all out of proportion to their numbers. This devastation can be measured in two ways.

    First, in the sheer number of victims. Child molesters are four times more likely than other violent criminals to recommit their crime. A typical molester will abuse between 30 and 60 children before they are arrested—as many as 380 children during their lifetime. A study conducted by Emory University found that 453 sex offenders admitted to molesting more than 67,000 children in their lifetime—a number also supported by Department of Justice research. And America's response? According to the KlaasKids Foundation, the average convicted child molester spends only 2 years and 9 months in prison.
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    The second, and most important way to measure the devastation of these crimes is by the damage caused to children, to families, and to communities. Every victim is an innocence stolen, and in too many cases, a life destroyed.

Let me briefly read a quote from a letter I received from one of my constituents last year:

 ''As an adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse, I am keenly interested in your working toward the ''two strikes, you're out'' proposal. When I was a child in trouble, there was no one there to stand up for my rights. My abuser was allowed to harm not only me, but also several other children. He was given a gentle slap on the wrist. I have spent a majority of my life fighting the demons that infested my soul at his touch. I am a survivor.''

Or the letter of another constituent:

 ''I am a 51 year old adult survivor of childhood sexual abuse. You are absolutely right when you say that the victims of such horrific crimes are affected for life. . . . I appreciate your recognizing that the children in this country are its biggest resource . . . there should be no reason that any of our children suffer at the hands of an abuser.''

    The State of Wisconsin already has a Two-Strikes law, which I authored and which went into effect in 1998. Other states are currently considering plans for similar statutes.

    Please note this the first time Congress has considered ''two strikes'' legislation. In 1996, Congress enacted the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act, which was introduced by Congressman Frost. This bill created a ''two strikes'' law for one specific crime—aggravated sexual abuse. It was a good bill, and had I been here at that time I would have supported it.
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    I believe H.R. 4047 improves and expands on the good work of Congressman Frost. It recognizes that repeat molesters, not just those who fall under the crime of ''aggravated sexual abuse,'' must be stopped before they claim even more victims, and before their crimes can escalate.

    Mr. Chairman, the evidence shows that each repeat molester represents hundreds, literally hundreds of victims with shattered lives. We can break the chain of violence with simple, straightforward proposals like this bill. I hope you'll consider moving this bill forward as soon as possible.

    Thank you for your interest and time on this very serious and important legislation.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Congressman Matt Salmon.

STATEMENT OF HON. MATT SALMON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Mr. SALMON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Aimee's Law, also known as the No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists and Child Molesters Act, would put an end to the revolving door of justice that floods our cities and neighborhoods with convicted murderers, rapists, and child molesters. These are crimes that are so heinous that we must draw a line in the sand. We must say to criminals, if you commit one of these crimes, you are finished; you don't get a second chance.
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    I stress the narrow category of crimes we are targeting: Murder, rape, and child molestation. We are not targeting jaywalkers, shoplifters, or even drug dealers.

    We are targeting the worst of the worst. I hope that members of the Crime Subcommittee will ask any opponent of Aimee's Law should a pedophile have a second chance in your neighborhood? Or as is often the case, a third or fourth chance. How about a rapist? Should they be given another chance to violate women?

    If any bill has ever been through the legislative ringer, it is Aimee's Law. Aimee's Law, which passed last year as an amendment to the Juvenile Crime Bill with 412 votes in the House and 81 votes in the Senate should already be law. Chairman McCollum convened a hearing on the bill in 1998, and the hearing resulted in several improvements to the original bill. On the House floor Chairman McCollum referred to the bill in its current form as a ''terrific product'' and an ''extraordinary bill.''

    Another member of this panel, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee offered words of support that deserve repeating. She said, ''It is tragic that we face, on a daily basis, the attack of our children, [by] child molesters and murderers and rapists who go about our Nation and repeat their crimes.'' Congresswoman Jackson Lee is right. It is indeed tragic. You will soon hear testimony from Gail Willard, the mother of an extraordinarily talented woman named Aimee Willard for whom this bill is named.

    She will speak about the death of her daughter at the hands of a convicted killer released after spending less than 12 years in prison for his original crime. He killed somebody over a parking spot. If the man who killed her daughter was simply kept in prison after his first murder, Aimee Willard would still be alive today. Fred Goldman, will compliment Mrs. Willard's testimony with a review of the crime epidemic.
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    Politicians talk tough on crime, but here are statistics you will not hear in a campaign commercial. The average time in this country served for rape is 5 and a half years, for child molestation 4 years, and for murder 8 years. Those are statistics from the Department of Justice. As a direct result of this leniency, every year more than 14,000 rapes, murders, and sex crimes against children are committed by previously convicted and released murderers and sex offenders. That is 14,000 crimes that, by definition, are totally preventable.

    It is not as if murderers, rapists and child molesters become Boy Scouts after their release from prison. The recidivism rate for sex offenders is especially high. As the best experts who study the issue will tell you, ''once a molester, always a molester.'' The Department of Justice found in 1997, within just 3 years of release from prison, an estimated 52 percent of discharged rapists and 48 percent of other sexual offenders were rearrested for a new crime, often another sexual offense.

    Behind the statistics are grizzly threats by sex offenders eligible for release. One molester warned: ''I am doomed to eventually rape and murder my poor little victims to keep them from telling on me. I might be walking the streets of your city, your community, your neighborhoods.''

    The amended version of H.R. 894 would provide additional funding to States that convict a murderer, rapist, or child molester if that criminal had previously been convicted of one of those same crimes in a different State. The cost of prosecuting and incarcerating the criminal would be deducted from the Federal crime assistance funds intended to go to the first State and instead be given to the second State that obtained the conviction.
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    Of course, States have a right to release convicted murderers, rapists, and child molesters into cities and neighborhoods. However, the question is, who should pay when one of these violent predators commits another murder, another rape, or another sexual offense in a different State? Should Pennsylvania, which has already paid a huge human cost with the loss of Aimee Willard, have to pay for the prosecution and incarceration of her killer, Arthur Bomar? Or should Nevada, which knew Bomar was a vicious killer not a model prisoner but decided to release him anyway, pay for the ''carnage-costs'' inflicted on the State of Pennsylvania? I believe the answer is obvious.

    I also believe very, very strongly that we ought to have some government accountability. I know a lot of people in my party like to talk a lot about personal responsibility. What about government responsibility? What about government accountability? It is easy to play Russian roulette if you are playing with somebody else's head.

    A safe harbor would not require the funds transfer if the criminal served 85 percent of his original sentence and if the State was a truth-in-sentencing State with a higher than average typical sentence for that crime.

    As to the administration of Aimee's Law, if you can operate a calculator, you can administer the bill. And I understand you send in a few box tops from Cheerios, you can get one for free so it probably won't cost that much. Moreover, States that are so concerned about the implementation of this law can simply keep these dangerous murderers, rapists, and child molesters behind bars or have effective parole programs that ensure the safety of the people.

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    That is our job. The law enforcement community, they particularly understand the importance of this legislation. The Nation's largest police union, the National Fraternal Order of Police representing over 272,000 law enforcement people across the country, strongly backs this bill. Their President has said, ''the bill addresses this issue smartly without infringing on the States and without federalizing crimes.''

    Victims' rights and child advocacy groups have also endorsed the bill. Childhelp USA, KlaasKids Foundation, Kids Safe, Mothers Outraged at Molesters, and the list goes on and on. Of course, no bill satisfies everyone. Some, such as Connecticut State Representative Mike Lawlor, argue that Aimee's Law responds to a problem that does not exist and infringes on States' rights.

    Does it exist? Once again, let's go back to the statistics. Eight years for murder, four for child molestation, five and a half for rape. Thirteen percent of the men convicted of rape serve absolutely no prison time at all. They get a slap on the wrist. If that is not a problem, I don't know what is. Mr. Lawlor needs to look no further than a recent case in his own State of Connecticut to get a taste of the problem.

    Convicted of raping and sexually assaulting three girls in Massachusetts, John Urban was released after serving 10 years in prison when he convinced a judge he was cured. He wasn't. This ticking time bomb moved to Connecticut where he admitted to stalking 100 women at the University of Connecticut. He told police he had hoped to sexually assault these college women at vacant homes he selected near the campus. When apprehended by police, he had in his possession a rock-filled sock, rope, hand cuffs, and condoms to evade detection through the DNA database in Massachusetts. Under current law, the people of Connecticut would have to pay for all the costs, both human and financial, for Massachusett's dangerous error.
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    I also might say if he thinks there is no problem, this is just a partial listing that we pulled off a Web site today from the Connecticut Department of Public Safety. These are the people who are convicted sex offenders who are out of compliance with the law. Law enforcement people don't even know where they are. This thick stack right here.

    The federalism concerns raised by Mr. Lawlor don't survive serious scrutiny. Aimee's Law simply adds an additional factor, one centered on fairness and accountability, to the existing formula for distributing Federal crime funds to the States. That is why some of the States' strongest States' rights advocates in Congress voted for this legislation. Rather than testify in opposition to the bill supported by the entire Connecticut delegation, I wish Mr. Lawlor were here to wish us well and announce he was returning to Connecticut to ratchet up sentences for the murderers, rapists and child molesters who are routinely released with a slap on the wrist only to terrorize the innocent yet again.

    Another witness will testify that the bill provides perverse incentives, mainly that States will plead down charges to avoid the scope of the bill. Hardly. Prosecutors will always have discretion, but even the most cynical prosecutor who does not care about protecting women and children from violence still worries about his or her political future. Plea bargaining violent crimes down to misdemeanors is a sure way to end one's career.

    Let's eliminate the threat posed by murderers, rapists and child molesters and send Aimee's Law to the President immediately. Mr. Chairman, I have a letter from Mary Vincent, Marc Klaas and Fred Goldman that I would like to submit for the record.

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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Without objection, it is so entered in the record.

    [The information referred to follows:]

65303z.eps

65303y.eps

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much Mr. Salmon for your testimony and it's a bill obviously I support and I certainly appreciate your comments.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Salmon follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MATT SALMON, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF ARIZONA

    Aimee's Law, also known as the ''No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists, or Child Molesters Act'' would put an end to the revolving door of justice that floods our cities and neighborhoods with convicted murderers, rapists and child molesters. These are crimes so heinous that we must draw a line in the sand. We must say to criminals, if you commit one of these three crimes you're finished, you don't get a second chance.

    I stress the narrow category of crimes we are targeting: murder, rape, and child molestation. We're not targeting jaywalkers, shoplifters, or even drug dealers. We're targeting the worst of the worst.
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    I hope that Members of the Crime Subcommittee will ask any opponent of Aimee's Law: ''Should a pedophile have a second chance to live in your neighborhood?'' Or, as so often is the case, a third or fourth chance? How about a rapist? Should they be given another chance to violate women?

    If any bill has ever been through the legislative wringer it's Aimee's Law. Aimee's Law, which passed last year as an amendment to the Juvenile Crime Bill with 412 votes in the House and 81 votes in the Senate, should already be law. Chairman McCollum convened a hearing on the bill in 1998. The hearing resulted in several improvements to the original bill. On the House Floor, Chairman McCollum referred to the bill in its current form as a ''terrific product'' and an ''extraordinary bill.'' Another Member of this panel, Ms. Sheila Jackson Lee, offered words of support that deserve repeating. She said: ''It is tragic that we face, on a daily basis, the attack of our children, [by] child molesters and murderers and rapists who go about our Nation and repeat their crimes.''

    Congresswoman Jackson Lee is right. It is indeed tragic. You will soon hear testimony from Gail Willard, the mother of an extraordinarily talented young woman named Aimee Willard, for whom the bill is named. She will speak about the death of her daughter at the hands of a convicted killer released after spending less than 12 years in prison for his original crime. If the man who killed her daughter was simply kept in prison after his first murder, Aimee would be alive today. Fred Goldman will compliment Mrs. Willard's testimony with a review of the crime epidemic.

    Politicians talk tough on crime, but here are statistics you will not see in a campaign commercial: The average time served for rape is 5 years; for child molestation it is 4 years; and for murder it is 8 years. As a direct result of this leniency, every year more than 14,000 murders, rapes and sex crimes against children are committed by previously convicted and released murderers and sex offenders—14,000 crimes that, by definition, are totally preventable.
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    It's not as if murderers, rapists and child molesters become Boy Scouts after their release from prison. The recidivism rates for sex offenders are especially high. As the best experts who have studied this issue will tell you, ''Once a molester, always a molester.'' The Department of Justice found in 1997 that, within just three years of release from prison, an estimated 52 percent of discharged rapists and 48 percent of other sexual offenders were rearrested for a new crime, often another sex offense.

    Behind the statistics are grisly threats by sex offenders eligible for release.

    One molester warned: ''I am doomed to eventually rape, then murder my poor little victims to keep them from telling on me. I might be walking the streets of your city, your community, your neighborhoods.''

    The amended version of H.R. 894 would provide additional funding to states that convict a murderer, rapist, or child molester, if that criminal had previously been convicted of one of those same crimes in a different state. The cost of prosecuting and incarcerating the criminal would be deducted from the Federal crime assistance funds intended to go to the first state, and instead be given to the second state that obtained the conviction.

    Of course, states have the right to release convicted murderers, rapists and child molesters into their cities and neighborhoods. However, the question is, who should pay when one of these violent predators commits another murder, rape or sex offense in a different state? Should Pennsylvania, which has already paid a huge human cost with the loss of Aimee Willard, have to pay for the prosecution and incarceration of her killer, Arthur Bomar? Or should Nevada, which knew Bomar was a vicious killer but decided to release him anyway, pay for the ''carnage costs'' inflicted on the state of Pennsylvania? I believe the answer is obvious.
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    A safe harbor would not require the funds transfer if the criminal has served 85 percent of his original sentence and if the first state was a truth-in-sentencing state with a higher than average typical sentence for the crime.

    As to the administration of Aimee's Law, if you can operate a calculator, you can administer the bill. Moreover, states that are so concerned about the implementation of this law can simply keep dangerous rapists, murderers and child molesters behind bars until they are no longer a threat to society.

    The law enforcement community in particular understands the importance of this legislation. The Nation's largest police union, the National Fraternal Order of Police has strongly backed the bill. Their President has said, ''The bill addresses this issue smartly, without infringing on the states and without federalizing crimes.''

    Victims' rights and child advocacy groups have also endorsed the bill: Child Help USA, Klaas Kids Foundation, Kids Safe, Mothers Outraged at Molesters, and the list goes on and on and on.

    Of course, no bill satisfies everyone. Some, such as Connecticut State Representative Mike Lawlor, argue that Aimee's Law responds to a problem that does not exist and infringes on states' rights.

    Doesn't exist? Once again, I refer to the Justice Department's own statistics—8 years for murder, 5 1/2 for rape and 4 for child molestation. Thirteen percent of men convicted of rape serve absolutely no prison time at all. If that's not a problem than I don't know what is.
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    Mr. Lawlor needs to look no further than a recent case involving his own state of Connecticut to get a taste of the problem.

    Convicted of raping and sexually assaulting three girls in Massachusetts, John Urban was released after serving 10 years in prison when he convinced a judge he was cured. He wasn't. This ticking time bomb moved to Connecticut, where he admitted to stalking 100 women at the University of Connecticut. He told police that he had hoped to sexually assault these college women at vacant homes he selected close to campus. When apprehended by police, he had in his possession a rock-filled sock, rope, handcuffs, and condoms to evade detection through the DNA database in Massachusetts. Under current law, the people of Connecticut would pay all of the costs—both human and financial—for Massachusetts' dangerous error.

    The federalism concerns raised by Lawlor also don't survive serious scrutiny. Aimee's Law simply adds an additional factor—one centered on fairness and accountability—to the existing formula for distributing federal crime funds to the states. That's why some of the strongest states' rights advocates in Congress voted for this legislation.

    Rather than testify in opposition to a bill supported by the entire Connecticut delegation, I wish Mr. Lawlor were here to wish us well and announce he was returning to Connecticut to rachet up sentences for the murderers, rapists and child molesters who are routinely released with a slap on the wrist only to terrorize the innocent yet again.

    Another witness will testify that the bill provides perverse incentives, mainly that states will plead down charges to avoid the scope of the bill. Hardly. Prosecutors will always have discretion, but even the most cynical prosecutor who does not care about protecting women and children from violence still worries about his or her political future. Plea bargaining violent crimes down to misdemeanors is a sure way to end one's career.
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    Let's eliminate the threat posed by murderers, rapists and child molesters, and send Aimee's Law to the President immediately.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Congressman Tancredo, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF HON. TOM TANCREDO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

    Mr. TANCREDO. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Chairman, distinguished members of the subcommittee, I would like to thank the Subcommittee on Crime for convening this hearing today to address and review these four important pieces of legislation.

    All the measures being offered today have already seen action by the full House as amendments to the juvenile justice bill. I am pleased that the subcommittee has seen fit to allow their consideration as stand-alone bills. I also recognize a great deal of the testimony that has already been presented on these different pieces of legislation is pertinent and relevant to H.R. 4147; and therefore, I will condense my testimony here today because some of the information has already been presented.

    The bill I have introduced, H.R. 4147, the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act, actually passed the House by a voice vote as part of H.R. 1501 on June 16, 1999. I am proud to be taking up this measure, which was originally championed by the gentleman from Florida Mr. Canady.

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    In 1998, Congress passed and the President signed into law the Protection of Children From Sexual Predators Act. This legislation sought to address many problems that this body perceived being carried out to the detriment of the youth of our Nation and those who seek to abuse and target them unjustly, from halting child pornography on-line to cracking down on violent offenders.

    The bill also contained new language incorporated into title 18 United States Code section 1470, which provided for enhanced penalties for individuals who knowingly transfer obscene materials to juveniles under 16 years of age, whether through the mail- or interstate commerce. These enhanced penalties carry a penalty of up to 10 years incarceration and/or applicable fines, compared with previous Federal statutes under title 18 of the United States Code that only carried penalties of 5 years for using mail or interstate commerce to transfer obscene material and did nothing to address the issue of disseminating such materials to juveniles.

    This measure was important, for it built upon the efforts of this body to regulate and stem the transfer and sale of obscene materials across the country, and took on the view that those who pushed such obscene materials on our children will feel the condemnation of this body and the outrage of parents throughout America.

    The fact is that it has become fashionable, I know, now in some quarters to attack the whole concept of enhanced penalties for various crimes and to refer to those kinds of activities and efforts on the part of legislative bodies as mere polemics, but, you know, there is an interesting phenomenon. Every single month it seems like we observe the statistics that have been reported by the Department of Justice and by this administration, proudly presented by the administration, talking about the reduction in violent crime. It goes down every single month. That is great. It has been going down for a long time. I am very happy. It happens to also correspond with something else happening in this country, and that is enhanced penalties for crime.
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    So I think there is some connection there, and although, as I say, it is now fashionable to talk about it as being just activity of politicians trying to gain votes, the reality is it has true public policy purpose, and it happens to work.

    We all know that a relatively small number of the population commit a huge percentage of the crime. We know that is true. If you find these people, if you put them away, and if you put them away for a long time, crime goes down.

    Now, there are undoubtedly other issues that impact upon it, but I think that it is significant, and I think the empirical evidence today proves to us that this is—although it is logical and something like that is hardly ever accepted in maybe this body or any other legislative body as being proof of its value, the fact is that enhanced sentencing connected to heinous crime will hopefully prevent those crimes from happening. At least it will reduce the number of times that they do happen. I believe we know that to be true.

    So with that, I would just ask that we—by the way, the Department of Justice does, in fact, support this piece of legislation, as do a wide range of family organizations and organizations designed to protect the interests of children.

    Simply, as I say, it raises the penalty for the transfer of this kind of material, and which everyone on this committee has certainly already made up their mind how they feel about the material itself and whether or not it should be transferred to children, all we are talking about here is making a determination of what, in fact, is a juvenile, and I think that we should use the more commonly used definition, that is 18 years old, rather than 16 years old, to determine that as to the kind of penalties that apply. So we would increase the penalty to 10 years for anyone doing this to anybody under the age of 18 years old.
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    I have no further comments, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Congressman Tancredo.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Tancredo follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. TOM TANCREDO, A REPRESENTATIVE IN CONGRESS FROM THE STATE OF COLORADO

    Mr. Chairman and Distinguished Members of the Subcommittee, I would like to thank the Subcommittee on Crime for convening this hearing today to address and review these four important pieces of legislation. All the measures being offered today have already seen action by the full House as amendments to the Juvenile Justice bill, and I am pleased that the Subcommittee has seen fit to allow their consideration as stand alone bills.

    The bill which I have introduced, H.R. 4147, the Stop Material Unsuitable for Teens Act, actually passed the House by voice vote as part of H.R. 1501 on June 16, 1999. And I am proud to be taking up this measure which was originally championed by the gentleman from Florida, Mr. Canady.

    In 1998, Congress passed, and the President signed into law, the Protection of Children from Sexual Predators Act. This legislation sought to address many problems this body perceived being carried out to the detriment of the youth of our nation by those who would seek to abuse and target them unjustly, from halting child pornography online to cracking down on violent offenders. This bill also contained new language, incorporated into Title 18 United States Code as Section 1470, which provided for enhanced penalties for individuals who knowingly transfer obscene material to juveniles under 16 years of age, whether through the mail or interstate commerce. These enhanced penalties carried the weight of up to 10 years incarceration, and/or applicable fines, compared with previous federal statutes under Title 18 of the United States Code that only carried a penalty of 5 years for using the mail or interstate commerce to transfer obscene material, yet did nothing to address the issue of disseminating such matter to juveniles. This measure was important for it built upon the efforts of this body to regulate and stem the transfer and sale of obscene material across this country, and took on the view that those who push such obscene matter on our children will feel the condemnation of this body and of outraged parents throughout America.
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    The legislation I come before the Subcommittee today to support would build upon the efforts taken in creating Section 1470 to increase penalties against transferring obscene material to juveniles under 16 years of age. H.R. 4147 would raise the age limit for enhanced penalties for transfer to juveniles to 18 years of age, and close the loophole left in the law by not protecting youth between the ages of 16 and 18. If this body is going to act on behalf of our children and concerned parents in limiting exposure to obscene material, then we should act accordingly and across the board for all juveniles.

    When one looks to the issue of obscene material, it is important that we pay reference to what the United States Supreme Court has said on the subject, especially in Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973). The Court has unequivocally gone on record in several opinions in which it supported the view that obscene material is not protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution. Chief Justice Burger, delivering the opinion of the Court, stated, ''to equate the free and robust exchange of ideas and political debate with commercial exploitation of obscene material demeans the grand conception of the First Amendment and its high purposes in the historic struggle for freedom. It is a 'misuse of the great guarantees of free speech and free press. . .' Breard v. Alexandria, 341 U.S. 622 (1951),'' Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).

    This latest opinion has set the modern definition for obscene material and is the gage upon which prosecutions, although there have unfortunately been few, are based upon. The Court went on record setting out a three pronged criteria by which to measure obscene material. The guidelines are as follows: 1) whether the average person, applying contemporary community standards would find the work, taken as a whole, appeals to the prurient interest; 2) whether the work depicts or describes, in a patently offensive way, sexual conduct; and 3) whether the work, taken as a whole, lacks serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. Examples that the Court gave in the opinion include, ''(a) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of ultimate sexual acts, normal or perverted, actual or stimulated; (b) Patently offensive representation or descriptions of masturbation, excretory functions, and lewd exhibition of the genitals'' Miller v. California, 413 U.S. 15 (1973).
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    Now I ask you, not only as Members of this esteemed body, but as mothers and fathers, grandparents and God-parents, is this material we want provided to our children. The answer of course is a resounding NO. Likewise, we should make sure that those who would seek to spread this filth knowingly to our children be ready to pay the price of up to 10 years behind bars. I believe strongly that it is the role of this body to protect the children across this nation, from both direct, violent harm, and also from the type of harm that comes from being confronted with obscene material at such a young age. We do need to have increased penalties for providing obscenity to juveniles, and not just those under 16 years of age, but for all juveniles.

    I thank the Subcommittee for calling this Hearing today and allowing me to express my opinion on this important issue and the legislation which I have introduced in the form of H.R. 4147. I would be pleased to answer any questions the Subcommittee might have on this matter.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I thank all of you as a panel.

    I am going to recognize myself for 5 minutes for questions, and then we will go on to Mr. Scott and so forth. It looks like we have a vote, but it will be a while before we have to leave, so I will be brief and hopefully get to the point.

    With regard to the question of truth in sentencing, as you gentlemen all know, we passed a law some time ago in Congress that provided incentive grants to States to adopt laws that required that those who commit violent crimes, such as those addressed by your respective bills, would serve at least 85 percent of their sentences.
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    I think when we started out, there were a half a dozen States maybe that qualified for those grants. Now I think the number is up to 27. Congressman Salmon, you commented on that. Am I correct that the State of Nevada still does not have a truth in sentencing law that requires 85 percent of their sentence to be served?

    Mr. SALMON. Yes, that is my understanding. And serving in the State legislature, when we passed our truth in sentencing act with a Governor who is very, very proactive on the truth in sentencing issue, we have seen some of the major crime statistics go down, and it is pretty simple logic. If they are not out on the street recommitting these crimes, they are not—the crime rate will go down, and I congratulate you.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Congressman Green, does Wisconsin have a truth in sentencing 85 percent law?

    Mr. GREEN. We are 100 percent truth in sentencing, and we have discovered that simplicity in our sentencing structure is of great value. Making it real clear that if you were sentenced to 10 years, you will serve each and every day of 10 years does have a deterrent effect. One of the beauties of two strikes and you are out is it is very simple. It says that after you are released, you do it yet again, that is it. It is not 85 percent of a sentence. You are gone. It is it, no more chances, no more victims.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Congressman Tancredo, the Sentencing Commission has expressed a concern that the bill you have introduced here that we are considering would create an inconsistency. You sort of addressed it, but I want to get a direct response. They say that under the bill if a 20-year-old gave obscenity to a 17-year-old girl, it would now under your bill be a Federal crime, but if a 20-year-old were to actually have consensual sex with a 17-year-old, it would not be a crime at all under Federal law.
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    Doesn't this suggest they would go on to say that 16 is the correct age for the increased punishment rather than 17?

    Mr. TANCREDO. Well, I just think, frankly, Mr. Chairman, any argument about comparing penalties for various crimes and suggesting that one is—should be enhanced because it appears as though it is more serious than another, that is our job. I think we have a responsibility. We set—we determine public policy, and if we believe that it should be increased I think that is our responsibility.

    Also, I think, frankly, that it begs the question about whether or not other penalties should be enhanced, but that is an argument for a different day.

    What I am concerned about, and what this bill addresses, is this very specific issue, and I think it is not—it is not a very compelling argument to just suggest, well, but look, other things don't work like that or, you know, aren't that bad.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I just wanted you to put that on the record. Thank you.

    Congressman Cunningham, there is a similar criticism the Sentencing Commission has about Matthew's Law. They question why the age for an increased punishment is set at 13. They have taken the position that the bill would create dramatic cliffs, they call it, in sentencing guidelines that Congress designed to avoid these. For example, the Sentencing Commission says if the bill were passed in its present form, an offender who committed a crime against a 13-year-old would be punished much less severely than one who committed the exact same offense against a 12-year-old.
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    Do you have a comment on that?

    Mr. CUNNINGHAM. Well, the police organizations, the children's rights groups, everyone that I have talked to disagree with that potential analysis, and the people on the House floor who voted with that.

    What these folks go after usually are children, are women, and are seniors. It is like wolves to sheep, and they are going to go after our most vulnerable, in this case Matthew Cecchi and Polly Klaas and the rest of them. We just want to make sure that those 450 folks that committed those 67,000 sexual crimes against children don't get out, and that is what this does.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Well, I don't want to take more time, but I would say this, particularly to Congressman Salmon, the Justice Department is concerned that the bill that you have under Aimee's Law doesn't define which Federal law enforcement funds are impacted by it, and that the definition of the offense to which the bill applies, the definitions do not conform to the standard terms, and therefore it will be difficult to operate across State lines. I don't know that you have to respond to that before me today, but it would be good before we go through the markup if you would address that, because that is technical, and if it is a problem, we need to address it.

    Mr. Scott.

    Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. You have pointed out some of the technical interpretations that the Department of Justice pointed out, and what constitutes a prior offense in some of these and how the definitions are to be worked out.
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    Without going into that, let me just say to my friend from California Mr. Cunningham that I didn't question your sincerity on the bills. I am speaking just about the bills and the reading of the bills.

    We have options of what we can do to try to reduce crime, and the question is, which of these—which of these options we take—which of these options we pursue. Some have been studied and shown to be cost-effective ways of reducing crime, and others there is no evidence.

    We have seen study after study about what we can do. We have had hearings, and we know the ways to reduce crime. They are cost-effective, and you study it and study it. We know how to reduce crime.

    We have had the bipartisan task force, where we spend week after week after week. We had a chorus of witnesses invited by the Democrats and by the Republicans and all said the same thing, that prevention and early intervention was a strategy that we ought to pursue. So I am not questioning anybody's sincerity. I am just saying that of the choices we have, whether we ought to take the cost-effective——

    Mr. CUNNINGHAM. May I comment on that, Mr. Scott?

    Mr. SCOTT. Yes.

    Mr. CUNNINGHAM. I support most of the things that you are saying, even curfews, where they found out that a child commits that first little crime, and it usually escalates. If we can stop it, the boot camps, the intervention, to give the prison systems tools to help the first-time offenders, all of those things that help stop crime, the prevention and aftercare as well; we need more people to go and look at these folks.
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    In the case that I am talking about, we are usually not talking about juvenile offenders. We are talking about older, deviated men that prey on children, women and the most vulnerable of our society. These folks are beyond help, and I just want to make sure instead of will, there will be a shall; that they know that they are going to pay the price.

    Mr. SCOTT. Well, you know, it is not a question of whether they pay the price. You have heard questions on truth in sentencing as to whether or not they will serve their full sentence.

    This is really—you know, when you talk about a parole system where you let people out early, and you talk about truth in sentencing where you can't let them out early, it is really a half truth in sentencing because a whole truth in sentencing is that you can't hold them longer either.

    Mr. Green, you indicated—you talked about one specific case, about somebody that served 22 years before they got out. Do you know what sentence they would have gotten under truth in sentencing?

    Mr. GREEN. Well, of course, the sentence wouldn't have been any different. The time they served might have been different.

    Mr. SCOTT. No, the sentence would be different. If you go to a no parole—there is no proposal I have ever seen that would have the same sentence being given. You give 2 to 10, and you call it 10. If you go to a no parole system, you will not have a 10-year sentence.
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    In Virginia, the 2 1/2-to-10-year sentence was everybody served 5. So you have to spring them out after 5 years. You can't hold them all 10.

    If you have somebody like Charles Manson that you know will commit a crime as soon as he is released, you can't hold them longer under truth in sentencing. You have got to spring them out right away.

    Mr. GREEN. Can I respond to that?

    Well, actually, with the sexual predator laws, you can. As you know, many States have sexual predator laws, and upon a psychiatric determination, they actually can keep them in custody longer than their original period. That is not the point here.

    The point is—and Federal courts have in many cases upheld sexual predator laws.

    The point is here, in the cases I am referring to, we have people in our custody who we know, with almost a statistical certainty, if they get back out on the streets, they are going to do it again; and if we do release them early, I believe it is partially our fault.

    Mr. SCOTT. And if you have truth in sentencing——

    Mr. GREEN. If we have it within our means, when someone has committed a crime against kids, and they serve their time, and after they have been released if they do it again, in my view they are self-identified as repeat child molesters and beyond relief, and we can put them away.
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    Mr. SCOTT. You are not answering my question. I asked you a simple question, and that is if you go to truth in sentencing and you give a lower sentence, is it better or worse that you can't hold them longer?

    Mr. GREEN. In Wisconsin, we don't give them a lower sentence.

    Mr. SCOTT. You abolish parole and everybody gets the full sentence?

    Mr. GREEN. Currently, under the law, yes.

    Mr. SCOTT. In Virginia, we went to a truth in sentencing where the year-and-a-half to 10-year sentence averaged 2 1/2. Everybody would serve 5 under that process, and it cost us $200 million per congressional district and $100 million per congressional district in annual costs in prisons to fund that.

    Mr. GREEN. Under my proposal we solve that. We don't release them.

    Mr. SCOTT. And they get out in half the time they would have served if they couldn't make parole.

    Mr. GREEN. Under, of course, this bill, we solve that problem. They don't get out. They are not released. In fact, interestingly enough, when our analysis was done of this in the State of Wisconsin, they actually projected a cost savings, because prosecutors told us that child sex abusers are being prosecuted over and over and over again. It is the same people over and over again.
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    Mr. SCOTT. Some of those bills that are before us——

    Mr. GREEN. Under this bill, we break that cycle. We put them away for life, and that is part of what we are trying to do here.

    Mr. SCOTT. So you just wait for the crimes to occur and then lock everybody up?

    Mr. GREEN. This isn't either/or. I don't think anyone on this panel has argued against other intervention methods, but what we are saying is that we have to address these repeat molesters.

    We should do more. This is not enough. I don't think anyone here says it solves all the problem.

    Mr. SCOTT. That is my not my question. My question was very simple on truth in sentencing.

    Mr. GREEN. And I have answered it.

    Mr. SCOTT. You said everybody gets life, so that is your answer?

    Mr. GREEN. Under this bill, repeat molesters go for life, as truth in sentencing requires.
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    Mr. SALMON. May I just cut in here real quickly?

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. We all have to run here in a minute for this vote.

    Mr. SALMON. I know. 894, the comments from the Justice Department—the bill in its original form, not as it was amended by its committee or as it was amended on the floor, so I don't believe that those comments apply.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. We have maybe 2 minutes we can devote. I don't know whether this panel—the wishes of the Members are to question this panel further and ask for the Members to come back or not.

    Mr. Chabot, can you and Ms. Jackson Lee take these couple of minutes?

    Mr. CHABOT. Mr. Chairman, I know we all have a vote pending, so we need to get over there, so rather than ask questions, I would just like to commend the members of this panel for their diligence, their hard work in coming up with creative ways to better protect the public than government has been able to thus far.

    There are just far too many families in this country that have had to go through the terrible tragedy of a loss of a child due to crime, and oftentimes it is people that have gotten out way before they should have on previous crimes.

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    So I want to thank them for doing that, and I will yield back the balance of my time.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Ms. Jackson Lee.

    Ms. JACKSON LEE. I am sorry that we have a loss of time, but we have to go vote. But let me say that we have an unsolved case of a murdered child in Virginia right now. We all abhor the outrageous violence against children. Please understand, gentlemen, that as we proceed through this process, the subcommittee forum and the committee forum is the place to ask the questions and to iron out the difficulties.

    I respect the ranking member's concern about this whole question of how we structure the sentencing in light of the fact that the U.S. Sentencing Commission is a structuring creature of Congress. My commitment is to look at these legislative initiatives and to work through these issues, because I believe that every child's life is a precious life, and as long as I am alive, I want to make sure that I do something to inhibit or prohibit those terrible things from happening. If you will work with us, we might be able to get where we all want to be.

    I yield back.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I want to thank the gentlemen. We will be in recess until after this vote and then the second panel.

    [Recess.]

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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. The Subcommittee on Crime will come to order. I apologize for the delay in recess. We had extended votes on the floor and have now concluded the business for the day for the House of Representatives.

    I know we have a distinguished panel. I am about to introduce the whole panel, but in deference to my colleague from Pennsylvania, who has come back a second time to join in what Senator Rick Santorum started to do a few minutes ago, now quite a few minutes ago, I am going to yield to him first to introduce one of our panelists, who is a constituent, I believe.

    So with that in mind, Curt Weldon, please proceed.

    Mr. WELDON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    I want to thank the ranking member for allowing me the opportunity to appear today. This is my second appearance before your subcommittee on this legislation, and it is an honor to be here, and I applaud the good work that this subcommittee has done.

    Mr. Chairman, 22-year-old Aimee Willard was an outstanding young American. She was probably what you would call the all-American girl. She was an outstanding lacrosse and soccer player at George Mason University. She was dedicated to her community, had a bright life ahead of her. She really had everything going for her.

    On June 20th, 1996, as she was driving home from being with some of her friends, a car bumped her, caused her to pull over. She was abducted, raped, brutally murdered.

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    She was found in a Dumpster with two trash bags over her head in central Philadelphia and a stick between her legs.

    Mr. Chairman, I lived about 2 miles from Aimee Willard. Mr. Chairman, I have a 22-year-old, a 23-year-old and a 25-year-old, all daughters. I can't imagine a family going through what one of your witnesses went through today, what actually all of your witnesses went through today in terms of family trauma.

    The man who has since been convicted and sentenced to death for Aimee's murder is Arthur Bomar. The reason why, as a parent of three daughters, I am outraged is because Bomar was serving—had served 11 years of a life sentence for killing someone over a parking space in the State of Nevada. He was sentenced for murder, and he was paroled. He had a record of violence in prison, including a felony conviction for assaulting another inmate and an assault on a woman who went to visit him in prison. He then went to Pennsylvania. He saw Aimee in a bar, followed her and killed her. He never should have been released.

    Mr. Chairman, I am outraged. I don't know that this Aimee's Law will solve all of our problems, but I can tell you it is a deterrent. It is a deterrent to those States that have, in fact, looked at sentences provided by our judicial system that allowed convicted killers and rapists and those who have committed other heinous crimes to get out early.

    This has to be stopped, Mr. Chairman, and I am not confident that this will stop all of those crimes. I agree with some of the comments I was listening to by my friend that we need to be involved in preventive activities. As a mayor of a very poor and distressed town in my home county, I know that firsthand. In fact, I ran for office because my hometown was the national headquarters of the Pagans motorcycle gang, where 60 of them lived and controlled all the drug-dealing for the East Coast, and I had to fight them firsthand.
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    But I can tell you what happened to Aimee Willard should not happen to anybody in America. I do not go for the testimony of one of your previous witnesses who said that this—Aimee's Law solves a problem which no longer exists. Well, if the problem no longer exists, then we don't have a problem, because the other States will be penalized.

    To say that this is somehow causing problems for the State for things that happened in the past, well, too bad. The States shouldn't allow people to get out on early parole who go back and convict—or go back and commit the same crimes again, especially these heinous crimes.

    As a former local official and a former mayor, I can tell you I think the States need to be penalized, and this is a way to do it. What it simply does is it says that if, in fact, an Arthur Bomar does what he did and goes out and commits a second and a third crime just like the first because he got out too early, then that State or who let him out early will pay the price for that State who has to bear the burden of prosecuting that man for a very similar crime.

    It is not the cure-all. It is not the panacea. There are none in our criminal justice system, and as far and long as we look, we will never find it, but it certainly sends a signal.

    So I am here, Mr. Chairman, for a second time to tell you I think this is absolutely essential that we move forward on this legislation.

    Again, as the father of a 22-, a 23-, and a 25-year-old daughter, who lived between a mile and 2 miles from Gail Willard and her daughter—never had the pleasure of meeting Aimee, but, boy, I feel like I know her today—with all the great things you have heard about this young girl and what promising opportunities that she had if she would have simply been allowed to live her life, and for someone to come into this room and say this is unreasonable for us to penalize the States, I say hogwash. Do your job, State. Enforce your laws and enforce your penalties, and you won't have these problems, and don't cop out and say it is costing the taxpayers extra money.
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    This bill is talking about Federal money going to the States that would simply be held back. It is the Federal money that we are talking about. I think it is about time we took some steps like this.

    I support this legislation. It may not be perfect. I know the Justice Department says that they don't know how exactly to take the funds. Well, let me tell you, that is a cop-out on the part of the Justice Department. When the President says he wants 100,000 additional cops on the street, he doesn't give all the details of where those funds are going to come from or how they are going to be implemented. The Justice Department has people who can do that, and this bill provides the flexibility to allow the Justice Department to tell us in Congress how they can implement it. But it is a simple bill, and it is one that I think needs to be done, and in honor of Aimee, I am here today.

    I want to thank her mother for coming down. I want to thank her for the tireless effort that she has made to make all of us move forward to make sure these kinds of heinous crimes don't continue on American society. Thank you.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you for coming by to introduce Gail Willard to us today, Congressman, and we really appreciate it, Curt Weldon.

    I don't think that Mrs. Willard needs more of an introduction. We are going to look forward to hearing your testimony today, and I know how tough it has been, and we really do appreciate your coming today. I am going to introduce personally the rest of the panelists, and then we will come to you for the testimony first, Mrs. Willard.
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    Mrs. WILLARD. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Fred Goldman is an outspoken critic of the criminal justice system. His son Ron was murdered in 1994, together with Nicole Brown Simpson. After the criminal and civil trials of the man accused of murdering his son, he moved to Scottsdale, Arizona, and served part time as a special assistant to the Arizona—in the Arizona State Office of Victims Services. He has also hosted the television show Search for Justice on the UPN Television Network.

    We appreciate, Mr. Goldman, your coming to see us today and the other testimony that you have given in the past. We know, as it is with all of these panelists, this is not an easy thing for you to do as a parent.

    Marc Klaas is also well-known as an activist for the rights of victims and their families. His daughter Polly was kidnapped and murdered in 1993 by a man who had previously been convicted for kidnapping and drug abuse. Following the conviction of his daughter's killer in 1996, Mr. Klaas has made numerous appearances on television and before State legislatures and Congress and this subcommittee, I might add, to argue for tougher sentences for violent criminals. His State legislature in Wisconsin adopted a provision similar to H.R. 4047 following his testimony, and again, we really appreciate the time, the many hours that you have spent with us as well as with others arguing for this cause.

    Mike Lawlor, who is here today with us, is serving his seventh term as a member of the Connecticut House of Representatives. He has been recognized for his work reforming Connecticut's criminal justice system involving such issues as alternative forms of punishment, drug policy, juvenile justice reform, victims rights, sexual offender registration and reducing racial disparities in the corrections system. He received his bachelor's degree from the University of Connecticut, a master's degree from the University of London in 1981, a law degree from George Washington University. He is testifying here today on behalf of the National Council of State Legislatures.
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    Janet LaRue is the senior director of legal studies at the Family Research Council. In this position she shapes the legal policy for the FRC and analyzes comments and writes about court activity, the ramifications of legal decisions for American families. Before joining FRC, Mrs. LaRue was senior counsel for the National Law Center for Children and Families in the California office, focusing entirely on pornography law. She has drafted and testified before numerous State and local legislatures on pornography, sexually-oriented businesses, and child safety bills.

    Franklin E. Zimring is the William G. Simon professor of law, and director of Earl Warren Legal Institute at the University of California at Berkley. His major fields of interest are criminal justice, juvenile justice, and family law, with special emphasis on the use of empirical research to inform legal policy. He has authored or coauthored books on deterrence, the changing legal world of adolescence, capital punishment, the scale of imprisonment and drug control. His most recent books are Crime Is Not the Problem, Lethal Violence in America, 1997, and American Youth Violence, 1998. He received his bachelor's degree from Wayne State University and his law degree from the University of Chicago, and we welcome you today.

    Our final witness on this panel is Jeffrey Haugaard, is it?

    Mr. HAUGAARD. Haugaard.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Haugaard. An associate professor of human development at Cornell University, where he has taught and conducted research for the past 10 years. His research is focused on child maltreatment, adoptive families and problematic dating relations. In addition to more than 50 published scientific articles, book chapters, Dr. Haugaard is the coauthor of the book, The Sexual Abuse of Children. He is the founding president of the Section on Child Maltreatment of the American Psychological Association and is a member of the executive committee of APA's Division of Child, Youth, and Family Services. He received his master's and doctoral degrees at the University of Virginia.
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    We want to welcome the entire panel here today. Your entire written testimony will be admitted into the record without objection. I hear none, and we will start, Mrs. Willard, with you, Gail Willard, the mother of Aimee, about whom much has been spoken today.

    Again, we appreciate your being here today. You may present your testimony in whatever way you wish, please. Please proceed. Thank you again for coming.

STATEMENT OF GAIL WILLARD, BROOKHAVEN, PA

    Mrs. WILLARD. You are welcome.

    Thank you, Congressman Salmon, Congressman Weldon and Senator Santorum and the committee, for having me here today to represent Aimee.

    It has been 1,421 days since Aimee's murder. This nightmare began on June 20th, 1996. At 4:45 a.m., I was awakened by a phone call; something every parent dreads and hopes will never happen to them. I was told that the police had found my car on the ramp of a major highway. The car engine was running, the driver's side door was open, the headlights were on, and the radio was playing loudly. There was blood in front of and next to the car. Who was the driver? Where was the driver?

    That night, my beautiful 22-year-old daughter Aimee had my car. She had gone to a reunion with high school friends, and now she was missing.
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    Late that afternoon, Aimee's body was found in a trash-strewn lot in the badlands of north Philadelphia. She had been raped and beaten to death.

    Aimee was a wonder, a delight, a brilliant light in my life. With dancing blue eyes and a bright, beautiful smile, she drew everyone who knew her into the web of her life. She would light up a room just by walking into it. She could run like the wind, and she enjoyed the game, every game. She had friends and talents and dreams for a spectacular future. So it seemed only natural and right to believe that she would live well into old age. Never one to complain when things didn't go her way, Aimee always worked and played to the best of her ability. She was happy with her successes and took her failures in stride. Aimee lived and loved well. She never harmed anyone. In fact, Aimee rarely even spoke ill of anyone. She was almost too good to be true.

    On June 20th, 1996, at the age of 22 years and 12 days, Aimee was robbed of that life. There is an ache deep within each one who knew her, an ache that cries out, why, God, why?

    ''Just do it'' was Aimee's motto. She never worried about what she could not do well. She put energy into doing what she could do well. In athletics, Aimee took her God-given talents and worked them to perfection. For college, Aimee accepted a scholarship to play soccer at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In her sophomore year there, she also joined the lacrosse team, a two-sport Division I athlete. Aimee was well on her way to becoming a legend at George Mason University.

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    In the spring of 1996, the spring before she was murdered, Aimee led her lacrosse conference, scoring 50 goals and 29 assists. In fact, 1995/1996 was a banner year for Aimee. She was named to not only the Colonial Athletic Association All-Conference Team in soccer, but also in lacrosse, and was named an All-American in lacrosse.

    Aimee's athletic success, however, is only part of her glory. So that you will fully understand the impact her murder has had on those that knew her, I want to share an excerpt from a letter one of her friends wrote to me. She writes, ''For the past few weeks my heart has been breaking for all of us in our devastating loss, but more recently I think my heart has been hurting a bit more for those who will never know and get the chance to know the woman who played two Division 1 sports, making the all-conference teams in both and an All-American in one. They will never meet the girl who was always being named athlete of the week and had no idea that she was half the time. These people will never get the chance to argue with you over things like Nike vs. Adidas, Bubblicious vs. Bubble Yum, Coke vs. Cherry Coke, or whether certain professional athletes were overrated. I am one of the fortunate ones. I have volumes of Aimee's memories. I know the beauty of those big blue eyes under a low brim of a Nike hat. I know the carefree serenity that gave birth to the goofy laugh. I witnessed her grace with grit, her passion with patience, her pride without arrogance, her speed without exhaustion, and her sweat that was enough to start an ocean. If I was given the opportunity to trade in all my present pain in exchange for never being able to say, 'Aimee was my teammate; Aimee was my friend,' I'd stick with the pain. The memory of her life is so wonderful.''

    It is impossible to adequately describe the impact of Aimee's murder on the countless people who knew and loved her. We are all trying to survive the pain and emptiness of this great loss.
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    I do have wonderful memories of Aimee. Her life was wrapped in my life, and mine was wrapped in her life, but because of the evil incarnate in Arthur Bomar, I now also have horrible nightmares of the fear, the absolute terror, Aimee must have known and of the dreadful pain she was forced to endure.

    I, who had been with Aimee in every facet of her life, every event, big and small, was not there to protect her from the fear and the pain. I never had a chance to say good-bye. This despicable individual has condemned me, my other two children, the rest of our family and all of Aimee's friends to live with a deep ache in our hearts. The void can never be filled. The pain of loss of Aimee is forever.

    Aimee's life was ended on that night, June 20th, 1996, a night of total madness. She was kidnapped from her own car. She was raped, and then she was beaten to death, beaten so badly around the head and face that she was identified by her Nike swoosh tattoo on her ankle; beaten so badly that she had an empty heart when her body was found. Every pint of blood was out of her body.

    The person who did this to Aimee is a convicted felon, and he was out on parole. Arthur Bomar was released from Nevada's prison system after serving only 12 years of a life sentence for murdering a man. While he was awaiting trial for the murder, he shot a woman, and then while he was in prison serving time for both of these crimes, he assaulted a woman who was visiting him there. Despite all these violent crimes and sentences even beyond the life sentence, Nevada released him after only 12 years.

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    Did they think he was reformed? All they had to do was read his record and know he wasn't. A reformed, contrite prisoner sentenced to life doesn't beat up his own visitor. But he was released by Nevada, and he came to Pennsylvania, and he murdered my Aimee.

    On October 1st, 1998, Arthur Bomar was convicted of first degree murder, kidnapping, rape, and abuse of a corpse. This kidnapper, rapist and murderer should never have been on the street in June of 1996, and Aimee Willard should be teaching and coaching, living and loving, and spreading her joy among us, but she isn't.

    Her legacy will live on because of Aimee's Law; the no second chance law proposed by Matt Salmon from Arizona and cosponsored by Curt Weldon from Pennsylvania and many other Congressmen and Senators; and also because of scholarships that have been formed at George Mason University and at her high school, the Academy of Notre Dame.

    Our entire justice system, as I see it, cries out for reform. Our system lacks real truth in sentencing. Life in prison does not mean life. Murderers are returned to the streets to murder again. If Aimee's Law is passed in 2000, the States will have a strong incentive to reform their parole systems and to keep predators in prison actually for life. If not, then they will risk a loss of funds if they parole the murderers and they cross State lines and commit another violent crime.

    I am asking you, the members of the Subcommittee on Crime, to support the passage of Aimee's Law. Please help me stop the nightmare of convicted murderers continue to murder. If this law is passed, our streets will be a little safer. Some families will be spared the heartache we have suffered, and Aimee Willard's name and not the name of her killer will be remembered.
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    Please remember that Aimee has no second chance at life. Thank you.

    [The prepared statement of Mrs. Willard follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF GAIL WILLARD, BROOKHAVEN, PA

    It has been one thousand three hundred ninety two days since Aimee's murder. This nightmare began on June 20, 1996. At 4:45 AM, I was awakened by a phone call—something every parent dreads and hopes will never happen to them. I was told that the police had found my car on the ramp of a major highway. The car engine was running; the driver's side door was open; the headlights were on; the radio was playing loudly; and there was blood in front of and next to the car. Who was the driver? Where was the driver? That night, my beautiful twenty-two year old daughter, Aimee, had my car. She had gone to a reunion with high school friends, and now she was missing. Late that afternoon Aimee's body was found in a trash-strewn lot in the ''badlands'' of North Philadelphia. She had been raped and beaten to death.

    Aimee was a wonder, a delight, a brilliant life in my life. With dancing blue eyes and a bright, beautiful smile, she drew everyone who knew her into the web of her life. She would light up a room just by walking into it. She could run like the wind, and she enjoyed the game—every game. She had friends and talents and dreams for a spectacular future, so it seemed only natural and right to believe that she would live well into old age. Never one to complain when things didn't go her way, Aimee always worked and played to the best of her ability, happy with her successes, taking her failures in stride. Aimee lived and loved well. She never harmed anyone; in fact, Aimee rarely ever spoke ill of anyone. She was almost too good to be true. On June 20, 1996, at age twenty-two years and twelve days, Aimee was robbed of her life, and our family was robbed of the joy and love and innocent simplicity that were Aimee's special gift to us. We will never be the same. There is an ache deep within each one of us—and ache that cries out, ''Why God? Why?''
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    ''Just Do It'' was Aimee's motto. She never worried about what she could not do well; she put her energy into doing what she could do well. In athletics, Aimee took her God-given talents and worked them to perfection. For college Aimee accepted a scholarship to play soccer for George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia. In her sophomore year, she joined the lacrosse team. A two sport Division 1 athlete, Aimee was on her way to becoming a legend at George Mason University. In the spring of 1996, the spring before she was murdered, Aimee led her lacrosse conference, scoring fifty goals with twenty-nine assists. In fact, 1995–96 was a banner year for Aimee. She was named to the Colonial Athletic Association All-Conference Team in both soccer and lacrosse, and to the All-American team for the Southeast region in lacrosse.

    Aimee's athletic success is only part of her glory. Her friends describe her as a quiet presence, a fun-loving kid, a good listener, a loyal friend. They use words like shy, modest, kind, strong, focused, intense, caring, sharing and loving when they speak about Aimee. They tell of Aimee's magic with people. So that you will understand the impact her murder had on them, I want to share an excerpt from a letter one of her friends wrote to me.

    ''For the past few weeks my heart has been breaking for all of us in our devastating loss, but more recently I think my heart has been hurting a bit more for those who will never get the chance to know the woman who played two Division 1 sports, making the all-conference teams in both, and All-American in one. They will never meet the girl who was always being named ''Athlete of the Week'' and had no idea that she was half the time. These people will never get the chance to argue with her over things like Nike vs. Adidas, Bubblicious vs. Bubble Yum, Coke vs. Cherry Coke, or whether certain professional athletes were over-rated. I am one of the fortunate ones. I have volumes of Aimee's memories. I know the beauty of those big blue eyes under a low brim of a Nike hat. I know the carefree serenity that gave birth to the goofy laugh. I witnessed her grace with grit, her passion with patience, her pride without arrogance, her speed without exhaustion, and her sweat that was enough to start an ocean. If I was given the opportunity to trade in all my present pain in exchange for never being able to say, ''Aimee was my teammate; Aimee was my friend,'' I'd stick with the pain. The memory of her is so wonderful.''
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    It is impossible to adequately describe the impact of Aimee's murder on the countless people who knew her and loved her. We are all trying to survive the pain and emptiness of this great loss. How often I turn to tell Aimee something silly or dumb when I'm watching one of our favorite television shows, or a basketball or football game, but she isn't there. I'm out shopping and I say, ''Aimee would look great in that outfit. I'll buy it for her.'' But Aimee will never wear a new outfit again. I will never have the joy of holding Aimee in my arms again, or of seeing her sparkling blue eyes, freckled nose and bright smile. I will never know the children Aimee dreamed of having, or the children Aimee dreamed of coaching.

    I do have wonderful memories of Aimee. Her life was wrapped in my love, and mine was wrapped in her love. Because of evil incarnate in Arthur Bomar, I now also have horrible nightmares of the fear, the absolute terror, Aimee must have known, and of the dreadful pain she was forced to endure. I who had been with Aimee in every facet of her life, every event big and small, was not there to protect her from the fear and the pain. I never had the chance to say good-bye. This despicable individual had condemned me, my other two children, the rest of our family and all of Aimee's friends to live with an ache deep in our hearts. The void can never be filled. The pain of the loss of Aimee is forever.

    Aimee's life was ended on June 20, 1996, a night of total madness. She was kidnaped from her own car, raped, and then beaten to death—beaten so badly around the head and face that she was identified by the Nike swoosh tattoo on her ankle—beaten so badly that she had an empty heart when she was found. Every pint of blood had spilled from her body. The person who did this to Aimee is a convicted felon who was on parole.

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    Arthur Bomar was released from Nevada's prison system after serving only twelve years of a life sentence for murdering a man. While he was awaiting trial for the murder charge, he shot a woman. While he was in prison serving time for both these crimes, he assaulted a woman who was visiting him there. Despite all these violent crimes, and sentences even beyond the life sentence, Nevada released him after only twelve years. Did they think he was reformed? All they had to do was read his record to know that he wasn't. A reformed, contrite prisoner sentenced to life doesn't beat up a woman visitor. But he was released by Nevada, and he came to Pennsylvania and murdered my Aimee.

    On October 1, 1998, Arthur Bomar was convicted of first degree murder, kidnaping, rape and abuse of a corpse. After the jury announced their decision for the death penalty, this reformed felon from Nevada raised his hand with his middle finger extended and shouted, ''F—- you, Mrs. Willard, her brother and her sister.''

    This kidnapper, rapist and murderer should never have been on the street in June of 1996. And Aimee Willard should be teaching and coaching, living and loving, spreading her joy among us. But she isn't. Her legacy will live on, however, in scholarship funds, aid to those in need, and a beautiful memorial garden on that lot in the ''badlands'' of North Philadelphia. Her legacy will live on because of Aimee's Law, the ''No Second Chances'' law proposed by Matt Salmon from Arizona and co-sponsored by Curt Weldon from Pennsylvania and many other Congressmen and Senators.

    Our entire justice system, as I see it, cries out for reform. Our system lacks real truth in sentencing. Life in prison does not mean life. Murderers are returned to the streets to murder again. Willful murderers do not deserve a second chance. If ''Aimee's Law'' is passed in 2000, the States will have strong incentive to reform their parole systems and to keep predators in prison actually for life. If not, they will risk a reduction of federal funds if their paroled murderers cross state lines and commit another violent crime.
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    I am asking you, the members of the Sub-Committee on Crime, to support the passage of ''Aimee's Law'' if you want to stop the nightmare or convicted murderers continuing to murder. If this law is passed, our streets will be a little safer, some families will be spared the heartache we have suffered, and Aimee Willard's name, not the name of her killer, will be remembered forever. Please remember that Aimee has no second chance at life.

    Thank you.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mrs. Willard, thank you very much. No matter how hard we try, those of us who haven't lost a love one can look only at this, at the horrendous crime it was, but we can sit here today and admire your courage for being here and admire you for being willing to share all of that pain with us.

    It is for a cause, and it is for this bill, and I know that you came a long way for it, and we thank you for doing that.

    Mrs. WILLARD. You are welcome, Mr. Chairman.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Goldman, you are recognized.

STATEMENT OF FRED GOLDMAN, SCOTTSDALE, AZ

    Mr. GOLDMAN. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, thank you for the opportunity to speak to you on behalf of Matt Salmon's bill, H.R. 894, No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists and Child Molesters.
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    As has been the case several times in the past, in various hearings I have come prepared with a statement, but I need to digress for one moment. I need to make a comment about some statements that Mr. Scott made earlier.

    Mr. Scott, as a citizen and as a family member of a victim of a violent crime, I find your statements very offensive. We in this Nation have an enormous crime problem. We have two things to be concerned about: preventing crime from day 1 and the recommitting of crime by those who are doing it every single day over and over and over again.

    You made a comment that this committee took testimony some 2 years ago, I believe you said, on how to prevent crime, and I wonder whether you, Mr. Scott, have authored a bill using those suggestions on how to prevent crime? The answer is, no, you have not, and I find that very offensive. If you think there is a way to prevent crime, then I suggest you do something.

    My personal remarks aside, let me say violent crime has become part of our way of life in this Nation. Every minute, no, every second of every day, a violent criminal strikes somewhere in this country.

    Violent crime is committed every 19 seconds. A girl or woman is raped every 70 seconds. A child is molested also every 70 seconds, and someone is murdered every 29 minutes in this Nation. We are a country besieged with violence. We see it every day on every news broadcast across this country.

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    Since Matt Salmon introduced this bill in July of 1998, as an amendment to the juvenile crime bill, approximately 825,000 women or girls have been raped. An equal number, approximately 825,000 children, have been sexually molested, and more than 36,000 people have been murdered.

    Less than 3 percent of our total population commits 100 percent of this violence. These people recommit their horrible crimes over and over and over again, because we let them.

    The average time served in prison for rape, 5 years. The average time served in prison for molesting a child, less than 4 years, and the average time served in this Nation for committing murder, 7 1/2 years. And then these monsters are released and out recommitting these same crimes again, because we let them.

    How can we tolerate the continuation of this violence? And I ask how many more lives must be shattered or lost before we as a Nation say, simply, enough is enough? One more life lost will be one too many.

    There are no accurate records maintained as to where violent felons go after they are released from prison, but good common sense, however, would tell us that many of these monsters will travel to different States and recommit their heinous acts again. Rapists don't stop raping, child molesters don't stop molesting, and murderers don't stop murdering just because they move to a new State, and to take the chance that they might stop is too big a risk. I suggest to you that one more victim is one too many.

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    But encouraging States through the passage of this bill to get tough on violent criminals and keep them behind bars for at least 85 percent of their sentence is the only smart and the only right thing to do. A released violent felon is a new violent crime just waiting to happen. The longer these people are kept in prison, the safer the rest of us will be.

    We are a Nation that continues each and every day to put violent felons back on the street, and, I might add, knowing full well that they will rape, molest and murder again. We have to ask ourselves what that says about us as a Nation. Do we not consider life precious, and do we not value life enough? Every single step must be taken, no matter how small, to ensure the safety of citizens in this country.

    Each of the committee members has an awesome burden. You have a chance to protect the lives of your fellow Americans, and they must be protected at all costs. You can, by moving this bill, H.R. 894, intact to the House floor and then urging it yourselves, to be passed by your fellow legislators, both in the House and Senate. This will guarantee that lives will be saved. If the passage of this bill prevents only one woman from being raped, only one child from being molested, or only one murder from being committed, then each and every legislator will be able to feel proud.

    Don't wait until your loved ones are a victim of violent crime. I can assure you that it is a nightmare you don't want to experience. There must be no second chances for murderers, for rapists or child molesters to recommit another violent crime. As a citizen and as a parent of a victim, I say that any further delay is unacceptable. Each of you and your fellow legislators can make a difference, and you need to remember that lives are at stake. Thank you.

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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Goldman, for again traveling the distance and doing what you have done previously with us to express those very strong convictions.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Goldman follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRED GOLDMAN, SCOTTSDALE, AZ

    Violent crime has become part of our way of life in this nation. Every minute, no—every second of every day, a violent criminal strikes somewhere in this country.

 A violent crime is committed every 19 seconds

 A girl or woman is raped—every 70 seconds

 A child is molested—also every 70 seconds

 And a child or adult is murdered—every 29 minutes.

    We are a nation besieged with violence—we see it every day, on every news story broadcast across this country.

    Since the introduction of this bill in July of 1998, as an amendment to the juvenile crime bill,

 approximately 825,000 women or girls have been raped, and an equal number, 825,000 children have been sexually molested, and more than 36,000 people have been murdered.
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 Less than 3% of our total population commits 100% of this violence. These people recommit their horrible crimes over, and over again—because we let them.

 The average time served in prison for rape—5 years

 The average time served in prison for molesting a child—less than 4 years

 And the average time served for committing murder—7 1/2 years

    And then, these monsters are released and are out recommitting these same crimes again. Because we let them.

    How can we tolerate the continuation of this violence? How many more lives must be shattered or lost before we, as a nation, say ''Enough is enough.'' One more lost life will be one too many!

    There are no accurate records maintained as to where violent felons go after their release from prison. Good common sense however, tells us that many of these monsters will travel to different states and recommit their heinous acts—again.

    Rapists don't stop raping.

    Child molesters don't stop molesting.

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    And murderers don't stop murdering—just because they moved to a new state. And to take the chance that they might, is too big a risk. One more victim is one too many.

    Encouraging states, through the passage of this bill, to get tough on violent criminals and keep them behind bars for at least 85% of their sentence is the only smart thing to do. A released violent felon is a new violent crime just waiting to happen. The longer these people are kept in prison, the safer the rest of us will be.

    We are a nation that continues to put violent felons back on the street, knowing full well, they will rape, molest and murder again. What does that say about us as a nation? Do we not consider life precious? Do we not value life enough?

    Every step must be taken, no matter how small, to insure the safety of the citizens of this country.

    Each of you has an awesome burden. You have the chance to protect the lives of your fellow Americans. And they must be protected at all costs.

    You can—by moving this bill H.R. 894, intact, to the house floor and urging passage by your fellow legislators, both in the House and Senate—guarantee that lives will be saved.

    If the passage of this bill prevents only one woman from being raped, only one child from being molested—or, one murder from being committed, then each and every legislator should feel proud.
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    Don't wait until your loved one is a victim of violent crime. I can assure you, that it is a nightmare you don't want to experience. Any further delay is unacceptable.

    Each of you, and your fellow legislators can and must make a difference.

    Remember—lives are at stake.

    Thank you.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Klaas, welcome, and you, too, we would like to hear your testimony, and take whatever length of time you need to.

STATEMENT OF MARK KLAAS, SAUSALITO, CA

    Mr. KLAAS. Thank you, sir.

    He is right, you know. If anybody up there had a relative brutalized like our relatives have been brutalized, you would probably be sitting here saying the things that we are saying.

    I have to—well, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee. I have to agree with everything that Mr. Scott said about prevention programs and other initiatives that are designed to give at-risk children a chance in life. I think that it is very clear that every dollar that is invested in one of those programs will save countless dollars in crime prevention in direct cost to crime in the future, but the kinds of issues that we are dealing with today and the kinds of individuals we are dealing with today are people that are beyond prevention. These are the people that are on the streets right now and the people that are committing these crimes. That makes it a very different issue, and that is something that I think we have to address, and we have to address with the reality of life in America today.
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    In 1998, I testified with Mr. Green on the Wisconsin version of the Two Strikes and You Are Out Child Protection Act. Because of Mr. Green's visionary leadership, that piece of legislation was signed by Governor Thompson without amendment and is now the law of the land in Wisconsin, and I would like to thank Mr. Green for his continued leadership on this important issue.

    I totally agree with Mr. Green's testimony, but wish to add a couple of points that have yet to be addressed. This carefully written and narrowly targeted piece of legislation deals with two important issues that resurface whenever legislation that addresses accumulated crimes are debated, and those are the issues of false accusations and repeated patterns of behavior.

    We have all heard the stories of men, oftentimes fathers, who have been accused of child sexual abuse by vindictive ex-spouses. In certain circles such tales have achieved the status of urban legend. Personally I don't know if such stories are true or not, but I do know this, that H.R. 4047 directly addresses this issue. Certainly one can be falsely accused and possibly even falsely convicted of such crimes once but not twice, I think.

    By mandating life in prison only after a second conviction, one can be sure that our criminal justice system, with its assemblage of checks and balances, will protect innocent persons from this unfortunate but necessary fate. It is necessary because this bill targets two specific types of offenders, in my mind anyway, and this is what I had always thought when we were helping Mr. Green originally draft that. That would be pedophiles and psychopaths.

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    By definition, a pedophile is one who has preference for having sex with children. Now, if an individual pursuing sex with a child has been previously convicted of a sex crime against a child, and the threat of another conviction and possible prison time is an inadequate external control, then in my mind that person is a pedophile, and in my mind that person must be removed from society.

    A psychopath, on the other hand, is an individual who pursues instant self-gratification without consideration for the consequences of his action, and, like the pedophile, the psychopath will commit crime with impunity until stopped, until taken off the streets.

    Pedophiles and psychopaths pose great threat to the safety of our children because these individuals cannot control their actions, and H.R. 4047 offers a control that cannot be ignored: lifetime incarceration.

    Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, there is not a documented case of a pedophile or a psychopath ever having been cured, and if there is, I would like the name of that pedophile or that psychopath. The sad reality is that they reoffend over and over and over again until they are removed from society once and for all. State hospitals throughout America spent decades pursuing cures for pedophilia and psychopathy, and they failed. Inevitably the pedophile and psychopath will strike again, and the victims will accumulate.

    Now, Mr. Green spoke of David Spanbauer, and David Spanbauer really symbolizes a typical scenario in the 21st Century: sexual perverts living life sentences on the installment plan.
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    You have heard a couple of times the numbers, the 437 offenders who have committed crimes against 67,000 different victims. I mean, it is just absolutely appalling. And this then circulates and creates cycles of abuse.

    Oftentimes, the abuser was abused as a child. Obviously, this is a prevention program, as well as everything else, because by taking these people out of circulation, many children will not be victimized.

    These individuals spin through a turnstile system of justice in which their crimes become bolder, more dangerous and more predatory until a wake of destruction and young victims shatters the tranquil countryside.

    H.R. 4047 is an important piece of a very complex puzzle, of which all of these bills are an important piece, of which prevention bills are an important piece; a very complex puzzle that will have to be painstakingly assembled until there are no more David Spanbauers. The statistics underscore the need to take decisive steps to halt the destructive patterns of recidivist sex offenders against children. In no uncertain terms Mr. Green's 4047 delivers the message that America will no longer tolerate aberrant behavior and sexual crimes against our children. If you don't learn from your first crime, you will not be given an opportunity to justify or excuse your third crime.

    Let me now take a moment to remind the subcommittee that I have previously testified on behalf of Mr. Salmon's bill, H.R. 894, also known as Aimee's Law, and I continue to support Mr. Salmon's effort and ask for your favorable consideration of 894. Together and separately, H.R. 4047 and H.R. 894 will save lives. Please send them to the House floor with a favorable recommendation. Thank you so much for your time.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Mr. Klaas, for being here with us today.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Klaas follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF MARK KLAAS, SAUSALITO, CA

    Good Afternoon Chairman McCollum and members of the subcommittee. Thank you for affording me this opportunity to address the most critical issue of sex crimes against children and how we will punish those who repeatedly insist on committing sex crimes against our most helpless and vulnerable citizens: our children.

    In 1998 I testified with Mr. Green on the Wisconsin version of the Two Strikes and You're Out Child Protection Act. Because of Mr. Green's visionary leadership, that piece of legislation was signed by Governor Thompson without amendment and is now the law of the land in Wisconsin. Thank you Mr. Green for your continued leadership on this important issue.

    I totally agree with Mr. Green's testimony but wish to add a couple of points that have yet to be addressed. This carefully written and narrowly targeted piece of legislation deals with two important issues that resurface whenever legislation that address accumulated crimes are debated: false accusations and repeated patterns of behavior.

    We have all heard the stories of men, often times fathers, who have been accused of child sexual abuse by vindictive ex-spouses. In certain circles, such tales have achieved the status of urban legend. Personally, I don't know if such stories are true or not, but I do know this: HR 4047 directly addresses this issue. Certainly one can be falsely accused and possibly even falsely convicted of such crimes once, but not twice. By mandating life in prison only after a second conviction, one can be sure that our criminal justice system with its assemblage of checks and balances will protect innocent persons from this unfortunate but necessary fate.
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    HR 4047 targets two specific types of offenders: pedophiles and psychopaths. By definition a pedophile is one who has a preference for having sex with children. If an individual pursuing sex with a child has been previously convicted of a sex crime against a child and the threat of another conviction and possible prison time is an inadequate external control, then that person is a pedophile and must be removed from society. A psychopath on the other hand is an individual who pursues instant self-gratification without consideration for the consequences of his action. Like the pedophile, a psychopath will commit crime with impunity until stopped. Pedophiles and psychopaths pose great threat to the safety of our children because they cannot control their actions, and HR 4047 offers a control that cannot be ignored.

    Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, there is not a documented case of a pedophile or a psychopath ever having been cured. The sad reality is that they re-offend over and over and over again until they are removed from society once and for all. State hospitals throughout America spent decades pursuing cures for pedophelia and psychopathy and they failed. Inevitably, the pedophile and psychopath will strike again and the victims will accumulate.

    As we know, David Spanbauer symbolizes a typical scenario in twenty-first century America: sexual perverts living life sentences on the installment plan. Spinning through a turnstile system of justice in which their crimes become bolder, more dangerous, more predatory until a wake of destruction and young victims shatters the tranquil countryside. HR 4047 is an important piece of a very complex puzzle that will have to be painstakingly assembled until there are no more David Spandauer's.

    The statistics underscore the need to take decisive steps to halt the destructive patterns of recidivist sex offenders against children(see footnote 1). In no uncertain terms HR 4047 delivers the message that America will no longer tolerate aberrant behavior and sex crimes against our children. If you dont learn from your first crime, you will not be given an opportunity to justify or excuse your third crime.
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* More than half the violent crimes committed against children involved victims age 12 or younger.

* 7 in 10 offenders with child victims reported that they were imprisoned for a rape or sexual assault.

* Two-thirds of all prisoners convicted of rape or sexual assault had committed their crime against a child.

* Nearly two-thirds of rapists and sexual assaulters in State prison committed their crime against a child. March 1996, NCJ–158625

* In a study of 571 pedophiles, the Washington Post revealed that each had molested an average of 300 victims

    Let me now take a moment to remind the Subcommittee that I previously testified on behalf of Mr. Salmons bill HR 894, also known as Aimee's Law. I continue to support Mr. Salmon's efforts and ask you for favorable consideration of HR 894. Together and separately, HR 4047 and HR 894 will save lives. Please send HR 4047 and HR 894 to the House floor with favorable recommendations.

    Thank you for your time.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Lawlor, you are recognized.
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STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LAWLOR, STATE REPRESENTATIVE, 99TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT, CONNECTICUT

    Mr. LAWLOR. Well, good afternoon, Mr. Chairman. I just want to start by thanking both you and Congressman Scott and the members of your staff for the hospitality you have shown not just this time, but in the past when the National Conference of Legislatures has been invited to participate in your discussions on how to reform our criminal justice system to accomplish some of the goals we have heard here today.

    In particular, last year I was here testifying on the juvenile justice initiative, your bill, Mr. Chairman, and I just want to say how grateful we are that the accommodations that we discussed were made in that final outcome, and I think if and when that becomes law, the results will be very promising throughout the Nation.

    Today I am testifying again on behalf of the National Conference of State Legislatures, and I have to say at the outset that I think there is not much disagreement that for murderers and child molesters and rapists, they should be locked up and the key should be thrown away.

    I think that is a goal which we should all work toward, and our concerns today are not that the goal is wrong, but that the mechanism that is suggested here in H.R. 894 won't necessarily accomplish that goal, and I would like to explain why for a moment.

    First and most importantly, I think, it has been my experience in Connecticut where we have been very aggressive at promoting specific rights for victims of crime, and in particular a constitutional amendment in our State, we have found that working with victims that the greatest results are achieved through the hard, very detailed work of actually reforming the criminal justice system, making the decisions work on an everyday basis for victims of crime.
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    I am proud to say that after a lot of effort, not only do we have very clear rights for victims, but we have among the toughest in the country truth in sentencing rules. In fact, in Connecticut we rank sixth from the top in the percentage of time a violent offender will do in our prison system, and in particular a guy like Arthur Bomar, who did only 12 years on a life sentence, in Connecticut it would be very different. In Connecticut there is no parole for murderers. There is no good time for anybody. A life sentence is 60 years in Connecticut, and Mr. Bomar would do every single day of that, and there are no exceptions to that rule.

    I think Mr. Goldman and Mr. Klaas and Mrs. Willard make an important contribution to the national discussion on these issues because they can really allow us to focus on the failings of our system.

    So the real goal is how do we accomplish the goal of locking up these guys and throwing away the key? Well, I think the NCSL and the Council of State Governments and other national organizations of policymakers would like to work in partnership with the Federal Government to accomplish those goals, and we have lots of good ideas. My task here today, however, is to point out what I think and what our organization thinks are some of the flaws, the unintended consequences, of the proposed legislation.

    First of all, I think in a way Aimee's Law—and, Mrs. Willard, I just want to say that I say this with all due respect—it is a criticism of a mechanism, and I think the memory of your daughter is an important thing for all of us to keep in mind, and I think her great victory is that we are here discussing these things. But the flaw of this bill is that it is worse than an unfunded mandate.
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    In effect, there is no law my State can pass to avoid the penalties outlined in this bill. As I mentioned before, we have accomplished truth in sentencing in our State, and I think virtually all of the States have made great progress over the last 10 years in ending a system where in Connecticut 10 years ago you did 10 percent of your sentence.

    There is no law we can pass to undo what has already been done. In fact, we asked our researchers in Connecticut, how many people fitting the description of offenses in 894 have been released after finishing their sentences in the last 5 years? And the total is 1,894. That is because the definition is very broad. We are afraid that we would be penalized for decisions made in the past, even though we have made the right decisions today. And States like Nevada, which has been identified as the bad State here, they theoretically could get money under this mechanism because someone comes to their State. And I think not being able to get out from underneath the penalty by passing the laws is part of the problem here.

    Second, Mr. Chairman, I think you have to at least bear in mind the fact that this mechanism could be used in other public policy issues; for example, States which have lax gun regulations or public health campaigns or antismoking campaigns. States who create problems in their State which lead to a financial problem in another State, a mechanism like this could be suggested and used to penalize States in this fashion, and I am not sure that is a direction we necessarily want to go in.

    Finally, as Congressman Salmon mentioned earlier, I have suggested that this mechanism solves a problem that in many respects doesn't exist today. What I mean by that is this: Not that there aren't guys who have gotten out early, but that many States have made enormous progress on the road to truth in sentencing, and I think the goal should be to bolster the efforts of those States who have taken up that clarion call, which was first heard here in the Federal Congress. States—for example, Connecticut I said is sixth from the top. We are only surpassed by Vermont, Missouri, Arizona, Washington and Minnesota with higher percentages served.
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    Every State legislator is making a concerted effort to solve these problems. In fact, we started this process 5 years ago around the Nation.

    I think we ought to be rewarded for the progress we have made instead of penalized for the overwhelming—the deluge of cases that we got during the mid-1980's which no one really anticipated. Connecticut, for example, has gone from 3,800 prisoners in 1980 to 18,500 prisoners in 2000, and I think that is certainly a testament to our commitment on this issue.

    Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Lawlor, could you speak directly into the mike?

    Mr. LAWLOR. I am sorry.

    In summary, Mr. Chairman, I am just afraid that the penalties established here are unavoidable to States even who have made the effort, and at the end of the day what you will have is a process where States like mine will seek to identify offenders in our system who have previous convictions in other States—and by the way, I think the bill we are testifying on here today, 894, is quite a bit different than the one passed in both the House and the Senate. The definitions here are very broad, and they would include a lot of conduct which is, in effect, a misdemeanor in most States. And so I just think if you are going to go forward with this, you might want to tighten those definitions a bit.

    But I think we share the goal, and that is my most important message, and I would encourage you to continue the partnership with State governments, especially policymakers who want to make a commitment to truth in sentencing, to ensure murderers and rapists serve their full sentence, get life sentences at the outset. I think there are ways to do that, and I am just afraid this mechanism would be as frustrating to crime victims 10 years from now when it doesn't really yield the results that are intended, and in some cases might have the effect of rewarding States like Nevada who have dropped the ball on this topic.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you very much, Mr. Lawlor.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Lawlor follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE LAWLOR, STATE REPRESENTATIVE, 99TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT, CONNECTICUT

    My name is Mike Lawlor and I serve as vice chair of the Law and Justice Committee of the Assembly on State—Federal Issues, a part of the National Conference of State Legislatures. I am here today representing NCSL.

    Aimee's Law attempts to solve a problem that no longer exists. If enacted, Aimee's Law would create a mechanism sure to be used in other policy areas, like gun control, public health, education and tobacco. Although well intentioned, Aimee's Law is worse than an unfunded mandate. Its retroactive application will pit one state against another and turn already limited federal law enforcement assistance funds into a superfund of sorts for clever state budget balancers. In general, the NCSL believes that Congress should not substitute national criminal laws for state and local judgment and we ask you to work in partnership with state and local governments to achieve truth in sentencing, especially for violent offenders.

Aimee's Law is worse than an unfunded mandate.

    The proposed mechanism appears to be retroactive and will penalize states for parole and early release decisions made twenty or thirty years ago. Instead of relying on federal assistance based on my state's willingness to adopt state-of-the-art criminal justice policies, Connecticut will be forced to focus on identifying current defendants and prisoners who have been convicted previously of homicide rape or sexual abuse of children in other states. We will be forced to do so in order to offset the federal funds we will certainly lose as our former inmates are prosecuted or incarcerated in other states. This is a classic no-win situation for a state government.
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    The fact is that no state required violent offenders to serve 85% of their sentences until the mid 1990's and no state in the nation currently requires a life sentence without possibility of release for all of the crimes listed in H.R. 894.

    Should this proposal become law, every state will be subject to the loss of most, if not all, federal law enforcement assistance. The states with the quickest and most thorough researchers will reap the windfall. If this proposal is enacted, Connecticut plans to identify every offender in our data base who has an out of state record for any of the listed crimes and pursue reimbursement for all of the listed expenses. I'm sure that every other state will do the same. In the end, we would lose our annual law enforcement grants to other states and we would hope to recoup at least that much from other states. I'm not sure what the point of this bureaucratic exercise would be.

Aimee's Law can be used in other public policy areas.

    ''NCSL strongly urges federal lawmakers to maintain a federalism that respects diversity without causing division and that fosters unity without enshrining uniformity.'' NCSL policy statement adopted July 1998.

    Aimee's Law allows individual states to punish other states that have failed to adequately deal with an individual who creates a burden on the state. In this case, violent criminals released early in one state who victimize someone in a new state create a cause of action against the original state. The penalty is automatic assuming the statutory criteria are met and the funds are readily accessible. The simplicity is appealing and can be adapted to fit other policy areas.
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    For example, Congress could authorize states to make a similar claim against federal law enforcement funds when one of their citizens is injured or killed by a person who bought a handgun at a gun show in a state which does not require a background check for all gun sales, both public and private. Connecticut allows only licensed individuals to purchase handguns, whether in a store, gun show or living room, and all sales require a check with the state police.

    Another use of such a mechanism would be for states to make a claim on another state's Medicaid reimbursement if a chronically ill person requires hospitalization in a new state and after receiving inadequate care in the old state. Perhaps states with relatively lax enforcement of teenage smoking rules should have to forfeit federals funds to other states that must care for seriously ill lifetime smokers. States with substandard schools could forfeit federal educational assistance grants to states providing remedial services to students whose families have moved from one state to another.

    My state would benefit under all of these rules. However, each such rule would undermine the diversity and unity that have been the bedrock of our federal system.

Aimee's Law solves a problem that no longer exists

    This proposal punishes states for decisions made in the past. There is no law my state can enact which would protect us from the penalties suggested in this legislation.

    Offenders sentenced for murder, rape, sexual abuse of children and other violent crimes under current state truth in sentencing rules will not be released for decades. Connecticut, for example, recently ranked 6th nationally in percentage of time served on a violent crime sentence. On average, Connecticut violent offenders served 68% of their sentences, ranking behind Vermont (87%), Missouri (86%), Arizona and Washington (74%) and Minnesota (69%). That ranking is based on 1997 data. In 1998, violent offenders in my state served on average 74.7 % of their sentences.
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    Also in Connecticut, persons convicted of murder are not eligible for parole under any circumstances. As of October 1, 1994, good time credits are not available to any offender. Therefore, persons convicted of murder serve every day of the sentence imposed by the court.

    Lengthy sentences and truth in sentencing have become the rule rather than the exception for the crimes of murder, rape and child molestation in almost every state. As a state legislator, I ask that you help us continue our efforts to insure that violent criminals receive and serve appropriate sentences rather than punishing us for our inability to handle the surging tide of criminal cases and prisoners which began in 1980 and continued unabated until very recently. Many states need assistance developing alternative forms of punishment for less serious, non violent prisoners to free up cell space for serious, repeat violent offenders. We are badly in need of more specialized treatment for mentally ill and drug dependent offenders which have overwhelmed our prisons and jails.

Aimee's Law ignores several important facts

    The ''No Second Chances for Murderers, Rapists or Child Molesters Act of 1999'' does not take into account the diversity of criminal statutes and the lack of uniformity in sentencing systems. It is almost impossible to develop a formula that appropriately acknowledges the unique aspects of criminal law and procedure in each of the fifty states. My state punishes sexual abuse of a fourteen year old just as severely as sexual abuse of a thirteen year old. Your proposal creates a distinction not recognized in our criminal records. Your definition of ''sexually explicit conduct'' would include conduct that would otherwise be a misdemeanor in Connecticut. Given the high financial stakes, many states would stretch those definitions to cover compensation for arrest and prosecution of many sexual offenders who typically receive sentences of probation or jail.
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    The proposal also risks diverting crime victim compensation money to violent offenders themselves. Many homicide victims are drug dealers with bad aim. A $100,000 entitlement for less-than-innocent victims is a bad idea. Connecticut and many states with crime victim compensation programs apply standards to claims for financial assistance to exclude ''guilty'' victims and federal mandates should respect those distinctions.

    In recent years the Subcommittee on Crime has provided important leadership to state and local governments in the fight against violent crime. We in state legislatures throughout the nation hope to continue working with you in partnership to ensure that recent reductions in the level of violent crime can be sustained. We think Aimee's Law and proposals of this type undermine the long-standing tradition respect for state and local responses to crime.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Ms. LaRue?

STATEMENT OF JANET M. LaRUE, ESQ., SENIOR DIRECTOR OF LEGAL STUDIES, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. LARUE. Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, good afternoon. My name is Janet LaRue, and I am senior director of legal studies at the Family Research Council. Thank you for the opportunity to speak on behalf of Congressman Tancredo's bill, H.R. 4147.

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    Pornography law has been my specialty for many years. I have lectured at law enforcement conferences across the country. I have assisted police and prosecutors with obscenity cases and child pornography and harmful-to-minor cases. I have testified before State and local legislatures on pornography bills, and I have written amicus briefs in the U.S. Supreme Court and Federal and State appellate courts.

    First, I would like to share with you from my personal experience and what I see as the importance of this bill, which would raise the age from under 16 to under 18 to prohibit the distribution of obscene material to minors with an enhanced penalty. My first exposure to pornography was as a 17-year-old minor, which would be included under this bill. At my first real job, the job assignments soon became, as I worked for three professional men, to go out and purchase the latest edition of Playboy magazine.

    Now, admittedly, Playboy doesn't meet the definition of obscenity as yet. However, the harm that I endured from exposure to soft core pornography certainly illustrates, I think, rationally and logically there is greater harm from obscene material which is hard core pornography. I didn't realize what was happening to me as I viewed Playboy magazine month after month with adult men. I was involved after purchasing the magazine, busying off the office phones after my employers invited their professional friends over, including a superior court judge, to view the magazine with them and with me.

    I didn't know what was happening to me. I didn't realize how I was being desensitized and disarmed by this material until one day one of the men, who just happened to have a camera, convinced me that I was prettier than the women in the magazine. He convinced me to disrobe and pose for them. That was many years ago. It still causes me embarrassment and discomfort to think that those pictures still exist.
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    Secondly, 32 years ago the U.S. Supreme Court recognized the harm to children from pornography. The court upheld the right of the States to protect children from exposure to pornography and recognized the right of parents and teachers who have the care and responsibility for children to be assisted in protecting children from pornography. The court called it a transcendent governmental interest to do that because it concerns the health, safety, welfare, and morals of its community through its children.

    Third, as you know, obscenity has no constitutional protection. In response to Representative Scott's question about whether this bill makes it a Federal crime for a 20-year-old to distribute obscenity to a 17-year-old, that is already a crime. To distribute obscenity to anybody using a facility of interstate commerce or the U.S. mail is already a Federal felony, and so we are providing here under section 1470, which H.R. 4147 would amend, an enhanced penalty to include 16- and 17-year-olds.

    Obscenity is not protected because it is a patently offensive appeal of sexual material to an unhealthy interest in sex. It has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. It is as the Supreme Court said the crass commercial exploitation of sex for sex sake, and it plays on the lowest part of human nature. It plays on the most vulnerable in our society, those who are prone to addiction and it certainly plays on children. It is currently estimated by Forbes magazine to be a $56 billion industry worldwide, and they are looking for a new generation of consumers. That is why this bill is so important because 16- and 17-year-olds are the closest to becoming the adults who can legally with identification buy material that would meet the definition of obscenity.

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    If you think they are not targeting minors, I would suggest that you go on to the Internet to one of the World Wide Web sites, the commercial sites, and see the scores upon scores of hard-core images that are portrayed there as free teaser images that children can access. There is nothing to stop them, and they are available by the thousands. These pictures are depictions of bestiality, torture, sadomasochistic abuse, excretory functions, rape, all manner of deviant unhealthy unsafe sex. The material available on the Internet is worse than anything we have seen in an adult bookstore in 20 years. Mr. Chairman, I have brought with me today some samples that I would like, if it is acceptable, to be admitted into the record; some of them I just downloaded today.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Without objection, so ordered. They will be admitted.

    [The information referred to is on file with the House Judiciary Committee's Subcommittee on Crime.]

    Ms. LARUE. Fourth, obscenity is a dangerous tool in the hands of pedophiles because they use it to desensitize children into sex, just as happened to me, and to educate children as to what kind of sex they want them to engage in. I am very concerned about protecting children from sexual abuse because by the time I was 8 years old, I was victimized by four different men, one who repeated and threatened to kill me if I told anyone. If we can do anything to save children from enduring that, we must do that.

    Fifth, obscenity is teaching children a very dangerous message about how to treat other children. It is a very unhealthy sex education. This bill is about crime prevention because it can do much to prevent children exposed too soon to unhealthy messages from molesting other children. In 1993, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges reported that, quote, ''half the nation's child molesters are themselves children.''
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    The FBI statistics show the number of 10- to 17-year-olds arrested on rape charges has doubled since 1965. In 1983 we had, according to the testimony that I have read, 22 treatment centers in our Nation for juvenile sex offenders; and by 1993, in 20 year's time, we had 755. I think it is more than coincidental that both the 1970 and 1986 attorney general commissions on pornography found that 12- to 17-year-old boys are among the highest consumer group of pornography. The dangerous effect of pornography on children was summarized by a judge in Ohio who had just adjudicated a case of sexual assault on children by minor boys who had viewed pornography. The judge said in his opinion X-rated videos are as harmful to kids as guns.

    Sixth, we spend billions of dollars in this country to promote safe sex and prevent sexual harassment and teen pregnancy; and the porn industry promotes extremely unhealthy sex, promiscuity, sexual harassment, and violence. Porn never shows a 17-year-old who's acquired AIDS through promiscuous sex or another sexually transmitted disease. It never shows a 16- year-old pregnant girl, and it certainly never portrays a young woman who says no to sex and means it.

    Finally, most Federal statutes, in particular those that prohibit child sexual abuse and the sexual exploitation of minors, child pornography, child stalking, the sale of a child, define a minor as under 18 and they make no distinction based on age in sentencing.

    Title 18 of the U.S. code section 1470 which H.R. 4147 would amend should be no exception. It must be amended to increase the age from 16 to 18 years of age in order to provide a harsher sentence for those who knowingly transfer obscene material to a minor. There is no rational or legal justification for providing a lesser sentence to those who exploit 16- and 17-year-olds as if they were adults. They are not. Indeed, the need is greater than ever because of the rampant and enormously deviant material on the Internet to send a strong message of deterrence to those who traffic in obscene matter, to avoid exposing their toxic waste to the Nation's minor children. H.R. 4147 will help to do that. Our children and our grandchildren from birth to age 18 deserve no less. Thank you.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Ms. LaRue.

    [The prepared statement of Ms. LaRue follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JANET M. LARUE, ESQ., SENIOR DIRECTOR OF LEGAL STUDIES, FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL, WASHINGTON, DC

    Mr. Chairman, members of the Subcommittee, good afternoon. My name is Janet M. LaRue. I am senior director of legal studies for the Family Research Council (FRC) in Washington, DC(see footnote 2) Thank you for the opportunity to testify today on behalf of H.R. 4147.

    Pornography law has been my area of expertise for many years. I have lectured on the subject in numerous law enforcement conferences across the country, testified before state and local legislatures on pornography bills, and authored numerous appellate briefs that have been filed in the U.S. Supreme Court, federal circuit courts of appeal, and state appellate courts on various pornography law issues. The protection of children, families, and society in general from the serious harms of pornography, and especially obscene materials, is a top priority of FRC and my department, in particular. H.R. 4147 should be enacted into law for several reasons.

    First, I want to include my own experience from repeated exposure to Playboy magazine as a 17-year-old minor. While Playboy, as yet, does not meet the definition of obscenity, harm from soft-core pornography certainly illustrates that there is greater harm from the more hard-core material. At age 17, I began my first full-time employment as a secretary for three professional men. It became part of my work assignment to purchase the latest edition of Playboy. My employers would invite several of their professional acquaintances, including a superior court judge, to the office for martinis and Playboy; I was included. Although I was nearly an adult, I was too immature to understand how I was being desensitized and disarmed by viewing pornography month after month in the presence of adult men. One day, after too many martinis, they convinced me that I was prettier than any of the women in the magazine. One of them just happened to have a camera—they convinced me to disrobe and pose. That was a long time ago but I am still haunted by the possibility that someone still has those photos.
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    Second, more than 32 years ago, the Supreme Court recognized the harm to minors from pornography and the need for government to assist parents to protect their minor children from exposure to pornography. In Ginsberg v. New York,(see footnote 3) the Court upheld the right of the states to protect minors from pornography, defined as material harmful to minors—also known as variable obscenity, which is less explicit than hard-core obscenity. In fact, the material at issue in Ginsberg was described by the Court as ''girlie magazines.'' The Court quoted Dr. Gaylin of the Columbia University Psychoanalytic Clinic, on the views of some psychiatrists regarding the impact of pornography on children:

 It is in the period of growth [of youth] when these patterns of behavior are laid down, when environmental stimuli of all sorts must be integrated into a workable sense of self, when sensuality is being defined and fears elaborated, when pleasure confronts security and impulse encounters control—it is in this period, undramatically and with time, that legalized pornography may conceivably be damaging.

 Dr. Gaylin emphasizes that a child might not be as well prepared as an adult to make an intelligent choice as to the matter he chooses to read: [P]sychiatrists . . . made a distinction between the reading of pornography, as unlikely to be per se harmful, and the permitting of the reading of pornography, which was conceived as potentially destructive. The child is protected in his reading of pornography by the knowledge that it is pornographic, i.e. disapproved. It is outside of parental standards and not a part of his identification processes. To openly permit implies parental approval and even suggests seductive encouragement. If this is so of parental approval, it is equally so of societal approval—another potent influence on the developing ego.(see footnote 4)
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    The Court called protecting children from exposure to pornography a ''transcendent interest'' of government because it concerns ''the health, safety, welfare and morals of its community by barring the distribution to children of books recognized to be suitable for adults.''(see footnote 5) The need to protect minor children from hard-core obscenity is even more compelling and beyond serious debate.

    Third, as you know, obscenity is not protected by the Constitution because, by definition, it is a patently offensive appeal to a prurient interest in sex and has no serious literary, artistic, political, or scientific value. It is illegal to display or distribute to any person, including adults. It is the crass commercial exploitation of sex by a worldwide industry now estimated at $56 billion dollars per year,(see footnote 6) much of which is controlled by organized crime. This is an industry that exploits the lowest part of human nature and plays on those vulnerable to addiction in order to attract a new generation of customers. Minor children are no exception. Anyone who doubts that need only visit the commercial World Wide Web porn sites that flagrantly display scores of free teaser images of their product. These images include bestiality, mutilation, torture, excretory functions, orgies, and other perversions. I have copies of sample materials with me today that are available to the Subcommittee.

    In order to stop such unconscionable exploitation of minors by pornographers, Congress passed and the president signed the Child Online Protection Act (COPA) into law in 1998. Although the ''harmful to minors'' section has been temporarily enjoined by a federal district court and is pending appeal in the Third Circuit, the court specifically upheld the section of the Act that prohibits the distribution of obscene matter to minors.
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    Fourth, obscenity is a dangerous and effective tool in the hands of sexual predators. Pedophiles, whose sexual preference is for children, use the material as part of the seduction process of children. It is used to desensitize children into engaging in sexual conduct and to educate children as to the kind of sexual conduct the pedophile wants.

    Fifth, obscenity is teaching children very damaging lessons about sexual conduct and how to treat other children. In 1993, the National Council of Juvenile and Family Court Judges reported the following:

 ''Half the nation's child molesters are themselves children.''

 ''FBI statistics show the number of 10- to 17-year-olds arrested on rape charges has doubled since 1965.''

 ''Ten years ago, there were 22 treatment programs nationally for juvenile sex offenders. Today there are 755.''(see footnote 7)

    It is more than coincidental that both the 1970 and 1986 Attorney General Commissions on Pornography found that 12- to 17-year-old boys are among the highest consumer group of pornography. The dangerous effect of pornography on children was summarized by a judge in Ohio who adjudicated a case of sexual assault on children by minor boys who had viewed pornography. The judge said, ''X-rated videos are as harmful to kids as guns.''(see footnote 8)
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    Sixth, while we spend billions of dollars to promote ''safe sex,'' prevent sexual harassment, and prevent teen pregnancy, the pornography industry promotes sexual harassment and promiscuous, unhealthy sexual conduct. Pornography never shows a 16-year-old girl getting pregnant, a 17-year-old boy acquiring HIV or another sexually transmitted disease, or a girl who means no when she says no to sex.

    Finally, the federal law, and in particular, the statutes that prohibit child sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of minors, and child stalking define a minor as a person under the age of 18. 18 U.S.C. §1470, which H.R. 4147 would amend, should be no exception. It must be amended to increase the age from 16 to 18 years of age in order to provide a harsher sentence for those who knowingly transfer obscene matter to a person known to be a minor. There is no rational or legal justification for providing the same sentence to those who exploit 16- and 17-year-olds as that given to those who transfer such matter to adults. Indeed, the need is greater than ever to send a strong message of deterrence to those who traffic in obscene matter to avoid exposing their toxic waste to the nation's children. H.R. 4147 will help to do that. Our children and grandchildren—from birth to age 18—deserve no less.

    Thank you. I would be glad to answer any questions.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Professor Zimring.

STATEMENT OF FRANKLIN ZIMRING, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CA

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    Mr. ZIMRING. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am not here so that you folks can hear my views or my values. I think I have been solicited as a technical expert on the Federal criminal law. I will be submitting for inclusion into the record a brief article Gordon Hawkins and I wrote in the Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science on Federal Jurisdiction. What I would like to do with 5 minutes now is read only two paragraphs of my statement and a brief box score on the detailed policy analysis that has been submitted to the members of this committee; and then if there are questions about the specifics of that policy analysis, we can come back to it.

    The four bills that are before you are prime examples of the legislative frustration that is generated by limited Federal criminal jurisdiction. Federal criminal justice accounts for about 7 percent of all the prisoners in the United States; and a much smaller percentage of violent and sex crime prosecutions, probably less than 1 percent of nonbank robbery violence and sex crimes; and that means that House members wish to denounce crime and also want to take steps to make our communities safer, but it turns out that symbolic gestures are an awful lot easier to find than measures with a strong preventive potential.

    In my view, all four of the proposals that are before this committee have very strong symbolic value in that they make a stand against crime, but none of the group of proposals before the committee is a promising method of legislating public safety. The four proposals you have use four completely different strategies to get around this frustration of limited Federal criminal justice impact. One tries to use the financial carrot. That is House bill 894. Another, 4045, looks at Federal offenders only. A third, 4047 looks at only Federal offenders but will take account of prior State records as well. And 4147 is about one of the very few Federal criminal laws, the obscenity law, where there are really case volumes that overlap somewhat with some kinds of child victims.
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    My box score on House bill 894 is that its probable impact is going to be zero because the cost of the fine to a particular State is a very small fraction of the cost of mandatory life without possibility of parole sentences for the long laundry list of crimes which are covered. The maximum fine is $100,000 transferred to the victim plus the actual cost of confinement and case processing. That is only about a $100,000 more than the case would have cost with an LWOP in the original State, but that $100,000 happens only if it's in an interstate case; and that is only if after release there is a prosecution for a series of very, very low volume crimes. And what that means is that we are talking about 1 to 3 percent of the cost of the sentencing change being the cost of the fine.

    But that is good news because I am hoping that House bill 894 if passed has a zero impact because if it did push its long list of covered crimes into the life-without-possibility-of-parole category, it would produce substantial sentencing disparity because the one costless way you can plea bargain your way out of any liability under 894 is to go to a lesser felony or misdemeanor charge than the ones that are denominated in the specific legislation; then any release is costless to the State no matter what heinous crime is committed after release, so that what you are going to get is a few people that get life without possibility of parole and many that get convicted on a reduced charge and early release but do not risk any financial punishment to the States.

    There is also a problem if you do have a life-without-possibility-of-parole threat that is credible for child kidnapping and sexual abuse or for raping and kidnapping, and that is that once you are threatening that base penalty, there is very little extra incentive to keep the victim alive when the victim is a potentially damaging identifying witness as is the case in most sexual predation crimes.
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    So if the floor is life without possibility of parole, there is not much more we can use as an incentive; and that means that a successful version of 894 might very well end up costing victims' lives as well as perhaps saving some.

    Now, as to my box score on House bill 4045, I don't know what kinds of cases or how many are going to be covered; and I am not alone in that, because House bill 4045 is a tremendous shot in the dark. Nobody on the sentencing commission knows what kinds of cases will come before Federal criminal jurisdiction under this rubric.

    We know that the statute covers violence against kids under 13, but we don't know what those cases are in current Federal criminal jurisdiction. My suspicion is that because you are dealing not with sexuality here but violence, that most of these are going to be crimes within the family and most of them are going to be in the Indian nation jurisdictional rubric; but it seems to me that, before you do anything more on 4045, 5 step jumps in the sentencing guidelines or whatever, there is a good deal of homework that needs to be done that hasn't been done. So I plead ignorance here on this bill, but ignorance seems to be a universal characteristic.

    On House bill 4047, the second offense sex offender life provision, I not only don't know how many cases come before Federal jurisdiction that meet these criteria, I genuinely don't know whether any cases in an average year would; and that means, well, after all if there are no cases, at least it won't be very expensive to implement. But the point is, again, if there are going to be any cases, it will probably be an Indian or military jurisdiction. These are things that it seems to me we have to know and under those circumstances, I guess the major problem that I have with 4047 is the problem of false advertising, that it says it is cracking down on a group of sex offenders, few or any of whom actually are within Federal jurisdiction.
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    House bill 4147 can, in fact, produce a fair number of cases in the Federal system because obscenity prosecution is one area where the Federal Government because of commerce and the Internet is involved in obscenity prosecutions. The only problem is that among the people who would be prosecuted in the Federal crime area there won't be any provable violent sex offenders because under those circumstances the first thing the U.S. Attorney is going to do with that offender is give him to the State where he can be sent away for a long time rather than for a 10-year penalty under the obscenity bill.

    There will be longer sentences avaliable for all the violent sexual offenders in State criminal justice, so the fact you might have zero violent predators in Federal Court under 4147 would be an advantage to the total criminal justice processing of the violent offenders. Who is left then for prosecution under 4147? Again, I don't know. I would love to find out. I think that the way to make this bill far less objectionable would be to build in a 5-year age difference between victim and offender to justify the assumption of predation that is the reason why special penalties are called for because of the youth of the victim even when the victim is 16 or 17. So I think that there is a technical amendment that can make 4147 a better law. What it can't make 4147 is a meaningful way of responding to the violent sexual predation against children in the United States, and there I am afraid we are all in the hands of State and local government.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you Professor Zimring.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Zimring follows:]

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PREPARED STATEMENT OF FRANKLIN ZIMRING, PROFESSOR OF LAW, UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CA

    The bills before this Committee are prime examples of the legislative frustration generated by limited federal criminal jurisdiction. Federal criminal justice accounts for about 7% of all prisoners and a much smaller percentage of violent and sex crime prosecution. House members wish to denounce crime and also take steps to reduce it, but symbolic gestures are easier to find than measures with strong preventive potential. None of the group of proposals before the Committee today is a promising method of legislating public safety.

    The four proposals before the Committee create four different strategies to use federal law as an adjunct to crime control. But each strategy is a journey into the unknown, and there is also a potential for harmful impacts in many of the proposals. Legislative action on any of these bills would be premature.

    House Bill 894 tries to encourage states to punish murder, rape and sex offenses against children with a minimum of life without possibility of parole. The bill would achieve this by deducting from federal law enforcement assistance grants to states that release offenders if a recidivist is reconvicted of murder, rape or sexual assault on a child in another state. We have no idea how many such reconviction cases occur in the United States, or how many of these involve multiple states. (There are no payments to victims where a subsequent crime occurs in the state that released the offender). The monetary costs per case are modest and thus the impact of the bill on state sanctions would probably be minimal, which is just as well.

    There are several problems with the aim of HB 894, including the fact that offenses such as second degree murder and non-aggravated rape would not merit a Life Without Parole sentence on grounds of penal proportionality. To punish lessor grades of murder with the same penalty now exclusively reserved for aggravated first degree murder seems questionable on grounds of morally deserved punishment. To punish non-fatal crimes such as rape and child molestation with a penalty reserved for the highest grade of murder seems indiscriminating.
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    It might also be dangerous. If the bill actually provoked Life Without Parole penalties in the states, and if offenders are highly sensitive to deterrent threats at the margin, a rapist or child sex offender would have little further to lose by eliminating the victim who is often an important witness against the offender. If my child or daughter-in-law were under the physical control of a sexual predator, I would worry about the law's lack of room for incentives to keep the victim alive. Such incentives are probably more important in situations of prolonged physical control of victims, but such kidnapings are not uncommon.

    The other major problem with HB 894 is the perverse incentive it provides by encouraging convictions for reduced charges. All a state need do to avoid any eventual liability under the bill is convict of a reduced charge—voluntary manslaughter is one example. If this bill were enacted, the high mandatory penalties it demands would create incentives for plea bargains to lessor charges for many if not most defendants. The net effect would be to increase the disparity of punishment between the few convicted of the top charge and the many who would be plea bargained to lessor charges. The result would be the opposite of truth in sentencing and objectionable for the dishonesty as well as the disparity it encourages.

    House Bill 4045 hopes to enhance the penalties for those convicted of violence against children under thirteen in federal criminal law. Its means are direct: a five-step enhancement in sentencing guidelines if one of the crime victims is a child under thirteen. The problem with direct use of federal criminal law in this way is the tiny and unrepresentative sample of violence against children that is within the jurisdictional boundaries of federal criminal justice. How many cases of such crimes were there last year in the United States in federal courts? What percentage of these were crimes within the family? What percentage of the total were Native American? Miliary? What would have been the impact of five-step jumps on the case sentences last year or the year before in the federal courts?
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    The first step in the career of any legislation that seeks to restructure the sentencing guidelines should be a study by the Sentencing Commission of the type and volume of cases that will be covered, and the type of impact any such new enhancements would produce on actual sentences. We do know that only a tiny percentage of violence against children comes to federal courts. We have reason to worry about ignorant interference with sentencing guidelines. But if the Committee thinks the approach of HB 4045 has promise, it would be legislative malpractice to do anything other than gather basic data on the federal share of child violence cases, the current disposition of such cases, and the likely impact of enhancements of the magnitude provided in this bill.

    The target of House Bill 4047 is repeat offenders who commit sex crimes against children and are convicted of such a crime in federal court. Upon proof of a previous conviction for a sex offense against a person under eighteen involving conduct that would constitute a federal sex crime had there been federal jurisdiction, the sentence for the federal sex crime would be life. Unlike HB 4045, HB 4047 is targeted at sex offenses. It also has a much older cut-off date for the end of special victim status: the eighteenth birthday instead of the thirteenth birthday. While the number of HB 4045 offenses is both tiny and unrepresentative of child violence offenders, the number of HB 4047 offenders will be tinier still. In the first four years of federal three strikes, there were thirty-five special convictions. Here there might be none or a very few. I do not know what kind of cases or offenders will meet this standard in the federal system, but I suspect the Indian country jurisdictional rubric will account for the majority.

    Here are two things that we do not know about the subjects of HB 4047. How many offenders come before the federal courts who meet its criteria? What sentences do those offenders receive, and for what specific offenses? The sponsor of this legislation should seek the answers to these questions. But here is one thing we do know: this bill will have no impact on the lives of 99% of all American children who are at risk of sexual predation.
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    The fourth bill before this Committee, House Bill 4147, concerns the age at which child status should end for the purpose of a special criminal law prohibiting the transporting of obscene materials to minors. The bill is in this collection, presumably, because its author believes there is some linkage between the transportation of prohibited sexual materials to sixteen- and seventeen-year-old subjects and their victimization in sexual crime. The extension of child status to ages sixteen and seventeen involves assumptions of inability to consent that are more problematic for older teens than for twelve- and thirteen-year-olds. Further, many of the persons who supply obscene materials to sixteen- and seventeen-year-olds are close in age to the transferees. This statute, unlike the definition of Dangerous Sexual Offense in HB 894, does not require any age difference between victim and offender on which to base an assumption of predation.

    But the major problem with HB 4147 is the questionable link between the subject of the law and the danger of predatory sexual crime against the young. There is no reason to believe that HB 4147 will have any impact on the sexual abuse of American kids. The gravest danger of the proposal would be imagining that passing such a law is a real response to a serious problem. That type of legislative fantasy is not good for our children's well-being.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Dr. Haugaard.

STATEMENT OF JEFFREY HAUGAARD, Ph.D., HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK

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    Mr. HAUGAARD. Good evening. I guess we are all the way to good evening.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. If it is after 5:00, good evening I guess it is.

    Mr. HAUGAARD. Chairman McCollum, ranking member Scott, I appreciate the invitation to this hearing. If today is a typical day in the United States, four children, usually quite young, will be beaten or starved to death usually by their parents or other caregivers. Four children will be beaten or starved to death tomorrow, the next day, and so on every day of this year. When I hear on the news of a child who has been abducted, raped, and murdered, my heart goes out to the child and his or her family and friends. However, when I hear these reports, I also stop to think about the other four children who will die on that day and who will not be noticed by many people at all.

    While certain aspects of the bills before this committee may provoke debate, it is important to understand that most of them will have little or no influence on the vast majority of children who are sexually and physically abused in this country. Most children who are physically abused are abused by a parent or other caretaker. Most children who are sexually abused are abused by an adult who they know. Those who are abused by people who are already convicted of child abuse or child rape are a small percentage of the children who are physically or sexually abused in this country every year.

    I was asked to comment on the prevention of child abuse. To design effective prevention efforts for any problem, an understanding of the development of that problem must be reached. Effective prevention efforts also require that the complexity of the development of a problem be recognized. No problem behavior can be unraveled with a single explanation, and preventive efforts based on simplistic views of the development of a problem are doomed to failure.
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    We are better at preventing the physical abuse of children than the sexual abuse of children because we have a clearer understanding of how physical abuse develops. We know, for example, that most physically abusive parents are highly stressed and that many have limited knowledge of child development or of how to parent their children effectively. Our knowledge of the development of child physical abuse has led to programs to reduce parent stress or provide ways for them to redirect the outcome of the stress they feel and increase parents' knowledge about child development and parenting skills.

    Many of these program programs have been effective. Two examples are a program in the Norfolk area of Virginia provided a 12-week course on parenting to 125 unmarried low-income teenage mothers. Five years later, 2 percent of the mothers in the program had been reported for child abuse or negligence compared with 8 percent of a group of mothers who had not been in the program. A 15-year follow up of a program in Elmira, New York, showed that mothers who were visited by a home nurse during their pregnancy and periodically for 2 years after their birth were less likely to have a child with a substantiated case of child abuse or negligence. Further, an analysis of welfare medical and criminal justice costs showed that those with home visits used about 19,000 fewer governmental dollars per family than the others.

    As I have already noted, we know less about what the developmental pathways of those who sexually abuse children take. Because of this lack of knowledge, almost all of our efforts to prevent sexual abuse have been aimed at children. They vary widely in their methods and their intended audience. Some involve one presentation focused on avoiding sexual abuse, and others are presented as part of a multipresentation personal safety curriculum.

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    Most evaluations of these programs show a short-lived increase in knowledge about sexual abuse and how to avoid being abused. Programs involving several sessions and those that have the children practice the skills that they learn show the greatest knowledge increase. However, programs have not been able to provide evidence that children's behavior has been changed or that their ability to fend off a sexual abuse attempt has been enhanced. For example, in one study, 22 children who had been sexually abused by a school employee despite having participated in a one-presentation sexual abuse prevention program at their school had been unable to employ the few strategies from the presentation that they remembered while they were in the abusive situation.

    In an evaluation of personal safety programs, 2,000 children and adolescents from across the country were surveyed. Those who had participated in a comprehensive personal safety program had slightly higher knowledge about sexual abuse than those who had not participated in a prevention program. Forty percent of the respondents said that information from their program had helped them avoid fights with peers or avoid suspicious strangers. Fourteen percent said that the program had prompted them to tell an adult about something. However, those in comprehensive programs were not able to thwart victimization attempts more effectively than others, and those in comprehensive programs reported more injuries while trying to thwart sexual abuse than those who had not taken a program.

    In summary, I can report that programs that effectively reduce physical abuse and neglect have been implemented in locales across the country. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for programs to prevent child sexual abuse. The lack of successful sexual abuse prevention programs is due to a lack of basic knowledge about the development of sexual abuse and sexual abusers.
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    Federal and State agencies and private foundations have funded little basic research in this area, and thus we have no foundation of knowledge on which to support effective sexual abuse prevention. If we as a country want to prevent sexual abuse of children, rather than simply resorting to punishing those who have already traumatized many children, we must begin to develop a more comprehensive knowledge base about sexual abuse. Thank you very much.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Dr. Haugaard.

    [The prepared statement of Mr. Haugaard follows:]

PREPARED STATEMENT OF JEFFREY HAUGAARD, PH.D., HUMAN DEVELOPMENT AND FAMILY STUDIES, CORNELL UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK

    Good afternoon. Chairman McCollum, Ranking Member Scott, I appreciate the invitation to this hearing.

    If today is a typical day in the United States, four children, usually quite young, will be beaten or starved to death, usually by their parents or other caregivers. Four children will be beaten or started to death tomorrow, four the next day, and so on for every day of the year (US Dept. of Health and Human Services, 1999). When I hear on the news of a child who has been abducted, raped, and murdered, my heart goes out to the child, and his or her family and friends. I have the same feelings when I hear of a school shooting that takes the lives of children or adults. However, when I hear these reports, I also stop to think about the four other children who will die on that day.
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    While certain aspects of some of the bills before this committee may provoke debate—such as whether juries would be less likely to convict those accused of exhibitionism or fondling a child if the penalty for these acts were life imprisonment, or whether it is appropriate to give states financial incentives to convict certain people of crimes against children rather than others—it is important to understand that these bills will have little or no influence on the vast majority of children who are sexually and physically abused in this country.

    Most children who are physically abused, are abused by a parent or other caretaker. Most children who are sexually abused are abused by an adult who they know (Russell, 1983; Sedlak, & Broadhurst, 1996; Seigel, Sorenson, Golding, Burnham, & Stein, 1987; Wyatt, 1985). Those who are abused by people who have already been convicted of child abuse or child rape are a small percentage of the children who are physically or sexually abused in this country every year. Of course, even one child being abused by a convicted offender is too many—and we should work to reduce the number of children who have these terrible experiences to zero. Even by reducing the number of children with these experiences to zero, however, we would only be reducing the total number of abused children by a small percent.

    I was asked primarily to address the issue of the prevention of child abuse—to describe the types of prevention efforts that we know work. Our successes in preventing child abuse appear mostly in the area of physical abuse. We tend to know more about what does not work in the area of preventing child sexual abuse than we know about what does work.

    To design effective prevention efforts for any problem, an understanding of the development of that problem must be reached. For example, effective preventive efforts for suicide are based on an understanding of how suicidal behavior develops (Haugaard, 2000). As another example, we are not good at preventing eating disorders because we have only a rudimentary knowledge of how they develop (e.g., Killen, Taylor, Hammer, & Litt, 1993.
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    Effective prevention efforts also require that the complexity of the development of a problem be recognized. No problem behavior can be unraveled with a single explanation. Most efforts to prevent teenage pregnancies or sexual assaults by adolescents have been ineffective because they do not take into account the many pathways that lead teenagers to engage in consensual or aggressive sex (Haugaard, 2000). Prevention efforts that might reduce the frequency of sexual intercourse by teenagers who have taken a certain pathway to sexual intercourse may have no influence on teenagers who have arrived at sexual intercourse through other pathways. The same is true for child abuse—many pathways lead adults to abuse children. We must understand these multiple pathways and design preventive interventions to address them individually.

    We are better at preventing the physical abuse of children than the sexual abuse of children, because we have a clearer understanding of how physical abuse develops (Olsen & Widom, 1993; Wolfe, 1985). We know, for example, that most physically abusive parents are highly stressed—often because of their financial situation, but also because of living in grim environments or with abusive spouses (e.g., Egeland, Breitenbucher, & Rosenberg, 1980; Straus, Gelles, & Steinmetz, 1980). We also know that many physically abusive parents have limited knowledge of child development or of how to parent their children effectively (e.g., Lahey, Conger, Atkeson, & Treiber, 1984). For example, parents who believe that 2-year- olds can stop crying when told to do so may see a child's inability to stop crying as intentional disrespect and react in an aggressive way. Similarly, parents who were raised in a family where corporal punishment was the only discipline used, may only be able to hit their children when trying to enforce discipline—and will have to hit their children harder and harder as they grow—often to the point where they are inflicting bruises and other wounds on them. There are other pathways besides these that can lead adults to become abusive—for example, some adults are brutes and enjoy inflicting pain on others, and children make easy targets. We know, however, that these people represent only a small percentage of those who abuse children (Milner, 1998).
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    Our knowledge of the development of child physical abuse has led to programs designed to prevent physical abuse in two primary ways (a) reducing parents' stress or providing ways for them to redirect the outcome of the stress they feel, and (b) increasing parents' knowledge about child development and parenting skills. In addition, our knowledge of the development of physical abuse has led to our ability to target prevention programs to certain groups—such as teenage mothers or mothers living in chaotic environments.

    Some of these programs have shown a reduction in child abuse and neglect. A program in the Norfolk area of Virginia provided a 12-week course on parenting to 125 recent unmarried, low-income, teenage mothers, who had few sources of emotional or financial support (Britner & Reppucci, 1997). Five years later, reports to the state's central registry for reported cases of child abuse were examined. Two percent of the mothers in the program had been reported for child abuse or neglect, compared with 8% of a group of similar teenage mothers from the same area who had not been enrolled in the program. A 15-year follow-up of a program in Elmira, New York, showed that mothers who were visited by a home nurse during their pregnancy and periodically for two years after their birth were less likely to have a child with a substantiated case of child abuse or neglect, either by the mother or the mother's partner (Olds et al., 1997). The positive effect of the program was more pronounced for low-income mothers than for moderate-income mothers. Further, an analysis of the welfare, medical, and criminal justice costs incurred by the families with home visits and those without showed that those with home visits used about 25,000 fewer governmental dollars than those without home visits—with the average cost of the home visits being about $6,000, resulting in a net reduction in governmental spending over a 5-year period of about $19,000 per family (see Appendix 1, Karoly et al., 1998). Other reports from several communities throughout Virginia showed that mothers enrolled in local programs to reduce their stress, increase their feelings of self-esteem, and increase their parenting skills believed that these programs had important influences on their abilities to deal with their children in nonviolent and effective ways (Reppucci & Haugaard, 1991).
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    As I have already noted, we know less about the developmental pathways that those who sexually abuse children take—other than that most abusers are men (Reppucci, Land, & Haugaard, 1998). We know that many of them were sexually abused as children (Milner, 1998), but that only a minority of children who are sexually abused go on to abuse others (Kaufman & Zigler, 1987). Many motivations for sexually abusing children have been identified. Clinical reports show that some men experience a very strong drive to have sexual contact with children, a drive that often does not seem to be diminished by a targeted child trying to resist being abused once the abuse begins or by subsequent incarceration (Elliott, Browne, & Kilcoyne, 1995). Reports of father-daughter sexual abuse show that dominance over their children or an emotional and physical attraction to their child motivates many fathers (Giarretto, 1978; Haugaard & Samwel, 1992). Sibling abuse is often associated with chaotic, sexualized families, or families where older siblings have been the target of physical or sexual abuse (Rudd & Herzberger, 1999).

    Because of our lack of knowledge about the development of sexually abusive behaviors, and because we have not identified characteristics of sexual abusers that could be used to identify groups of adults who would be the best recipients for preventive efforts, almost all efforts to prevent sexual abuse have been aimed at children (Reppucci et al., 1998). About 2/3 of school children in this country recall attending a sexual abuse prevention program in their school (Finkelhor & Dziuba-Letherman, 1995).

    Programs to prevent sexual abuse vary widely in methods and their intended audiences. Some involve one presentation focused on avoiding sexual abuse and others are presented as part of a multi- presentation, personal safety curriculum. Most programs are designed for school-age children, although a few programs target children as young as three years. Unfortunately, few of these programs were assessed for effectiveness before being presented to children (Roberts, Alexander, & Fanurik, 1990).
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    Some evaluations of these programs have taken place. Most evaluations show a short-lived and small increase in knowledge about sexual abuse and how to avoid being abused, but provide no evidence that children's behavior has been changed, or that their ability to fend off a sexual abuse attempt has been enhanced (Reppucci et al., 1998). Programs delivered to young children, and programs that comprise only one or two presentations are not effective. For example, researchers interviewed 22 6- to 10-year old children who had been sexually abused by a school employee, despite having participated in a one- presentation sexual abuse prevention program at their school, and found that the children were unable to employ the few strategies from the movie that they remembered while in the abusive situation (Pelcovitz, Adler, Kaplan, Packman, & Krieger, 1992). (For additional reviews, see Berrick & Barth, 1992; Kolko, 1988; Reppucci & Haugaard, 1989; Wurtele, 1987; Wurtele & Miller-Perrin, 1992).

    Finkelhor and his colleagues (Finkelhor, Asdigian, & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1995; Finkelhor & Dziuba-Leatherman, 1995) conducted a phone survey of 2000 children and adolescents from across the country. Those who had participated in a more comprehensive personal safety program had slightly higher knowledge about sexual abuse than those who had not participated in a prevention program. Forty percent of the respondents said that information from their program had helped them avoid fights with peers or avoid suspicious strangers; 14% said that the program had prompted them to tell an adult about something. Children who had participated in more comprehensive programs used a higher number of effective strategies when in a situation where they might have been victimized than those not in a comprehensive program. However, those in comprehensive programs were not able to thwart victimization attempts more effectively than others, and those in comprehensive programs reported more injuries while trying to thwart sexual abuse than those not in a program.
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    In summary, I can report that programs that effectively reduce physical abuse and neglect have been implemented in locales across the country. Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for programs to prevent child sexual abuse. The lack of successful sexual abuse prevention programs is due to a lack of basic knowledge about the development of sexual abuse and sexual abusers. Federal and state agencies, and private foundations, have funded little basic research in this area—and thus we have no foundation of knowledge on which to support effective sexual abuse prevention. If we, as a country, want to prevent sexual abuse of children, rather than only resorting to punishing those who have already traumatized many children, we must being to develop a more comprehensive knowledge base about sexual abuse.

    Thank you very much.

REFERENCES

Berrick, J.D., & Barth, R.P. (1992). Child sexual abuse prevention: Research review and recommendations. Social Work Research and Abstracts, 28, 6–15.

Britner, P.A., & Reppucci, N.D. (1997). Prevention of child maltreatment: Evaluation of a parent education program for teen mothers. Journal of Child and Family Studies, 6, 165–175.

Egeland, B., Breitenbucher, M., & Rosenberg, D. (1980). Prospective study of the significance of life stress in the etiology of child abuse. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 48, 194–205.
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Elliott, M., Browne, K., & Kilcoyne, J. (1995). Child sexual abuse prevention: What offenders tell us. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 579–594.

Finkelhor, D., Asdigian, N., & Dziuba-Leatherman, J. (1995). The effectiveness of victimization prevention instruction: An evaluation of children's responses to actual threats and assaults. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 137–149.

Finkelhor, D., & Dziuba-Leatherman, J. (1995). Victimization prevention programs: A national survey of children's exposure and reactions. Child Abuse & Neglect, 19, 125–135.

Giarretto, H. (1978). Humanistic treatment of father-daughter incest. Journal of Humanistic Psychology, 18, 59–76.

Haugaard, J. (2000). Problematic behaviors during adolescence. Boston: McGraw-Hill.

Haugaard, J., & Samwel, C. (1992). Legal and therapeutic interventions with incestuous families. International Journal of Medicine and the Law, 11, 469–484.

Karoly, L.A., et al. (1998). Investing in our children: What we know and don't know about the costs and benefits of early childhood interventions. Santa Monica, CA: RAND.

Kaufman, J., & Zigler, E. (1987). Do abused children become abusive parents? American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 57, 186–192.

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Killen, J., Taylor, C.B., Hammer, L.D., & Litt, J. (1993). An attempt to modify unhealthy eating attitudes and weight reduction practices of young adolescent girls. International Journal of Eating Disorders, 13, 369–384.

Kolko, D. (1988). Education programs to promote awareness and prevention of child sexual victimization. Clinical Psychology Review, 8, 195–209.

Lahey, B.B., Conger, R.D., Atkeson, B., & Treiber, F. (1984). Parenting behavior and emotional status of physically abusive mothers. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 52, 1062–1071.

Milner, J. (1998). Individual and family characteristics associated with intrafamilial child physical and sexual abuse. In P. Trickett, & C. Schellenbach (Eds.), Violence against children in the family and community (pp. 141–170). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Olds, D., et al. (1997). Long-term effects of home visitation on maternal life course and child abuse and neglect. JAMA., 278, 637–643.

Olsen, J.L., & Widom, C.S. (1993). Prevention of child abuse and neglect. Applied and Preventive Psychology, 2, 217–229.

Pelcovitz, D., Adler, N.A., Kaplan, S., Packman, L., & Krieger, R. (1992). The failure of a school-based child sexual abuse prevention program. Journal of the American Academic of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 31, 887–892.
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Reppucci, N.D. & Haugaard, J.J. (1989). The prevention of child sexual abuse: Myth or reality? American Psychologist, 44, 1266–1275.

Reppucci, N.D., & Haugaard, J.J. (1991). Prevention in community mental health practice. Boston: Brookline.

Reppucci, N.D., Land, D., & Haugaard, J. (1998). Child sexual abuse prevention programs that target young children. In P. Trickett, & C. Schellenbach (Eds.), Violence against children in the family and community (pp. 317–338). Washington, DC: American Psychological Association.

Roberts, M.C., Alexander, K., & Fanurik, D. (1990). Evaluation of commercially available materials to prevent child sexual abuse and abduction. American Psychologist, 45, 782–783.

Rudd, J.M., & Herzberger, S.D. (1999). Brother-sister incest—father-daughter incest: A comparison on of characteristics and consequences. Child Abuse & Neglect, 9, 915–928.

Russell, D. (1983). The incidence and prevalence of intrafamial and extrafamilial sexual abuse of female children. Child Abuse & Neglect, 7, 133–146.

Sedlak, A J., & Broadhurst, D.D. (1996). Thirst national incidence study of hcild abuse and neglect. Washington, DC: US Department of Health and Human Services.

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Siegel, J.M., Sorenson, S.G., Golding, J.M., Burnam, M. & Stein, J. (1987). The prevalence of childhood sexual abuse. American Journal of Epidemiology, 126, 1141–1153.

Straus, M., Gelles, R., & Steinmetz, S. (1980). Behind closed doors: Violence in the American family. New York: Doubleday.

US Dept. of Health and Human Services. (1999). Child Maltreatment 1997: Reports from the states to the National Child Abuse and Neglect Data System. Washington, DC: US Government Printing Office.

Wolfe, D. (1985). Child abusive parents: An empirical review and analysis. Psychological Bulletin,m 97, 462–482.

Wurtele, S. (1987). School-based sexual abuse prevention programs: A review. Child Abuse & Neglect, 11, 483–495.

Wurtele, S., & Miller-Perrin, C. (1992). Preventing child sexual abuse: Sharing the responsibility. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press.

Wyatt, G. (1985). The sexual abuse of Afro-American and White-American women in childhood. Child Abuse & Neglect, 9, 507–519.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I will yield myself 5 minutes to ask some questions of the panel. I want to start out by commenting that as several others have said, I certainly think there are wide differing concerns with respect to what this panel is addressing. And various concerns about preventing abuse I share, and I certainly am sympathetic with those; but I do and I also want to say that, Professor Zimring, that some of your criticism is constructive, and we appreciate that; but I do differ on several matters in my own thinking.
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    One is that as the chairman of this committee, I have seen, to my way of thinking, sufficient empirical evidence that I am convinced that the truth-in-sentencing laws that are really meaningful that take violent criminals off the streets and require them to serve at least 85 percent of their sentences without parole are indeed one of the most significant factors in the dramatic decline of violent crime in this country since they do and have reduced the revolving door. And those it turns out that do commit those violent crimes most often are repeat offenders, the ones that we read about in the newspapers every day. That might be a relatively small fraction of crime. It is certainly a dramatic group, and I do take issue with you on that.

    Mr. ZIMRING. Excuse me, Mr. Chairman. Any remarks that I made today to that effect?

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I thought you were indicating that you did not think that locking people up in that——

    Mr. ZIMRING. No, sir. I was talking about the deterrent impact of 894 and simply indicating that that was a way, unfortunately, that when you threaten as your base penalty life without possibility of parole, that leaves little additional sanction available if an offender kills a victim. I have written a book on incapacitation, but I had no testimony on incapacitation and its linkage to crime reduction here. I will be very happy to submit some materials to the committee.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Perhaps I misunderstood your point, but I certainly do think that incapacitation is a significant factor; and I really think that is what Mrs. Willard and Mr. Goldman and Mr. Klaas, particularly, were concerned about; and I can understand that, considering the nature of the victims and the crimes they particularly have sadly experienced. I would like to, however, turn this over in a constructive way to the three of them, in particular, at this point.
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    One of the things that Mr. Lawlor pointed out, or suggested, here is somewhat along the track that Mr. Salmon, Congressman Salmon, I think has offered on the floor and suggested to the committee and that is perhaps some degree perhaps more modest than Mr. Lawlor wants we should make the bill, Aimee's Law, contingent, the penalties in it, on some action or lack there of the day after the enactment of law in terms of States changing their laws with regard to the offenses involved, particularly with regard to passing a truth-in-sentencing law, 27 States have and the rest haven't, passing laws that perhaps are similar to what we want to see accomplished here in life sentences for those who commit these crimes.

    Do any of you have thoughts about—objections to that if we moved in the direction that perhaps made the effective penalties in the proposed law contingent effective date after enactment and not for those that preceded with crimes that have already been committed? What are your thoughts, Mr. Klaas?

    Mr. KLAAS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I just think—it is another example of nobody having to be responsible for crimes that have been committed for mistakes that have been made. Mr. Lawlor says that until recent years in the State of Connecticut violent offenders were spending 10 percent of their time behind bars, I believe; and these people get back out on the streets and what do they do? They maybe go some place and commit another crime. Should not the State of Connecticut be held somewhat responsible for the fact that that killer might still be on the street? The numbers that Mr. Salmon was reviewing for us regarding the sentences that these people are getting now, those have risen significantly from the first time that we were engaged in this issue in truth and sentencing. Then the average child molester was spending under 2 1/2 years in prison. Now it is up to 4.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It should be a lot more. A whole lot more.

    Mr. KLAAS. A heck of a lot more, yes, sir. But if one doesn't want to grandfather these in and one doesn't want to make States to be held responsible for these mistakes from the past, then some very poor legislators are going to get off the hook for some horrible crimes that have been committed in this country. If that is the way one has to go to get this done, then maybe that is the way one has to go. But I think the Congress spoke with a lot of—spoke very well in their original vote on Aimee's Law. I hate to see it changed, personally.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. That's why I asked the question. We haven't moved in that direction. Mr. Salmon suggested some modification. I don't know what all he has in mind. He is not here to say today. Mr. Goldman.

    Mr. GOLDMAN. In my mind, the violent felon today that might be in jail for either any one of these three primary crimes, rape, child molestation or murder, is no less violent today than he was yesterday or the day before. To suggest that if the felon is in jail today and the law goes into passage tomorrow, therefore lets let him out, we are right back to the exact same thing we continue to deal with every single time we release one of these people. We know full well that the likelihood is they will recommit a crime. And to allow these people back out on the street knowing that, is very unacceptable to me as a parent, a step-parent, and a citizen.

    These people being the minority of, to say the least, the minority of our country, 3 percent or there abouts, as far as I am concerned, we, the 97 percent, should never be put at risk because of their presence back out on our streets; and to do that is just guaranteeing another family a loss or a life shattered. That is something that we should never be willing to do. And to suggest that it costs money to keep them in jail is just putting a price tag on a victim; and as far as I am concerned, if the law goes in effect tomorrow, we can keep every single one of them in jail until the end of their sentence.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Certainly I share your wishes that we could do that. I am just looking at this probatively, so thank you.

    Mr. GOLDMAN. I understand that.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mrs. Willard, you have any thoughts you want to share with us on the question of whether this law should be effective, as I think Mr. Lawlor suggested perhaps only prospectively or with regard to those who are already in jail at the time in States that haven't changed their laws?

    Ms. WILLARD. If the States have their laws in effect already and their parole systems are strong, then they have rehabilitated their criminals. When they release them, we are just asking them if you've taken a person that is in prison and put them through all your reforms that your State has in process; they have served all their time and you as a group, the parole system, feels that this person is rehabilitated; that we have done everything we can, he is going to be a good citizen we are going to leave him out he is going to upheld the law, that would be wonderful.

    But in our case and in many cases, the victim goes right back out and commits a crime within several years. Maybe not right away, but within several years. There is no accountability. The State does not have to be accountable for its action. It has its parole system, but who is guarding the parole system? No one. No one is going back and saying I can't go back to Nevada. They had the legislators in that were in command when Arthur Bomar was in the State. Not one of them will answer your questions, not one of them.
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    And Pennsylvania, not one person has answered any questions about our parole system. I think if we can just take a start—it is not going to cure all the problems. It is not meant to cure all the problems. It is to make everyone stop and look. This is our State like the State of Pennsylvania. These are our prisoners. This is our parole system. If we can with all consciousness say this prisoner who committed this crime has gone through our program, he served his sentence and we have reformed him—I would like for anyone that has murdered to stay in prison for life with no hope of parole. And I know that is not realistic, but if he can stay in prison for what he is sentenced for.

    If you are sentenced for life and you only serve 12 years, is that really your life? When it comes to money, I think Aimee Willard's life has no price tag; and everybody wants to put a price tag on every prisoner that we have to spend so many dollars on to feed and clothe. Well, Arthur Bomar now has 25 years that we are going to support him in his appeals for 25 years. I have to see the man that killed Aimee, and I have to face him at every one of his parole hearings, at every one of his appeals. That is a great cost also.

    But Aimee Willard's life, she could be in Virginia right now. She could be one of your leaders in your State. That is where she went to school. The majority of people that graduate from college stay in the State, go on to be leading citizens. Aimee was a model for your State of Virginia. Just go and ask anyone at the University of Virginia, at James Madison, at George Mason. Any student who came in contact with Aimee Willard can come up to you and can say that child belongs to be alive. There is no reason for her death. And had the State of Nevada just kept this man in prison for life, Aimee Willard would be alive, and there is also a question of his other murders. He is being looked at for many, many things.
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    We are just making a start. This is a start. If we can have people here in Washington just say to the States, look at your parole systems. If a person that you paroled today that has murdered came in contact with your daughter, how would you feel if he murdered her?

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Ms. Willard, I would feel the same way you do; and I feel the same way. Even though that hasn't, fortunately, happened to my children, I want you to know that as chairman I strongly support all four of these bills without watering them down at all; but we do have a process, and I am going to yield to Mr. Scott.

    Mr. SCOTT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. We have—I have been in Congress almost 8 years now; and during that time I have worked hard the best I can to try to reduce crime and tried to reduce the chances that other families would have to go through what the families who testified here today have gone through. And, Mr. Goldman, I have in response to your comment, I have introduced bills and worked as hard as I can throughout the time I have been here, beginning with the first crime bill that was introduced that was in—that was introduced the year I first served here; and it didn't get out of committee for over a year, for approximately a year, because many of us were insisting that it include significant prevention-oriented programs that had been by research-based analysis would have the effect of reducing crime.

    Unfortunately, we haven't done the best we can and less we should have done in reducing crimes because we have not focused on those research-based analyses. We have talked about locking people up now. In fact, United States is number one in incarceration rate. I represent jurisdictions where one out of 10 young men, 16 to 24 in that age—16 to 25, in that age range, one out of 10 are in jail today. If we are going to increase the number of people in jail, we ought to be honest about how much of an increase it would take to have a significant decrease in crime and how much it costs and what else we could have done with that money.
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    And we talk about truth in sentencing. Everybody assumes that you will lengthen the time that people serve. That is not true. We took a sentence—when we abolished parole in Virginia, we had a year and half to 10-year sentence averaged 2 1/2—we doubled the average time served and abolished parole. That meant everybody served 5 years. You get 5 years; you serve 5 years. Now, we could have doubled everybody's time, so instead of a year and a half to 10, 3 to 20. And let's see what the difference would be. The difference is if you have got somebody who you know is a clear danger to society, guaranteed criminal under our system, that we passed in Virginia you have got to spring them out in 5 years.

    If you are going to double everybody's term, you could have used the parole system and denied him parole and kept him in for 20. The people that benefit when you deny parole are those that could not make parole. They will get out earlier in every parole system. So when you talk about holding people longer, the parole system isn't what releases them early. In fact, with a parole system, you can hold them longer.

    Mr. Zimring, you mentioned the 5-year differential on the obscenity thing. I think that would eliminate the situation where you have people who are dating who could be——

    Mr. ZIMRING. In 4147, Congressman Scott, it would not eliminate liability under the act for criminal prosecution because the theory of that liability is that anybody providing obscene materials to anybody is committing a Federal crime, not pornography but obscene materials as defined in the statute. What it would do, if you had a 5-year gap, is it would give a coherent theory to why you are specially aggravating the punishment for 16- and 17-year-old targets, because what it would be saying is that what we are assuming here is a predatory difference in sophistication and in the capacity to be sexually manipulated between victim and offender. And if that is the theory under which the maximum punishment is to be doubled and the sentencing guidelines punishment is to be significantly increased, then it seems to me an age difference would be a technical way to make the formal law reflect the reason for that difference.
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    Mr. SCOTT. Let me ask you and Mr. Haugaard kind of an open-ended question. Based on the research and the literature that is presently available, what should we be focusing on if our goal were to reduce crime? You mentioned, Mr. Zimring, that these bills aren't it. You went through a box score to suggest this isn't it. What should we be doing, if our goal is to reduce crime?

    Mr. ZIMRING. I want to push you a little bit more than that because as the only person you have ever met that wrote a book called Crime is Not the Problem, I would have to say what kind of crime, because two-thirds of all the crime in the FBI's indexed crime is nonaggravated larceny.

    If you want to take care of that, I would give you one set of remedies. If what you are worried about is school shootings, I think we would be talking about completely different domains and completely different things to do. But I will tell you this, Congressman Scott. If what you are asking me is, how should a Congressman use the extremely limited resources and tiny criminal jurisdiction in everything other than drug control of the Federal Government to reduce crime, I would say mostly the ways to do that are with dollar aid and incentive programs; and in that sense it seems to me that House bill 894, which I think is heading in the wrong direction, could, if it had the right financial incentives and the right objectives, get a lot more done than amendments to the Federal Criminal Code, which are marginal because the jurisdictional bite of that code is marginal.

    The other thing that the Federal Government has been very good at doing in addition to giving the States money for doing the right thing has been to focus attention on research and on best practice case demonstration projects. But, you see, the real frustration there is that your jurisdiction just doesn't include 99 percent of the street crime in the United States, and you would have to radically restructure the nature of American Government to change that.
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    Mr. SCOTT. I don't want to limit you just to the Criminal Code. If our goal is to reduce crime, what should we be doing?

    Mr. HAUGAARD. If I could address that, please. Mr. Klaas noted that prevention—the prevention would not have worked with a man who killed your daughter. And when he was a man, you are exactly right. But I think that at some point in that developing child's life it might have worked. Perhaps when he was 2 or 3, we could have developed some programs with his family that would make them better parents, and your tragedy would never have happened.

    What we don't understand well in this country is how a young child who is born as we see all those little babies, again, transformed into the type of a person who commits these horrific types of crimes. We just don't know that because we don't study them. We don't take the time to try and understand them. We want to condemn them appropriately. We want to put them in jail appropriately, but we don't want to understand them. One of the things I know, for example, is that many of these people have been sexually abused as children. We know that, though, that many sexually abused children do not grow up to abuse other children or to engage in terrible crimes but some do.

    Typically, what happens is that during adolescence something seems to happen that drives some people in the direction of more crime and sex crimes and other people away from that. And we are not sure what that is. If we could begin to understand that, then we could begin to develop programs that would stop young children from developing into aggressive adolescents and could perhaps stop those aggressive adolescents from becoming aggressive adults. It is a two-track system and you can continue to punish people today, but we are never going to reduce the number of people we have to punish until we can understand how they got there.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I would suggest, Mr. Scott, maybe we let Mr. Goldman, Ms. LaRue comment on this and maybe we ought to wrap the hearing up unless you have got more questions.

    Mr. SCOTT. Sure.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I am not trying to cut you off. Wait a minute. I didn't mean that. I just meant I was thinking you were through and——

    Mr. SCOTT. There was one followup on that. In terms of cost effectiveness, what has been shown to—you have a lot of unanswered questions. What has been shown to actually reduce the incident of crime?

    Mr. ZIMRING. Congressman Scott, again, just because I want to make rude noises here, I want to say as you vary from crime to crime, you come to different——

    Mr. SCOTT. You said the larceny.

    Mr. ZIMRING. Let's talk for a moment about pedophilia because there are a lot of areas where America is a world leader and where our problems are worse than those of other developed countries. Lethal violence is a good example of one where we are at a considerable disadvantage. Pedophilia is an example of almost exactly the opposite. All the developed countries are pretty much in the same boat. Preventing sexual predation against children is an area where there aren't a lot of best practices now and where things are just as bad in Belgium, if you will, use an example in the news, or the Scandinavian countries or in continental Europe than is the United States.
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    That is not true, for instance, for forcible rape. When you are talking forcible rape, then suddenly the pattern in the United States looks an awful lot more like high lethality violence in that we have a concentration in America that is much higher. And there are lots of things that we have learned that are very good in altering environments to prevent forcible stranger rape. On the college campuses that Dr. Haugaard and I teach at, the incidence of stranger rape has gone down quite a bit as we have gotten sophisticated about practical prevention programs, about girls walking in twos, about practical things that are not rocket science but that make communities considerably safer. But that is already—we are not talking about young adult self-defense. That is a different world than the world of sexual predation against children.

    Mr. SCOTT. Mr. Zimring, I have a message that you have to leave for a plane now.

    Mr. ZIMRING. By popular demand. I thank the committee.

    Mr. SCOTT. If Dr. Haugaard could answer and then you wanted some others to answer.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I thought that Mr. Goldman and Ms. LaRue. I know he is wanting to do that, and I think Ms. LaRue had not been given a chance to respond to Mr. Zimring's comments.

    Mr. SCOTT. If Dr. Haugaard could answer and then the others would get the last word, if that would be all right.
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    Mr. MCCOLLUM. It's fine with me.

    Mr. HAUGAARD. I would suggest there are two things that have been shown that can reduce crime at a very basic level. One is to help parents who want to be helped parent their children better. There are some parent who will never be good parents and will be awful parents and really should not have children, but there are many highly stressed parent who care about their children who don't have the skills, who don't have the environment to raise their children well. They need to be helped and that will stop things. We know that we can stop aggression in young children very early through good parenting. We know that from many different studies. And the other thing, if you are talking about more crime that involves money more than violence, is to make sure that people have opportunities to reach the American dream in ways other than having to engage in crime.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Mr. Goldman, I know you have been anxiously wanting to respond, so please proceed.

    Mr. GOLDMAN. Several things. There is no question that we have two issues here: one the ultimate prevention of crime; and, two, the recommission of crime. We have an enormous problem in this country—and I don't want to repeat all of the numbers of the volume of crime that happens every minute of every day in this Nation—an enormous amount of it is committed by someone who has done it before.

    There is no question that I would like to see crime stopped before it is ever committed by all kinds of prevention programs, but to suggest that we change the environment so students are safer at their college, is not stopping the problem of rape. It is dealing with it. We want to keep a rapist from raping, not make the student at school figure out a better way to walk through campus.
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    Additionally, this whole issue of ''cost effectiveness'' is a terribly troubling term to me. There is no amount of dollars in this Nation that I wouldn't give to have my son back. There is no amount of money that Gail or Mark wouldn't give to have their children back. There is no amount of money, as a Nation, we should not be willing to spend to keep these monsters from walking our streets again. Any suggestion that keeping someone in jail at a cost of $25,000, is a lot of money.

    Then we have to go back to our States and say, how did you come up with the hundreds of millions of dollars for your stadium, et cetera. There is no amount of money that this Nation should not be willing to spend to create a safe environment for men, women, and children. To put a dollar figure, or to ever bring up the term of cost effectiveness is, as a citizen, offensive to me. We find money for all kinds of outrageous to spend money on; and it isn't on stopping criminals from murdering, raping, and molesting. But when we do that, we can consider ourselves proud that we have protected the citizens of this country. Until then, we have got a lot of work to do.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Thank you, Mr. Goldman. Ms. LaRue.

    Ms. LARUE. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Yes, I would like to respond to Professor Zimring's theory about our obscenity laws being based on sexual predation. That would be true of child pornography and the child sexual exploitation statutes, but it is not true of our obscenity laws. Our obscenity laws wouldn't have it a crime to distribute to adults if that were true. Our obscenity laws are based on the fact that we don't want our society and our commerce clogged up with material that has no value for society whatsoever.
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    I would remind you, as I said earlier, the material that I downloaded from the Internet today, I didn't get from sexual predators, I got it from commercial pornography Web sites. They are targeting children by putting those teaser images there, and they will make their money faster as soon as those 16- and 17-year-olds are able to buy the material, because all material has a presumption of being protected by the first amendment until it is adjudicated otherwise in a court of law.

    The sexual predation theory makes no sense when it comes to our obscenity laws. A minor is a minor under the Federal law. We need to protect the 16- and 17-year-olds as well. It is 5 years to distribute to an adult. It is 10 years to distribute to a minor. Sixteen-year-olds and 17-year-olds are minors.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. Would there be any circumstances under which you think a suggestion of a 5-year difference in age between the victim and the abuser or some age difference is appropriate? That was something he made twice a point about, and I just wondered if you wanted to respond directly to that for the enhanced penalty that is in this bill that you testified about today.

    Ms. LARUE. I don't see the relevance. As I said, the majority of this material is commercial and the age difference is irrelevant in that content.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I understand where you are coming from. That is why I asked the question. I just wanted to be sure we put it in the record.

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    Mr. SCOTT. Could I make one last comment. On the question of cost effectiveness, we spend a lot of money trying to reduce crime. I mentioned Virginia because we abolished parole. We are spending—we budgeted whether they passed the bill about $100 million per congressional district per year on a plan that the proponents acknowledged would not make a statistically significant difference in the crime rate. There are a lot of things we could have done that we know would have worked to reduce the crime rate, a lot more than we could have by just abolishing parole and letting the most dangerous criminals out earlier than they would have gotten out if you could have kept them back without—by denying them parole. We have limited resources to the extent that we can spend those monies intelligently to reduce crimes, that is where we ought to spend the money. That is the point I would like to make.

    Mr. MCCOLLUM. I would like to comment in closing, just because you and I sparred, Mr. Scott, quite a bit on the subject matter over the months we have been together, that I don't pretend to be an expert on Virginia's laws by my observation about the Nation as a whole. And States that have gone truth in sentencing and so forth is by no means—have all the States done what you have suggested, perhaps Virginia has, and I do think that sentences are being served for most of these violent criminals longer, much longer because of the truth in sentencing laws where they have been adopted and they have been put in place.

    Unfortunately for those States, even which have adopted truth in sentencing and gone to the 85 percent rule, there are many criminals sitting in prison today to which those laws don't apply because they were there beforehand and they are still subject to the old-fashioned parole. And that is in part why the statistics and data that Mr. Klaas cited does not show a more dramatic increase; and this bill, Aimee's law, and the other three bills here today I think would enhance—that is my opinion of course, I realize not yours—the kind of deterrent that is in incapacitation. Yes, it would send a message to some too, perhaps, not to the class of criminals that murdered those whose children were murdered here, the three that are before us; but it would be a deterrent message in some of this too. But at any rate, we will have many more occasions for you and I to debate this.
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    I want to thank this panel. I thank each of you for coming, your expertise in each case. But I can't help but thank, again, Mrs. Willard, Mr. Goldman, Mr. Klaas because you have had a special thing to come here and go through, to present this kind of emotion that would naturally not be there present for the rest of us but so much appreciated. This hearing is adjourned.

    [Whereupon, at 5:50 p.m., the subcommittee was adjourned.]

A P P E N D I X

Material Submitted for the Hearing Record

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(Footnote 1 return)
*1 in 5 violent offenders serving time in a State prison reported having victimized a child.


(Footnote 2 return)
Pursuant to House Rule XI, clause 2 (g) (4), neither FRC nor any entity we represent is the recipient of any federal grant, contract, or subcontract in the current or preceding two fiscal years.


(Footnote 3 return)
390 U.S. 629 (1968).


(Footnote 4 return)
Id. at 642, 643, n. 10.


(Footnote 5 return)
Id. at 636.


(Footnote 6 return)
Richard C. Morais, ''Porn Goes Public,'' Forbes, June 14, 1999.


(Footnote 7 return)
Dianna Marder, ''When the child molester is a child, too,'' The Philadelphia Inquirer, January 17, 1993, p. A1.


(Footnote 8 return)
Richard Lithen, ''Judge: 'X-rated videos as harmful to kids as guns,' '' The Clermont Sun, March 4, 1993, p. 1.