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Legislators Work to Improve Laws on Runaways
Topic Started: Jan 3 2010, 11:20 PM (928 Views)
monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/04/us/04runaways.html
Legislators Work to Improve Laws on Runaways By IAN URBINA
Published: January 3, 2010
WASHINGTON — State and federal lawmakers from around the country are pressing a variety of new laws that would make sweeping changes in the way runaways and prostituted children are handled by police officers and social workers.



Ashley Gilbertson for The New York Times
Francisco Hernandez Jr. rode New York's subways for two days before his name was entered in a database for missing children.

In Congress, Democratic leaders in the House and Senate are moving several bills that would improve how runaways are tracked by the police, increase spending to provide them with social services and promote methods for earlier intervention. The Government Accountability Office, an auditing arm of Congress, initiated an investigation in December at the request of the Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, and Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, into whether police departments are handling runaways properly.

Lawmakers in at least 10 states have proposed or passed bills in recent months that focus on runaways by extending outreach efforts and shelter options and changing state reporting requirements so that youth shelters have enough time to win trust and provide services before they need to report the runaways to the police.

Police departments are already required by federal law to enter missing-person reports into a database called the National Crime Information Center, or N.C.I.C., within two hours of receiving them. When the local police fail to do this, law enforcement officials in other jurisdictions do not know to look for the missing person.

But data provided by the national center to The New York Times indicates that the police often do not comply with this requirement. Lawmakers say a series of articles published in The Times in October about the increase in runaway children and teenagers involved in prostitution because of the recession, showing how many cases are not being properly tracked by police departments, has prompted much of the legislation.

From November 2006 through November 2009, the police in New York City failed in about 40 percent of cases to enter missing-person reports into the database for runaways within 24 hours of receiving the report, according to a review of cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The national average during that period was around 16 percent.

One such case involved Francisco Hernandez Jr., a 13-year-old with a form of autism known as Asperger’s syndrome, who ran away from home and, undetected, spent 11 days riding subways in New York City.

Though Francisco’s parents said they did not feel the police had taken their son’s case seriously, department officials said they had investigated it properly.

But the N.C.I.C.’s data indicated that the department did not enter Francisco’s missing-person report into the federal database for at least 24 hours.

Paul J. Browne, a spokesman for the New York Police Department, said that while other steps were taken to alert the public, Francisco’s report was not entered into the database when it was received because the person with that duty was not available. Mr. Browne said another official entered the report on Oct. 17, two days after Francisco went missing, but noted that the department had broadcast news of the missing boy on its citywide radio system a day earlier.

Representative Carolyn B. Maloney, Democrat of New York, said the reporting failures were “outrageous.”

“It’s absolutely inappropriate that many runaway children are missing not only from their homes, but also from the very database meant to help law enforcement officers find them,” Ms. Maloney said. She and Representative Christopher H. Smith, Republican of New Jersey, introduced legislation on Nov. 19 to certify that law enforcement agencies comply with federal law by entering all missing children into the federal database.

The bill, co-sponsored by Representative John Conyers Jr., Democrat of Michigan and the chairman of the Judiciary Committee, also requires the police to provide anyone who reports a missing person with information about the services provided by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and the National Runaway Switchboard. In many cases, the police said, they often did not take reports about runaways as seriously as abductions, and families were often unaware of other resources.

Mr. Schumer said he planned to introduce a similar bill soon in the Senate, which instructs the Justice Department to perform audits of local law enforcement agencies to ensure compliance with reporting requirements.

At the same time, Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon, and Senator John Cornyn, Republican of Texas, introduced legislation in December that is modeled after the methods used by the Dallas Police Department in tracking down repeat runaways, which has been successful in reducing teenage prostitution. The bill adjusts the national database so that it automatically flags repeat runaways, much as the Dallas police have been doing.

The bill would also create block grants worth $2.5 million annually, renewable for two more years, that would be allocated to six pilot programs to provide shelter and services like drug treatment, counseling and job training for teenagers seeking to escape prostitution.

Senator Patty Murray, Democrat of Washington, introduced a bill in November that would enable school officials to pay for transportation of runaways and homeless youths who want to stay in school. The bill would increase, to $300 million from $70 million, federal money for other services for homeless and runaway youths.

State lawmakers in Connecticut, Hawaii, New York, Pennsylvania and North Dakota are considering bills to improve tracking and services for runaways and minors who are victims of sex trafficking. Washington and Iowa are considering bills to lengthen the time before welfare workers are required to report a child missing. Illinois and Rhode Island have passed laws, and Massachusetts has proposed one raising penalties for involvement in the sex trafficking of minors.

Hoping to build on this momentum, the National Conference of State Legislatures began drafting policy guidelines for model legislation on runaways in November to distribute to state lawmakers around the country.

The guidelines, which await final approval by the conference in July, would require teachers, social workers and others who work with children to report to the state child welfare agency any youth believed to be involved in prostitution, according to State Senator Renee Unterman of Georgia, a Republican who drafted the guidelines and is the chairwoman of the conference’s committee on human welfare.

The American Bar Association has also begun changing its policy guidelines so that it can lobby Congress for increased financing for tracking runaways and providing them with social services. Association leaders say they hope to urge Congress to pass a law preventing minors from being charged with a crime — prostitution — that they are too young to consent to.

“We figured it was time to get involved because arresting and charging these youth is not helping them escape the streets,” said Casey Trupin, a professor at the University of Washington law school who helped write the new guidelines.
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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burnsjl2003
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Finally! Underage prostitutes are victims who need help, not criminals.

Finding runaways needs to be taken more seriously. At the same time, WHY the child has run away should be looked into, especially with repeat runaways. They may have a good reason for trying to escape their home.
Lisa

“Thou shalt not be a victim.
Thou shalt not be a perpetrator.
Above all, thou shalt not be a bystander.”

(On a plaque at the Holocaust Museum in Washington D.C.)
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monkalup
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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I agree. That is why this bill is a good idea, I think. We need to take things seriously, because repeat runaways are running FROM something.
Lauran

"If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente.


In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
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