Extracted text

OCR Page 1 of 12
THE WHITE HOUSE WASHINGTON '00 MAR PM9:51 March 9, 2000 Bill Signing Ceremony for H.R. 764, the Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act and Jennifer's Law DATE: March 10, 2000 LOCATION: Oval Office TIME: 10:05 AM-10:15AM FROM: Chuck Brain CMB I. PURPOSE To sign into law H.R. 764, the Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act (CAPE) and Jennifer's Law. II. BACKROUND The Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement (CAPE) Act works to reduce incidences of child abuse and neglect by providing funding for child abuse prevention training and support organizations. Jennifer's Law establishes a program to improve the reporting of unidentified human remains. This legislation was sponsored in the House by Representatives Deborah Pryce (R-OH) and Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-OH) and in the Senate by Senators Mike DeWine (R-OH) and Patrick Leahy (D-VT). H.R. 764 passed the House, 425-2, on October 5th and passed the Senate by unanimous consent on October 19th. Each day there are 9,000 reports of child abuse in America and -more than three million cases annually of abused or neglected children. The Child Abuse Prevention and Enforcement Act provides these abused or neglected children with Federal assistance without any additional cost to taxpayers. The CAPE Act supplies state and local officials the flexibility to use existing Department of Justice grant programs to prevent child abuse and neglect, to investigate child abuse and neglect crimes, and, finally, to protect children who have suffered from abuse and neglect. The bill does this by making three changes to current law: First, the bill amends the Crime Identification Technology Act of 1998 to make grant dollars available to enhance the capability of agencies and workers to gather criminal history information for child welfare, child abuse and adoption purposes. Congress has authorized $250 million annually for grants under that Act.