Dianne Feinstein: “In May of 2007, Senator Kyl, Senator Dole, Senator Boxer, Senator Lott, and myself sent a letter to Michael Leavitt, the…”

“In May of 2007, Senator Kyl, Senator Dole, Senator Boxer, Senator Lott, and myself sent a letter to Michael Leavitt, the Secretary of HHS. We pointed out that the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act was passed in July of 2006. Pursuant to that act, there were to be two registries set up. The first registry was to be located at the Department of Justice and it would require the establishment of a national sex offender registry which would track details of convicted sex offenders and make the information electronically available to authorities in all jurisdictions, and even the public at large. This registry is up and functioning. The second registry authorized by the new law was a national registry of substantiated cases of child abuse and neglect. That was directed to be located at the Department of Health and Human Services. This registry is a different but equally vital resource intended for child protection authorities only. Believe it or not, each State already collects information on substantiated cases of abuse and neglect, but once an investigation is under way, adult perpetrators of violence or neglect on children need only to move to another State to escape, and this is the difficult part, because there may be no trace, no record kept that the new State can easily access. In this way, some children may never escape abuse in their own home, because the offender can simply move.”