Tim Scott: “Mr. Speaker, while we seem to be making some progress reducing the overall crime rate in this country, crimes against…”

“Mr. Speaker, while we seem to be making some progress reducing the overall crime rate in this country, crimes against children, particularly reports of child abuse and neglect, have grown by 41 percent over the last 10 years. In 1997, Congress passed the Adoption and Safe Families Act to begin the process for accelerating time lines and making other improvements designed to speed up the process of securing safe, permanent, caring families for abused and neglected children. Unfortunately, in passing the law, Congress failed to recognize the additional burdens of these time lines and other improvements would exact on the already overburdened family and domestic relations courts. Courts nationwide are struggling to meet the accelerated time lines and other requirements of that legislation and, as a result, there are substantial backlogs in processing of these cases. This bill, which is supported by the Conference of Chief Justices and the Conference of State Court Administrators, will help to further the goals of the Adoption and Safe Families Act by authorizing $10 million over 5 years to assist State and local courts in developing and implementing automated case tracking systems for abused and neglect proceedings.”