Kay Bailey Hutchison: “I want to make sure everyone knows that the Republicans have an addition to the Violence Against Women Act that we think…”

“I want to make sure everyone knows that the Republicans have an addition to the Violence Against Women Act that we think will strengthen it. For instance, there are a couple of additions from what we talked about yesterday. We got a letter today from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. I ask unanimous consent that it be printed in the Record. There being no objection, the material was ordered to be printed in the Record, as follows: National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, Alexandria, VA, April 26, 2012. Hon. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Senate, Washington, DC. Dear Senator Hutchison: As you know, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) addressed the issue of sentencing for federal child pornography crimes in our testimony before the Senate Judiciary Committee in March 2011. The 1.4 million reports to NCMEC's CyberTipline, the Congressionally-authorized reporting mechanism for online crimes against children, indicate the scope of the problem. These child sex abuse images are crime scene photos that memorialize the sexual abuse of a child. Those who possess them create a demand for new images, which drives their production and, hence, the sexual abuse of more child victims to create the images. Despite the heinous nature of this crime, the federal statute criminalizing the possession of child pornography has no mandatory minimum sentence.…”