Advocate to Protect Children Right Now!

Mentoring Legislative Alert
July 2010
Information provided by www.mentoring.org

HELP BACKGROUND-CHECK LEGISLATION BECOME LAW

On July 22, 2010, the House of Representatives passed the Child Protection Improvements Act (HR 1469) by a vote of 413-4. We need your help to get this critical legislation passed in the Senate and signed into law.

The goal of this bipartisan legislation is to allow youth-serving organizations access to FBI background checks on potential volunteers and employees. If passed, the legislation would create a permanent successor to Safety NET—the Child Safety Pilot developed under the PROTECT Act of 2003. Currently, only some states allow access to FBI criminal records and over the past five years, data has proven the critical need for this information in ensuring that the volunteers and employees who would be in direct contact with children are suitable and safe.

As The PROTECT Act Child Safety Pilot, SafetyNET has proven time and again that FBI searches provide information essential for screening youth-serving volunteers and employees. Of the nearly 90,000 volunteers screened during the pilot, more than 6 percent have criminal records of concern, including serious crimes such as murder, rape and child sexual abuse. Furthermore, more than 41 percent of individuals with criminal records of concern had committed crimes in states other than where they were applying to volunteer—meaning only a nationwide check would have caught the criminal records.

We need your help in making SafetyNET permanent. The recently passed House bill (HR 1469) was introduced and championed by Reps. Adam Schiff (D-CA), Mike Rogers (R-MI) and John Conyers (D-MI). The Senate bill was introduced last year by Senators Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Johnny Isakson (R-GA) and is well supported by both sides of the aisle.

Now that this bipartisan legislation has been passed in the House, we need you to contact your Senators and ask for immediate passage of this legislation. Congress has a target adjournment date set for early October, and this legislation cannot wait.

Please click here to contact your Senators to ask for their co-sponsorship of S. 1598.