Signature Assignment: The Missing Children’S Assistance Act Of 2018

Introduction

In 2014 there was a total of 466, 949 missing people under the age of 18. While this number is a decrease from previous years, this is still an incredibly high number (National Crime Information Center, 2014). A child can go missing for multiple reasons, including running away, family abduction, lost or injured children, and non-family abductions. This terrible experience could happen to anyone. The bill, Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 2018, provides assistance in a multitude of ways to a family who has a child who has gone missing and providing the community with opportunities to learn about how to prevent this from happening. This paper will discuss the general information about this bill, the selection process of this bill, and a policy analysis for this bill.

General Information about the Bill

The bill, Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 2018, is an amendment to the original law of the Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. This bill makes amendments to multiple sections of the original bill. In Section 402, amendments were made so that the Missing Children’s Assistance Act added prevention techniques along with addressing offenses against children. It also amended that the office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention would support the nonprofit organization National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This nonprofit organization would also work with governmental agencies including the Federal Bureau of Investigation, United States Marshals Service, United States Secret Services, and many more. It also will work with nongovernmental agencies in an effort to find missing children.

The bill also amends the language of the original section, such as changing legal custodian to parent and changing telephone line to a hotline. The bill also makes changes in Section 404 of the Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. These amendments included providing technical assistance and training to families, law enforcement, state and local governments, non-governmental agencies, and local education agencies along with the general public. This technical assistance will include prevention, investigation, prosecution, and treatment for cases involving a missing or exploited child. Along with technical assistance, this bill also will work with people to reduce the distribution of online images of sexually exploited children. Lastly, there were changes to provide internet safety programs, including tips for social media, cyberbullying, sexting, and sextortion. This bill has a lot of changes to the original bill and is now is being presented to the president. This bill’s number is S 3354 and the committee member who introduced the bill was Senator Chuck Grassley.

Selection Process

I have selected this bill because I, first of all, found this topic interesting after watching many crime shows such as Law and Order: SVU. After watching these shows, I wanted to know what happened in reality. I also picked this law as this is a very serious issue. With the advances in technology and our society becoming more dependent on technology, I’m curious about societal changes making a difference with what law enforcement is doing to find children who are missing. I also wonder if methods for preventing abduction and exploitation changed in the digital age. While, I know that there have been some technological advances such as AMBER alerts, which now pop-up on cell phones. I was wondering if there would be more changes like this to improve the general population efforts in finding missing children. This bill intends to address many social issues. The first issue that the bill actively states is the abduction of children. This bill also addresses the exploitation of children. Along with the exploitation of children, it will also address cyberbullying, social media and sexting.

Lastly, this bill will address prevention techniques for law enforcement and the general public. This legislation is important to us as it addresses a very important age group of our population, people under 18. This legislation helps enable social workers, along with other agencies, to find these children. It also provides education on how to prevent abductions and exploitations of children. This is done through education on significant issues that are impacting the younger population such as social media, cyberbullying and sexting. These issues have become more serious and frequent due to the number of people who are on social media. Cyberbullying itself has increased and can have many long-term emotional effects on youth.

Along with that, sexting has become very popular despite the long-term effects. While youth may not think about it at the time, those photos are in cyberspace forever and can be used against them. These issues all need to be addressed and with this bill, these issues will begin to be dealt with in more detail. While the National Association of Social Work (NASW) does not address this policy the bill addresses specifically, it does address policy and topics similar to this. The first topic that is similar is child abuse and neglect. The NASW states that children have the right to be treated with respect and that all states must create and enforce laws that protect children. The NASW also states that there needs to be education and public awareness regarding the impact of child abuse. The basis for these stances is that the NASW believes that a child has the right to be respected and they should be protected from a bad situation. There is also a need for education to the general public to help provide people with ways to avoid these bad situations from happening, along with skills needed to report these situations without consequence to the person reporting. Lastly, to help protect this child, a multidisciplinary team including law enforcement, health professionals and social workers are needed in an investigation for child abuse and neglect. Along with the NASW position on child abuse and neglect, the NASW also has a position on crime victim assistance. This position states that it is vital to ensure the safety of the victim and encourages funding to help assist these victims. It also supports continuing research in the field of crime victims.

The last topic that the NASW states its position on is parental kidnapping. This topic addresses one way in which a child can go missing. The NASW states that there should be established public education programs along with professional education. The NASW also states that there should be ongoing development in social services to prevent abductions from happening. Lastly, the NASW supports reviewing and strengthening federal laws that concern parental kidnapping. The NASW justifies its position on these topics as it follows the NASW Code of Ethics and values. The values from the Code of Ethics include social justice, dignity, and worth of the person. The NASW states that the actions needed to help children who have been abducted or exploited are ethical.

Policy Analysis

The policy this bill is addressing it to improve support for missing children as well as exploited children. Description of Policy Historical Background. This policy began to gain attention in the 1970’s. During this time, there were highly publicized cases of children who were abducted, sexually exploited, and sometimes murdered. This grabbed the policymakers attention and they decided to do something about this issue. The Missing Children's Assistance Act was created in 1984. This bill was created to make amendments to the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act of 1974. The Missing Children’s Assistance Act created multiple resources for the community to use. The primary element created was a 24-hour toll line. Along with this toll line, the bill established a national resource center and clearinghouse. This resource center and the clearinghouse was put into one national center and named the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. This bill also provided support to help recover missing children and along with providing grants to help to educate parents and community agencies on ways to prevent abductions as well as sexual exploitations. This bill stated that it was to be reauthorized in 1988.

While the bill continued to be amended to maintain the grants needed for the programs, the most recent amendment until now was in 2013. The Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013 created many new amendments to the bill before it. These amendments included adding runaway children to the term missing children. It also continued to provide grant money to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. The bill also provided grant money to provide education to schools on ways to help prevent sexual exploitation. These programs also included aid to schools to collect materials useful to parents in helping others to identify the missing child. This bill was authorized until 2018. The end of the authorization created the need for a new bill to take its place. Before 1984, there was no way of handling a problem of abduction and exploitation of children. There was no hotline to call or a location to provide information on prevention. If law enforcement or community organizations were unable to help, then the child or parent had no way of getting help. As time went on and we addressed the issues from the 1984 bill. However, technology has gained popularity and new problems have been created. These include cyberbullying, sexting and online images becoming even easier to find. In 2013, these things were just becoming into focus and were not addressed. With the new amendments, these issues will finally be addressed.

Problems that Necessitated the Policy

Abduction and exploitation are all over the United States, there is no one location that this issue can’t happen. While this policy mainly focuses on children, this policy also addresses the need for training for law enforcement, parents, community agencies, and the general public. The problem is that a child can be abducted or exploited and without the proper network of trained individuals, there is no way of truly helping to get these children safely back home.

Policy Description

This policy is expected to institute grants to organizations to help with the prevention of abduction and exploitation and also help to find the children that are already missing. The policy will provide grants to continue to fund the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children and provide technical assistance to local education agencies, schools, state and local law enforcement agencies, individuals, and other non-governmental agencies. The technical assistance will help to prevent these activities from happening, investigate cases that have already occurred, prosecute cases that have happened, and provide treatment to children who have gone through abduction and/or exploitation. This policy also will provide education on online images, safety tips on social media, cyberbullying, and sexting. This policy covers everyone in some way, whether it is providing education and prevention techniques or providing resources and help with investigation and treatment. The goals of this policy are decreasing the number of children who are exploited or abducted and also educating the general public about this issue. This policy is expected to be in effect for the next five years.

Analysis of Policy Goals

The policy’s goals are to help educate people about the abduction and exploitation of children and also to better use resources to help find children who are already missing. These goals are legal, just, and democratic as it is addressing children and their rights to be treated equally with respect. These goals also address the social inequality issues as it helps address children’s rights to be treated with respect. While this goal does not address redistribution of income, it does provide ways for the community to gain from it by obtaining more education about this subject. This policy’s goals also addresses the issues of quality of life, as it is trying to help find those children who are missing. It also addresses social relations between the overall society and those affected by this issue. The policy does this by stating that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children will communicate with governmental and nongovernmental agencies in an effort to find missing children. Lastly, this policy is consistent with the values of a professional social work. It provides many resources to the community in an effort to help with this issue.

Political Feasibility

The political feasibility for this is very high. The public should have very positive thoughts about this policy as it addresses missing children. This policy not only helps those who are missing right now, but it is also providing education to help prevent abductions and exploitation.

Economic Feasibility

This policy has a very high economic feasibility. Since the Missing Children’s Assistance Act has been around since 1984, there are funds already set aside for this issue.

Administrative Feasibility

This policy also has a good administrative feasibility with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children being the resource center and clearinghouse that was created for this issue. While there are some additional subjects that the policy is now going to address, there should be someone who is an expert on these topics available to create programs to help educated and protect people.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the Missing Children’s Assistance Act of 2018 brings new and exciting amendments to the Missing Children’s Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. With these changes, it will provide more resources to the whole population of the United States. This policy not only provides goals that fit the values of social work but also is politically, economically and administratively feasible.