WHEN AND WHY WAS YOUR ORGANIZATION FOUNDED?

The Surviving Parents Coalition (SPC) is a group of parents of children who were abducted, sexually assaulted, recovered, murdered or are still missing.  We began to form in March of 2007 in an effort to unite and leverage our individual prevention education and advocacy efforts. The SPC launched on June 28, 2007 in the US Capital Building in support of Senator Biden’s introduction of Senate bill 1738, The Combating Child Exploitation Act. The House version of the bill passed 415 to 2 votes in October and the Senate version was just passed out of the Senate Judiciary Committee. We are working to ensure that it be voted into law this summer.

CAN YOU PLEASE TELL ME ABOUT THE ADAM WALSH ACT?

The Adam Walsh Act was signed into law on July 27, 2006 and was supposed to be one of the most aggressive child protection initiatives to date.  Unfortunately, nearly two years later, it has still not been funded by Congress. The SPC considers the most important elements of the bill to be the increased penalties for child sexual abuse, abduction, luring and exploitation; The Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Registry to finally get states to coordinate their communication about released offenders (we have lost track of more than 100,000 parolees nationwide); the US Marshall’s Fugitive Apprehension Program; and resource and development funding for the Internet Crimes Against Children Taskforces (ICAC).

 

WHAT IS THE LATEST NEWS ABOUT FUNDS FOR THE ADAM WALSH ACT?

The SPC sent letters and spent hours calling legislative offices asking that the Adam Walsh Act be funded – if only for the above mentioned provisions.  Ed Smart and Linda Walker both attended several meetings alongside our allies at The National Association to PROTECT Children (www.protect.org).  Sadly, we have been unable to see the latest spend plan for 2008, but it appears that nothing has changed. The ICAC Taskforces are in dire straits without the resources to maintain their already meager standing (they have so few trained officers that they are only investigating less than 2% of the known offenders they’ve identified trading images and videos of sexual crimes against children…a.k.a. child pornography).  Our only hope for most of these programs is that the DOJ may direct discretionary funds toward these critical child protection initiatives.

TELL ME ABOUT THE COMBATING CHILD EXPLOITATION ACT?

The Combating Child Exploitation Act builds upon what the Adam Walsh Act did for child exploitation measures.  Now that we have fantastic penalties for receipt and distribution of crime scene images and videos all we need are the investigators to catch these guys. The ICAC have at their disposal technology that tracks the digital fingerprints of known horrific images and videos as well as the IP addresses and computer serial numbers of those actively sharing these images.  The Surviving Parents Coalition wants to see the DOJ better coordinate and fund these Taskforces and trainings with local law enforcement so that we can truly combat this growing industry that feeds off of new child victims. In 30% of child pornography arrests a local child victim is identified and in 96% there is a successful felony conviction without a child having to take the witness stand. Given how difficult it is to catch and successfully stop child molesters, we believe that combating child exploitation is the most cost-effective approach to rescuing child victims and capturing offenders.

WHAT OTHER PROJECTS IS YOUR ORGANIZATION INVOLVED IN?

The SPC is still in its infancy and in the process of filing for incorporation as a 501c3.  We look forward to conducting public awareness campaigns about child sexual abuse, exploitation and abduction. We intend to put forth a Comprehensive Prevention Education Initiative that will educate and empower children, parents and communities to stop child predators. The next thing on our legislative agenda will likely be an accountability and tracking law regarding justice for child victims.  Currently it is impossible for anyone to discern the reality of crimes against children in this country because no one is tracking what happens to these children after abuse is first reported (we only know how many of the cases were substantiated; not how many went to criminal or family court; how many plead; to what for what reason; or what if any sentence was given; and we believe that America would be horrified if they knew how many of these children are placed back in the homes of the abusers.) The bottom line is that prosecutors and judges need to be held accountable for justice for children.

WHERE CAN VIEWERS FIND MORE INFORMATION ON THE SURVIVING PARENTS COALITION? 

You can visit www.survivingparentscoalition.org and www.notonemorechild.org to learn more about our members and our efforts to combat child exploitation.  We also recommend you visit www.protect.org to see the latest child protection efforts in the legislative arena. Please learn more about this issue and talk about it with your family and friends. Together we can stop predatory crimes against children.  Thank you for being a part of the solution.

Since the tragic murder of her daughter, Samantha, Erin Runnion has dedicated her time to protect America’s children through her organization, “The Joyful Child Foundation.” And now, a new organization has her teamed up with other parents who’s children were victims of a crime.