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by Jody A. Gorran, Programs Director,
National Foundation to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse
On October 9, 1998, President Clinton signed into law
the Volunteers For Children Act as Public Law 105-251, which amends the
National Child Protection Act of 1993 (42 U.S.C. Sec. 5119). For the first
time, any business or organization, whether public, private, for-profit,
not-for-profit or voluntary, that provides care, treatment, education,
training, instruction, supervision, or recreation to children, the elderly,
or individuals with disabilities, has the lawful right to request fingerprint-based
national criminal history background checks of their volunteers and employees
through the FBI. Access to the FBI would come through each state’s Criminal
History Records Repository.
1993 National Child Protection Act
In 1993, Congress passed the National Child Protection
Act, also known as the Oprah Winfrey Act. This Act was hailed as a major
step forward in protecting children from sexual abuse. It provided for
individual states to pass legislation which would require FBI national
fingerprint criminal history record checks for volunteers and employees
of youth serving organizations.
Implementation Problems
However, the 1993 Act had two major flaws. Unless a state
passed legislation implementing this Act, organizations were not permitted
to submit fingerprints of volunteers and employees for FBI background
checks. Additionally, Congress did not mandate state legislation; instead,
the National Child Protection Act only stipulated that states "may"
enact fingerprint background check legislation. As a consequence, five
years later only a small handful of states have passed any legislation
even allowing selected organizations to have access to fingerprint-based
national criminal background checks. Only the state of Tennessee appears
to have enacted legislation allowing most organizations the ability to
perform these checks.
Importance of Background Checks
Why did Congress bother to pass this Act in 1993 and
why are fingerprint criminal background checks so important? According
to the National Foundation to Prevent Child Sexual Abuse (NFPCSA), recent
retrospective studies of adults suggest that one of three girls and one
of six boys will be subjected to some form of sexual abuse by age eighteen.
These studies further indicate that 46 percent of child molesters are
non-family members who are known to their victims.
The NFPCSA contends that sexual predators are generally
unrecognizable to the community and parents of children. Child molesters
who are known to their victims are frequently trusted adults in the community,
like teachers, scoutmasters, coaches, day care workers, volunteers and
employees of other youth serving organizations, clergy, friends of the
family, and neighbors. These are the people with whom we entrust our children
on a daily basis.
Whom to Trust?
Can every parent spend time to personally get to know
every single adult that provides services for their children — every day
and for every extra-curricular activity? Think about it. How many people
would that be? And, if you did have the time to get to know all of them
VERY well, would you know if that person had a criminal history of child
molestation? And what if they came from another state. How would you know?
Child predators are very cunning. They may spend up to a year "grooming"
their victims; that may include becoming good friends with the intended
victims’ parents.
The NFPCSA believes the odds are very good that there
are volunteers and employees in your community sexually molesting children.
Most child victims do not tell. Based on anonymous retrospective studies
of adults, the 1994 nationwide total of child sexual abuse victims was
probably closer to 750,000, than the confirmed 139,000 cases. This leaves
a possibility of approximately 610,000 silent victims nationally in 1994.
Since child sexual abuse victims rarely tell, the NFPCSA
believes that organizations and parents must have the ability to protect
these children. The NFPCSA further believes that parents MUST have the
right to know that any adult with a relevant criminal history will be
prevented from being placed in a position where they can establish a trusting
relationship with their children.
Protective Tool Now Available
Many responsible organizations such as the Boys and Girls
Clubs of America want to be able to further protect the children in their
care through the use of fingerprint-based, national criminal history record
checks of their volunteers and employees but have been unable to do so
because of the lack of appropriate legislation. By passing the Volunteers
for Children Act and amending the National Child Protection Act of 1993,
Congress has given them as well as tens of thousands of other responsible
organizations this important protective tool. Now they must use it!
More Information
For information on how your organization can start doing
fingerprint-based national criminal history background checks of your
volunteers and employees, visit our Web site at www.childsexualabuse.org.
Originally published in the 2000 Winter issue
of The CampLine.
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