Campaign for the Missing 2006

Hello,

I have started a campaign to recruit interested persons to take steps to enact legislation in the state in which they live. This effort is called Campaign for the Missing 2006. As we are close to this cause personally, I want to ask you to consider being a part of this drive.

What is Campaign for the Missing 2006?

Campaign for the Missing 2006 is a grassroots effort to pass legislation in each state that will serve to improve the law enforcement community's ability to locate and ensure a safe return of missing persons. It will address the national problems of missing persons and the identification of human remains and provide the framework for improving law enforcement's response. It will also improve the collection of critical information about missing persons, prioritize high-risk missing persons cases, and ensure prompt dissemination of critical information to other law enforcement agencies and the public that can improve the likelihood of a safe return.

The Department of Justice, working with Federal, State, and local law enforcement; coroners and medical examiners; victim advocates; forensic scientists; key policymakers; and family members who have lived through this tragic experience, developed the model to be presented in each state’s legislature.

What do I need to do?

The campaign seeks persons in each state who are willing to write to their own district’s elected official to ask for sponsorship.

These are some of the initial steps involved:

1) If you are interested in helping make a difference in the lives of thousands of missing persons and their families, send an email to campaign2006@projectjason.org Give us your name and the state in which you live.
2) Look up the name and contact information for your state senator. This is the official who works with state law rather than federal. You may look up your representative here http://www.ncsl.org/public/leglinks.cfm
3) Send either via email or US mail the prepared letter you will find included on the blog (in the link below) to that representative. You are asking them to sponsor this bill and to present it to the senate.
4) If you get a negative response, write to other senators until sponsorship is obtained. (My hope is that there will be more than one person in each state working on this, so that no one person is working on it.)

Please read the following for additional information: http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/2005/12/121305-campaign-for-missing-2006.html

This link also provides detailed information about the model legislation.

Please consider joining us in this effort. Thank you.

Kelly Jolkowski, Mother of Missing Jason Jolkowski
President and Founder,
Project Jason
Kelly.jolkowski@projectjason.org
http://www.projectjason.org
Read our Voice for the Missing Blog
http://voice4themissing.blogspot.com/

Kelly, are you also asking for a National Database for missing persons and unidentified remains, with a requirement that all have DNA testing? I think that is crucial for resolving so many of these.

Please read the posting about the model. This is state law. To be brief, it covers LE reaction and action. It does require DNA to be taken, yes. It also covers UID response and actions.

A national MP and DNA database would have to be tackled at the federal level.

This model forces LE within the state to do what they always should have. We have to enforce these things at state level because the feds don't want to tell the locals another thing they must do.

We're picking up several states, but still need more. Sometime very late tonight, I will post an update on the blog. Thank you.

Kelly

I am not sure if you saw this, but this looks like good news:

Justice Department Launches New Child Abduction Plan

WASHINGTON — Jay Etheridge, who has been in Florida law enforcement for 23 years, says one thing sticks in his mind about the abduction and murder of Carlie Brucia: Her mother said she wished police hadn’t spent so much time scrambling for help in the hours after her 11-year-old daughter disappeared.
Carlie's abduction near a Sarasota car wash was captured on videotape on Sunday, Feb. 1, 2004. Her body was discovered five days later. Her killer, Joseph Smith, was sentenced last month to die for Carlie's rape and murder.

The car wash video helped identify Carlie's abductor, but those five days also provided a valuable lesson, said Etheridge, an assistant special agent in charge with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

"With every passing minute, you can’t spend time looking for, OK, where are we going to get the bloodhounds from?" Etheridge told FOXNews.com. "We want to spend that time looking for that child."

...
Now, after what Justice Department officials say is a year of proven success in Florida, the Child Abduction Response Teams program will be rolled out nationally, beginning with training in San Diego in January and $1.5 million in federal money to back the start-up of 10 such programs nationwide.

The idea is simple in some ways, and complex in others, Etheridge said. In practice in Florida, the program relies on little more than a telephone tree.

CARTs are designed for the average municipal police departments with fewer than 100 patrol officers and little money to spend on highly-trained personnel who deal regularly with victims services, media, specialized interrogation or complex crime scene processing....


James Beistle, the executive director of Team Amber Alert, a Texas-based nonprofit advocacy group for missing children, said he hopes the federal government will be watchful of making sure the CART programs are evenly spread out throughout the states, a problem the Amber Alert programs suffer from in the nation.

He said each state has a different Amber Alert plan, and some are run by law enforcement and some aren’t. Some use emergency broadcasts while others don’t.




More: http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,179203,00.html

Here is a press release from the DOJ concerning the President's DNA Initiative that I am including in my contacts with the law makers in TN.



FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MONDAY SEPTEMBER 19, 2005 Office of Justice Programs
Contact: Catherine Sanders
(202) 307-0703
www.ojp.usdoj.gov

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ANNOUNCES $98 MILLION IN GRANTS FOR
PRESIDENT BUSH'S DNA INITIATIVE AND OTHER CRIME-SOLVING FORENSIC SERVICES

TAMPA, FL - The Department of Justice today announced more than $84 million in DNA grants nationwide as part of President Bush's DNA Initiative, Advancing Justice Through DNA Technology. The DNA Initiative is a five-year, $1 billion commitment to improve the nation's capacity to use DNA evidence by eliminating casework and convicted offender backlogs; funding research and development; improving crime lab capacity; providing training for all stakeholders in the criminal justice system; and conducting testing to identify the missing. In addition, $13.6 million is being awarded to improve criminal justice forensic services.

"DNA has proven to be one of the most remarkable crime-fighting tools of the 21st century," said Regina B. Schofield, Assistant Attorney General for the Office of Justice Programs. "With DNA evidence, law enforcement can solve rapes, murders and even burglaries, and can bring much needed closure for a family whose loved one is missing and is not found or identified. Through the President's DNA Initiative, victims and their families can know that justice will be served."

Newer DNA analysis techniques can yield results from biological evidence invisible to the naked eye, even in cases where the evidence is contaminated. Today, police departments throughout the country are reexamining unsolved rape and homicide cases using advanced DNA methods. Newly-processed DNA profiles are uploaded into the FBI database, CODIS, so the data can be compared with DNA profiles derived from convicted offenders and evidence samples already in the national system. Matches are confirmed by obtaining and analyzing a second sample from the suspect and then reported to law enforcement. More information about President Bush's DNA Initiative can be found at www.dna.gov.

While DNA technology is helping to solve crimes and exonerate the innocent across the country, many public crime laboratories are not fully equipped to handle the increased demand for DNA testing. Some laboratories have large backlogs of unanalyzed DNA samples from convicted offenders and crime scenes, which can significantly delay criminal investigations and the administration of justice. According to a study funded by the Department of Justice, an estimated 542,700 cases either have biological evidence still in the possession of local law enforcement or backlogged at forensic crime laboratories. With these grants, the Department of Justice has ensured that local jurisdictions, which often have the greatest DNA backlogs, can directly benefit from federal funds.

The grants will be administered by the National Institute of Justice (NIJ), the research, development and evaluation arm of the Department of Justice. Nationwide, NIJ has awarded $18 million for DNA casework; $30.3 million for DNA capacity building for crime lab improvement; $4 million for DNA training; $7.7 million for DNA research and development; $1.5 million for DNA testing for missing persons; and $20.6 million for convicted offender testing. NIJ will also provide $13.6 million for Paul Coverdell Forensic Science Improvement Grants that can be applied to improving non-DNA forensic services. This funding represents the largest amount of money provided by the Department to support state and local forensic efforts.

Earlier in September, the Department of Justice awarded $1.5 million to the University of North Texas that will be used to help identify the missing and unidentified dead recovered as a result of Hurricane Katrina. It also awarded $4.4 million in DNA Initiative and other forensic service funds to states affected by Hurricane Katrina: Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama. These funds will be used to assist recovery of crime laboratory capacity and identification of remains.

As part of the President's DNA Initiative, the Department awarded $2 million to five jurisdictions as part of a pilot program to help solve high-volume property crimes. Evidence now suggests that DNA evidence may assist law enforcement in solving these crimes and can prevent future property crimes and more serious offenses. The Department of Justice has selected five sites to participate in a $2 million, 18-month pilot project that will assess the cost-effectiveness of expanding the collection of DNA evidence from high volume serious crimes to property crimes, particularly burglary. The five sites are: Denver, Colo. ($417,207); Orange County, Calif. ($495,505); Los Angeles, Calif. ($436,077); Phoenix, Ariz. ($500,000); and Topeka, Kan. ($141,500).

All five locations will have coordinated teams from law enforcement, the forensic science community and the district attorney's office to implement the program locally. The five sites will be evaluated to determine how much DNA contributes to solving property crimes.

Assistant Attorney General Schofield cited the pioneering efforts of two Florida counties, Palm Beach and Miami-Dade, to use DNA analysis to solve many types of crime. These counties developed programs that identified cases of all types-from burglaries to car theft to robberies and other violent crimes-in which DNA evidence might be present but police had yet to identify a suspect. When the DNA profiles from these cases were loaded into state and national DNA databases, matches to known criminals were made in 40 to 50 percent of the cases.

The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) provides federal leadership in developing the nation's capacity to prevent and control crime, administer justice, and assist victims. OJP is headed by an Assistant Attorney General and comprises five component bureaus and two offices: the Bureau of Justice Assistance; the Bureau of Justice Statistics; the National Institute of Justice; the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention; and the Office for Victims of Crime, as well as the Office of the Police Corps and Law Enforcement Education and the Community Capacity Development Office, which incorporates the Weed and Seed strategy and OJP's American Indian and Alaska Native Affairs Desk. More information can be found at www.ojp.usdoj.gov.

A Seattle Post-Intelligencer special report on how police here and around the nation fumble missing-person reports, originally published in 10 parts.
Monday, February 17, 2003
By LEWIS KAMB
SEATTLE POST-INTELLIGENCER REPORTER

WITHOUT A TRACE
People go missing, Killers go free

Because of ignorance, indifference or poor training, police here and around the nation fumble missing-person reports.Bodies remain unidentified, families get no answers and killers get away.Over two weeks, the P-I revealed the startling results of a year spent investigating the problem.
THE STORIES:
PART 1 - The P-I has found a virtual army of dead and missing people first victimized by their killer, then by a failure in the investigation of their disappearance.
PART 2 - For 17 years now, someone has gotten away with murder in Chelan County -- partly because of flaws in the system for tracking missing people.
PART 3 - Police dodge missing persons reports in Kent and Bremerton and dump them on others to avoid paperwork, helping killers get away and leaving families frustrated and hopeless.
PART 4 - Experts know that serial killers are adept at using the system against itself, targeting those who are marginalized by society, including the missing.- A guide to Washington's serial killers
PART 5 - Many serial killers remain unnoticed for years because their crimes show little or no common link.
PART 6 - A convicted serial killer tells of his only regret: that he didn't hide his last victim better.
PART 7 - Unidentified bodies, some of them murder victims, remain nameless and unburied because of gaps throughout the system.- Key to man's ID in a file all along- A list of Washington's unidentified dead
PART 8 - Investigators are tormented by an inability to find a child's identity or her killer.- Woman clings to faint hope of finding her missing sister
PART 9 - The FBI has national database to link the missing and the dead based on their dental records. But it consistently fails.- Why the system doesn't work
PART 10 - The nation's systems for tracking missing-persons cases and identifying the anonymous dead are broken. Today, experts tell us how to fix them. - Lack of a DNA database hampers police- Links to resources and additional information

There is far more information at the following url
Seattle Post Intellingencer - Without a Trace

Problem: Missing persons have few advocates for reform.

Solution: Lobbying by friends and families of missing people can prompt local, state and national reform.

It was a father's perseverance that led to the watershed Missing Children's Act of 1982. After his son's abduction and murder, John Walsh, now host of TV's America's Most Wanted, pushed for reform -- and got it with the federal law that called for stricter reporting, an enhanced FBI database and the establishment of a national missing children's clearinghouse.

The same can happen for adults, experts say, if families and friends insist."If the families of the missing got together and became a significant lobby, maybe something would be done," said Bell, the forensic dentist. "But . . . right now, they just don't have a voice."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/110245_fixmissing27.shtml

Seems to me Kelly is trying to be part of the solution to a growing problem.

The wording about improving and ensuring the return of a missing loved one is no where in the body of the law. It is only in the explanatory sections.

The intro in the body of the law itself states:

"AN ACT relating to improving the ability of law enforcement to locate and return missing persons, to improving the identification of human remains, and to improving timely information and notification to family members of missing persons."

I don't see any guarantees or forced contact there.

A summary of the DNA Inititiative, right from the site is:

"The*President's*DNA*Initiative—Advancing*Justice Through*DNA*Technology—is a 5year*program that*directs more*than*$1*billion*to*improve*the*use*of*DNA*in the*criminal*justice*system.*Designed*to*help*Federal,*State,*and*local*forensiclaboratories*in*particular,*the*initiative*provides*funding,*training,*and*assistance to*ensure*that DNA*technology*reaches*its*full*potential*to*solve*crimes,*protect the*innocent,*and identify missing persons."

We often do not know whether or not our missing loved ones are gone of their own accord, or victims of an accident or foul play. To assume, in the face of no evidence, that they have left of their own free will, ensures that criminals go free to harm another in cases of foul play. The model, in place, helps guide LE in the neccesary steps that may lead them to this answer, along with the left behind families.

The Campaign for the Missing 2006 invites interested citizens of the US to help us in our quest to improve LE response and to decrease the growing numbers of UID's.

We're up to participants in 28 states.

Please read all of the original material and consider helping us in the state in which you live. Please keep in mind this is more than a letter writing campaign. We need serious individuals who are willing to try to make a difference for the missing.

A current participant list can be found here: Campaign for the Missing 2006--Who's Involved

Thank you.

Kelly

Are there no activists here? We still have several states with no coverage and many states with only one person. Thank you.

Kelly

Ok Guys,

I edited numerous posts here for discussion. Just a reminder--this forum is for information and support if you want to discuss a case you may do so in the "Missing/Located Discussion Forum". I edited ALL discussion from this thread--not just the reported post but also the numerous replies. Please, if there is a problem just report and DO NOT reply to the post.

Thank you all so much!