Series 2558: Constituent Correspondence, 2000-2003
36135
From: "Jim Polcaro" <jimpolcaro@prodigy.net> To: Governor Musgrove Created: 5/16/2000 12:32 PM Subject: Vivian's Law Message: Dear Governor, I am the parent of Julian Polcaro who is now 4 years old and assumed to be living in Mexico City. Julian's mother, my ex-wife has wrongfully retained Julian in Mexico City for the past 2 1/2 years. A warrant was issued for her arrest by the Morris County, New Jersey Court after she did not return to NJ as expected in January 1998. Since then, virtually nothing has been done by the US State Department, the US Dept of Justice, the FBI, etc to help me bring Julian back home. I*m writing to ask your help for thousands of missing children. We are asking you to sponsor Vivian*s Law. We intend on passing this law, one state at a time, until it has been passed in every state in the country. We are starting today, here, with you. We are asking you to join us in doing the right thing for the children. I would like to address problems that parents of missing children run encounter and how Vivian*s Law would fix those problems. MISCONCEPTION There is a common misconception that *enough* is being done to help bring home missing children. We live in a society where many of us would find it hard to believe that very little is actually done to help bring home missing children. Yes, some individuals and organizations are doing their best, but the truth is that our system is failing America*s children. VIVIAN'S LAW Vivian*s Law is modeled directly from an *existing* and *effective* California Law. That law has brought home many missing children. It allows the parent of a child that has been missing for more than 30 days to *ask* the state to take *temporary* custody of the child. The state then becomes responsible for finding and ensuring the safety of that child. This allows the district attorneys to oversee government agencies involved in the search for the children, while removing the financial burden of the search from the child*s parents. Custody is returned to the parent at the moment the child is returned to safety. Please note: The following statistics vary a great deal depending on what agency or expert you ask, we simply took an average of available figures. HOW MANY CHILDREN ARE REPORTED MISSING Each year over 800,000 children are reported missing in the United States. Approximately 350,000 of the children were abducted against their will. THE GOOD NEWS Of these children, 75 to 90% are returned home within the first two weeks. THE BAD NEWS At the end of 30 days, approximately 5 to 10% of these children are still missing. WORSE NEWS Over 60% of children kidnapped and taken from the US, are never returned THE WORST NEWS Some of these children die __________________________________________________________________ WHO ABDUCTS THE CHILDREN 1 to 2% of abductions are by strangers. Over 98% of all missing children are abducted by someone who knows them. IS THE CHILD SAFE IF THE ABDUCTOR IS A PARENT More children are killed by an abducting parent, than by all other types of abductors combined. CHILD ABDUCTION IS NOT A CRIME OF LOVE Many people believe that parents kidnap their children out of love for the child, but the truth is the vast majority of parental kidnappers take the child as an act of anger towards the other parent. ABUSE One of the most common misconceptions by both the public and by law enforcement is that when a child is abducted by a family member, the child is safe. The opposite is true. While many children experience physical, psychological and even sexual abuse, all missing children suffer emotional abuse. All abductors have to find a way to convince the child not to attempt to contact the other parent or police. Common methods are to say the other parent does not love them (this destroys something within the child), to say the other parent wants to hurt the child or to say that the other parent is dead. Anyone that thinks this is not abuse should try to imagine being a child and someone tells you that your mother or father is dead. Additionally, the parental abductors generally try to *scare* or *threaten* the children into not trying to ask for help. Not just one time, but nearly everyday for years. The effect of this kind of abuse can be devastating. BEFORE THE ABDUCTION Most parental abductions begin with threats to abduct the child. There are angry words. There are warning signs. Many parents run to the courts for help. THE COURT SYSTEM IS PART OF THE PROBLEM A large percentage of child abductions occur during or immediately after court proceedings involving divorce or custody issues. People often go into the court system at odds, however, due to the very length of court proceedings (delays are the rule of the day) that can take many years and tensions between parents of the child can climb from disagree and anger to outright rage. Also, the non-personal way that the courts treat the families only tends to exacerbate the problem. JUDGES HANDING KIDS TO KIDNAPPERS Often, before a child is abducted, the abducting parent makes threats to take the child. The non-abducting parent then expresses their concerns and repeats the threats to the judge. Often however, the judge ignores the threats and awards unsupervised visitation to a parent that had threatened to kidnap the child. In fact, in having talked to many parents of missing children, my estimate is that 70 to 80 percent of these begged a judge to limit or deny visitation because of abduction threats. The judges in each of these cases granted visitation anyway, and as a result most of the parents I have dealt with had their children abducted during court ordered visitation. If you would like I can arrange for hundreds of parents of missing children to send you the details of their child*s abduction, which would show this pattern to be true. LOCAL POLICE Local police are just like the rest of us. They can be good people or bad people. Some of them are good at their jobs, some of them aren*t. However, parental abduction of a child is something that most police officers get little training in. They are unsure of what proper procedure is. It is very common for the parent of an abducted child to contact local police only to be told that this is an issue between two parents. That they need to settle this between each other, or through their local courts. The delays caused by this *attitude* often gives the kidnapper time to escape. Instead of local police officers taking responsibility (many do, some don*t) they dump the responsibility of finding the child back onto the parent. Often it takes days or weeks for the parent of a missing child to convince the police to start looking for the child. Often, by the time the police start looking, it is already to late. The child and the kidnapper are gone, forever. To make it worse, local police do not have the specialized training that it takes to find and safely bring home a missing child. As for this type of indifference by local police during the initial stages, once again if you would like, I can arrange for hundred of parents of missing children to send you letters about their personal experiences with this problem. Add to this that many local police agencies get bored with a case over time. They simply want to move on to something else, so some of them simply stop doing anything effective to find the child. VIVIANS LAW would give District Attorneys the ability to have oversight of local police when a child has been missing for 30 days, insuring that the proper course of action is taken to find and safely bring home the missing child. WARRANTS Often police tell the parent they cannot begin a search for the child without a court order or warrant. The procedures for warrants depend on the state and also whether the child has been taken across state or federal borders. Different warrants apply in each situation. While in an ideal situation, warrants would be issued on a same day basis, often local warrants can take days or weeks. Warrants across state lines can take weeks to months, if not longer. Warrants for international fugitives can take months to years. In fact, the vast majority of parents of internationally abducted children are *never* able to get a warrant. Why are warrants so difficult to get. Because the various agencies often have an attitude of indifference or that it is someone else*s responsibility. Readers Digest and Insight Magazine have both recently done major stories on the fact that the Justice Department appears to have arbitrarily decided that awarding warrants in many missing children*s cases would be wasted effort because the kidnapper will never be caught. If, however, a kidnapper is spotted, if they slip up and make a mistake, without a warrant police are forced to let them go. And so, this lack of oversight on getting warrants contributes to the number of children that are never recovered. Vivian*s Law would grant District Attorney*s the ability to assist parents of children that have been missing for more than 30 days to get the necessary warrants. THE FBI The FBI is more sophisticated than the local police. They have better equipment, faster computers, etc. However, they are generally not allowed to assist in a missing child*s case unless there is evidence that the child has been brought across state lines, or that some other type of crime has been committed. Once again, without the proper warrants, the FBI can do little or nothing to help the child. VIVIANS LAW would allow district attorneys to assist in getting the necessary warrants to the FBI if a child had been missing for more than 30 days. MISSING CHILDRENS AGENCIES Missing children*s agencies are wonderful. Most people would not believe it but 20 or 30 years ago there were no missing children*s agencies. They would also not believe that today*s missing children*s agencies are drastically under-funded. While there are a few major missing children*s agencies, the vast majority of missing children*s agencies are run by individuals who run them pretty much out of their own pockets. These people do it because most often they have also had a missing child. All the missing children*s agencies try to do the right thing. These people are motivated to help the children. They do their best, but they have no legal right to intercede if the local police are not doing an adequate job. Additionally, while a few of them can put together posters, print age progressed pictures, etc, they are limited financially. Generally they can send what amounts to a start up kit to the parent of a missing child, and after that the parent has to find the money to cover printing of flyers, posters, postage and a million other small items. FINANCIAL BURDEN ON THE PARENTS Parents of missing children often find that they are actually directing the search for their child because no one else seems to stay on top of things. This often means not working for long periods of time. They also find that there are little or no financial resources available to help with the expenses of looking for their child. Most parents of a missing child find themselves completely and totally financially wiped out within the first few months of their child*s abduction. Sometimes there is a chance they can find their child, if only they had a little more money. Money for more posters. Money for postage. Money for long distance calls. VIVIANS LAW would take the financial burden off of parents whose children had been missing for more than 30 days. For instance the state could pay for things like posters, flyers and postage necessary to help find the child. But just as important, with someone from the state supervising the search for their child, they would be able to return to work. Essentially, the state would be assisting them to not only recover their child, but in allowing their lives a little bit of normalcy. INTERNATIONAL CHILD ABDUCTION International Child Adduction is a fast growing problem. Children from the US are often taken to countries around the world. The US system is failing it*s own citizens. For instance, in cases involving Mexico, 80% of children abducted from Mexico to the US are recovered, while only 3% of the children abducted from the US to Mexico are recovered. VIVIANS LAW: A similar law in California has actually managed to make a big difference. Their district attorneys contact Mexican authorities, often with the result of the return of a missing American child. No other state in the US takes similar steps to protect its children. Additionally, many American children are found in other countries, but the parent having exhausted all of their finances no longer has the money to bring the child home. Some of these children die, despite that they have been found, simply for lack of a plane ticket. Under Vivian*s law the state would help cover the cost of bringing these children home. PREVENTION The most important part of keeping our children from all the kinds of abuse listed above, and others that are much worse, is simply to prevent the abduction in the first place. Current laws obviously do not do enough to help prevent child abduction. Simply, we have failed the children, and they are the ones that suffer. VIVIANS LAW has provisions to help protect children from being abducted in the first place. SUMMARY VIVIANS LAW WOULD 1.. Reduce the financial burden on parents of a missing child. 2.. Allow the state to direct the search for a missing child. 3.. Assist in getting warrants and paperwork processed quicker. 4.. Return many children that would otherwise remain lost. 5.. Offer parents of missing children some piece of mind that our government cares. 6.. Help stop child abductions before they occur. Thank You Very Much For Supporting Vivian*s Law Jim Polcaro & Cathy Caradonna 34 Dogwood Drive Chatham, New Jersey 07928 973-701-1650 For further information, please contact: Steven W. Nunnally Ribbons of Hope Campaign Knights of Kindness 12581 Equestrian Circle #1013 Ft Myers, FL 33907 941-274-0507 941-849-3550 - Attachment Filename: C:\archives\governor\mail\Governor Musgrove\_attach\Vivian's Law 2\Part.001 - Attachment Filename: C:\archives\governor\mail\Governor Musgrove\_attach\Vivian's Law 2\Mime.822