Report Title:
Child Abduction; Amber Alert System
Description:
Enacts an Amber Alert System to be administered by county police departments, known as a MAILE Alert in Honolulu, to warn public of possible child abduction; provides that traffic fines and forfeitures from adjudicated cases can be used to fund the program.
THE SENATE |
S.B. NO. |
347 |
TWENTY-SECOND LEGISLATURE, 2003 |
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STATE OF HAWAII |
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A BILL FOR AN ACT
RELATING TO CHILD ABDUCTION.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF HAWAII:
SECTION 1. The legislature finds that police efforts to solve child abduction cases can be greatly augmented by the use of an "Amber Alert" emergency response system. The Amber Alert system utilizes emergency broadcast systems, and highway variable message signs or portable message signs to alert the public of a child abduction. The principle of the Amber Alert system is that expedient information dissemination to the general public about a child abduction case yields useful information that can solve the case. For example, two kidnapped teenagers in California were safely rescued on August 2, 2002, as a result of the Amber Alert program.
According to the Polly Klaas Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public on preventing child abduction and aiding in the search for missing children, thirty-one states had Amber Alert systems as of December 12, 2002.
In Hawaii, the Honolulu Advertiser reported on December 5, 2002, that the Honolulu police department was soon to implement a "MAILE Alert" (short for "minor abducted in life-threatening emergency"), patterned after Amber Alert. The MAILE Alert system is dedicated to six-year-old Maile Gilbert, who was abducted from a Kailua party in 1985 and found murdered shortly thereafter. If an Amber Alert type system had been in place then, the child might have been saved. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, seventy-four per cent of children murdered by nonfamily members are killed in the first three hours of the kidnapping.
The purpose of this Act is to enact an emergency response system in child abduction cases and to make an appropriation therefor.
SECTION 2. The Hawaii Revised Statutes is amended by adding a new section to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§46- Child abduction emergency response system. (a) Each county shall establish a child abduction emergency response system to be administered by the county police department to alert the public of an abduction or kidnapping of a child under the age of eighteen.
(b) Upon receipt by the police of a report of an abduction or kidnapping of a child who is believed to be in danger of serious bodily harm or death, and if there is sufficient descriptive information and other information about the child, the abductor, or the suspect's vehicle to broadcast an alert to the public, the police shall immediately notify:
(1) The state department of transportation and transportation agency of the county for the purpose of immediately posting on variable or portable highway message signs information helpful to locating the child; and
(2) Emergency alert systems in the county such as radio and television stations for the purpose of immediately broadcasting the information helpful to locating the child.
(c) The posting by the state department of transportation and county transportation agency under subsection (b) shall continue as long as deemed necessary by the police. The broadcasts under subsection (b) shall be repeated intermittently at the discretion of the station so as to be effective with emphasis on peak audience or viewer times, and for so long as deemed necessary by the police. Radio and television stations shall provide this broadcast service as a public service."
SECTION 3. Section 291C-171, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by amending subsection (a) to read as follows:
"(a) All fines and forfeitures collected upon conviction or upon the forfeiture of bail of any person charged with a violation of any section or provision of the state traffic laws and all assessments collected relating to the commission of traffic infractions shall be paid to the director of finance of the State[.]; provided that per cent of the moneys collected under this subsection from unadjudicated traffic infraction assessments shall be transferred annually to the counties and used to fund the child abduction emergency response system under section 46- ."
SECTION 4. Chapter 302A, Hawaii Revised Statutes, is amended by adding a new section to part II to be appropriately designated and to read as follows:
"§302A- Alert of missing students to police; required. For each day that a school is open for instruction, and for which the attendance of students is recorded, the department shall require each public school to alert the police department of the county in which the school is located, on students who are absent without permission for more than two hours. The police shall determine if a public alert under section 46- is appropriate for those absent students."
SECTION 5. New statutory material is underscored.
SECTION 6. This Act shall take effect upon its approval.
INTRODUCED BY: |
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