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PARENTAL KIDNAPING PREVENTION ACT

OF 1979, S. 105

THURSDAY, JANUARY 30, 1980

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CRIMINAL JUSTICE,
SENATE COMMITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY,

SUBCOMMITTEE ON CHILD AND HUMAN DEVELOPMENT,
SENATE COMMITTEE ON LABOR AND HUMAN RESOURCES,

Washington, D.C. The subcommittees met, pursuant to notice, at 9 a.m., in room 6226, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Senator Charles McC. Mathias, Jr., acting chairman, presiding.

Present: Senator Mathias.

Also present: Elizabeth McNichols, staff assistant; Patricia Hoff, legislative assistant to Senator Wallop; Susanne Martinez, counsel, Subcommittee on Child and Human Development; Ann Hawkins, staff assistant, Judiciary Committee; Mary Lopatto, legislative assistant, Subcommittee on Child and Human Development; Edna Panaccione, chief clerk; John Riley, legislative assistant to Senator Durenberger; Barbara Parris, research assistant, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice; Lillian McEwen, counsel, Subcommittee on Criminal Justice; and Eric Hultman, minority counsel, Judiciary Committee.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR MATHIAS

Senator MATHIAS. The joint hearing will come to order.

Today the Senate Subcommittees on Criminal Justice and Child and Human Development will examine a problem of increasing concern, the abduction of a child from one parent by another parent; and a proposed solution, Senate bill 105, the Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1979, which was introduced by our distinguished colleague from Wyoming, Senator Wallop.

Last April, my distinguished colleague from California, Senator Cranston, held a hearing in Los Angeles on parental kidnaping; I am happy that we can meet together this morning with all of you to further investigate this troubling issue.

The problem of child snatching is greater today than ever before. More than 10 million children under the age of 18 live in families headed by a single parent. Although accurate figures are not available, it is estimated that between 25,000 and 100,000 children are the victims of interstate child snatchings each year.

With the escalating divorce rate and our increasingly mobile society, these figures are on the rise. The American family and American

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society are in flux. We are in a whole new ball game, where the old rules no longer apply and the new rules haven't been written. Small wonder that custody disputes have been called "potential interstate nightmares.

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The reasons child snatching has become a problem of such frightening proportions are not hard to find.

First of all, custody determinations rendered in one State may not be honored by other States. As a result, a parent who is dissatisfied with a court's original custody determination may snatch the child and flee to another jurisdiction, intending to defeat the original court order and hoping to obtain a more favorable second ruling.

The adoption in 39 States of the Uniform Child Custody Jurisdiction Act, providing for the recognition of the custody decrees, is an important step toward limiting this kind of forum shopping. Nevertheless, other States remain as havens for child snatchers.

Snatching parents often take great pains to cover their paths, and substantial cost may be involved in tracking the abductor from State to State. As a result, all too often the parent from whom the child is taken is unable to locate the child and the ex-spouse, and the original decree becomes worthless.

To their credit, some jurisdictions, including my home State of Maryland, have enacted laws designed to curb child snatchings. However, such laws are of limited effectiveness due to the interstate nature of the conduct, and the Federal Government, which could overcome these territorial limitations and make child snatching a national offense, has yet to do so. In fact, parents are specifically exempted from the coverage of the Lindbergh law, the Federal kidnaping statute.

Senate bill 105, and the companion House legislation address each of these problems and attempt to define the role of the Government in preventing parental kidnaping, and assisting a parent whose child has been taken.

Obviously, the emotional and economic costs which the parent or legal guardian incurs under present law as the result of a snatching may be very great indeed. In some instances a distraught parent, finding efforts to regain custody of the child stymied by local law enforcement and the courts, may in desperation decide to go it alone and resnatch the child. In addition, many parents have plunged into debt, hiring private detectives to search the country for the child, and, once the child is located, travel to the other State to relitigate the issue of custody.

But the cardinal principle which should guide the courts and the law and the Congress in this matter is the welfare of the children because they are the real losers in this desperate game. Their best interests should be our foremost consideration. I hope that that is what we will keep in mind as we investigate this very serious issue today. Senator Cranston?

Senator CRANSTON. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.

I will place virtually all of my opening statement into the record to conserve time.

I do want to express my appreciation to you, Senator Mathias, and to Senator Biden. Don't wait to hear it. Go where you have to go. [Laughter.]

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Senator MATHIAS. Mr. Chairman, I will return in a very few minutes. Senator CRANSTON [acting chairman]. Thank you.

Senator MATHIAS. I have an appointment at the White House that I must keep. I will be right back.

OPENING STATEMENT OF SENATOR CRANSTON

Senator CRANSTON. Thank you.

I am very pleased that the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice of the Judiciary Committee and the Subcommittee on Child and Human Development of the Labor and Human Resources Committee are holding this joint hearing today on S. 105, the proposed "Parental Kidnapping Prevention Act of 1979."

Last April, the Subcommittee on Child and Human Development, which has general oversight jurisdiction over issues relating to the welfare of children and families, held a field hearing in Los Angeles to look into the problem of child snatching and the role of the Federal Government in this area. Testimony presented at that hearing from both parents and law enforcement personnel indicated the enormous social costs of this problem.

But what was most dramatically portrayed and repeatedly emphasized at this hearing-and what touched me most personally-was the tremendous heartache and anguish caused by these incidents of child snatching in which only 10 percent of these children are ever found again. Thousands of parents and thousands of innocent children are subjected to emotionally and psychologicaly damaging ordeals. That hearing convinced me that child snatching is, indeed, a subtle and serious form of child abuse.

Although the problem is frequently one of interstate-and sometimes international dimensions-there is presently no Federal law to deal with the situation. As the testimony at our field hearing demonstrated, it is relatively easy for a parent to defy a custody order in one State by absconding with the child to another State and instituting new custody proceedings. Although a considerable number of States have adopted the Uniform Custody Act, a number of States have not. In many other cases, the absconding parent simply disappears with the child, and the parent with legal custody has few resources available to assist in locating the child, let alone enforcing the original custody order.

In many States, kidnaping of children by one of their parents is not treated as a crime but brushed aside as a domestic issue in which the law should not become involved. At worst, a kidnaping parent might be liable to a contempt of court charge. Although a large portion of child snatching incidents involve flight across State lines, these cases are exempted under current law from Federal kidnaping statutes, and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, with rare exceptions, is unavailable to provide assistance in locating the missing children.

Our field hearing also brought forth testimony indicating that the absence of a Federal criminal statute on the subject of parental kidnaping inhibited parents from obtaining extradiction orders in cases involving international child-stealing problems. Efforts are ongoing now to draft an international treaty on child-stealing, and it was indicated at our April hearing that passage of S. 105 would be an important step toward such a treaty.

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Although legal custody issues relating to divorce and child-custody matters have traditionally been within the domain of the States and not the Federal Government, it is within the province of the Federal Government to resolve problems that are interstate in origin and which the States, acting independently, seem unable to resolve. It is also within the province of the Federal Government to take action with respect to problems with international ramifications.

The peculiar interstate-and sometimes international-nature of child snatching and the inherent difficulties of individual States in dealing with problems that transcend State boundaries has resulted in recent years in attention being directed at this problem at the Federal level.

The legislation we are discussing here this morning, by requiring States to recognize the custody orders of other States, by authorizing the use of the existing Federal parent locator services, and by making it a Federal offense for parents to kidnap their children, would provide an array of approaches to deter child kidnaping. S. 105 offers substantial progress, as does our hearing here this morning, toward finding ways to spare thousands of parents and children these intensely disturbing and damaging ordeals.

I am grateful to Senator Mathias and Senator Biden for arranging this joint hearing with the Child and Human Development Subcommittee that I chair.

I also want to say it has been a pleasure to work with Senator Wallop, who has been a leader in this area. I am delighted you are testifying this morning.

Senator Wallop, we are delighted that you are here to be our leadoff witness.

STATEMENT OF SENATOR WALLOP

Senator WALLOP. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman. My thanks, too, to Senator Mathias.

Mr. Chairman, I have a complete statement, together with attachments, which I would like to put into the record.

Senator CRANSTON. Fine.

Senator WALLOP. I have a summary of it which I would like to read this morning.

I would also like to thank Congressman Bennett, for his work in the same area on the House side. Working together, I think this time we may be able to have a measure of success in an area that it is plainly needed.

I might also say that it is not, as you well know, Mr. Chairman, my habit to hunt around searching for new crimes to put on the books or new ways to involve Federal agencies, but this happens to be an area I feel strongly the vacuum that exists at the present.

I would like to express as well my sincere appreciation to my colleagues on the Subcommittee on Criminal Justice and the Subcommittee on Child and Human Development for convening the joint hearing on S. 105. It is encouraging to me as sponsor of this legislation and to the hundreds of parents and children across this country who have long awaited action on this bill that the two Senate committees so keenly interested in the welfare of children have seen fit to make

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