It is a great source of pride for me to have Raving Brands partner with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as their largest single contributor with our $2 million commitment. Although an enormous help to the cause of child safety, money alone is not the answer to help ensure our kids are safe from predators.  Co-founder John Walsh recently spoke with our franchisees and asked for the help of our network and friends to push for an incredibly important piece of legislation currently in front of Congress. 

“The Children’s Safety and Violent Crime Reduction Act of 2005,” referred to on the hill as H.R. 4472, will help fix our nation’s current sex offender registration and community notification law, which in its current state is horribly inadequate to protect our children.  This bill needs our support.

There are more than 500,000 sex offenders in the U.S. today who are “supposed” to be registered.  With the pathetic laws currently in place, it is estimated that more than 100,000 of these worst-of-the-worst criminals are missing from the system and free to roam our neighborhoods without any warning to prey on our families.  These people come from all walks of life, education, race, and incomes and living in what you deem a “safe” neighborhood doesn’t mean that a block away there isn’t an unregistered sex offender.  Even more chilling is the fact that sex offenders are four times more likely to commit a sex-related crime after release than any other criminal. 

We have to tell our representatives and senators that this is something that has to be done.  Below is a draft of a letter for you to send to your representative and senator.  By following the links below and entering your state and zip code you will get their contact information:

For Representatives – http://www.house.gov/writerep/
For Senators select your state in the upper right hand corner of the page at http://www.senate.gov/
By all of us just taking a few minutes to send this simple letter we can ensure H.R. 4472 passes and with that these important changes are made:

Improve the Sex Offender Registration and Notification Program to ensure sex offenders register, stay current and show where they work, live and attend school
Create a new criminal penalty of 20 years incarceration for refusal to comply
Require quarterly in-person visitation and regular notarized verification mailings
Require states to notify one another when a sex offender moves to another state
Create the Dru Sjodin National Sex Offender Public Website where we can all search for sex offender information in our own communities

Between all of our locations, vendors, friends and Raving fans we can get this done and make a very real and important difference in the safety of our children. This is something that should have been done years ago but, like so many other things, won’t get done unless we do it ourselves. Please join me in letting our government know that this cannot be ignored.

Gratefully, 

Martin Sprock
Founder, CEO Raving Brands
 

Draft of letter to send:

Dear Representative and/or Senator:

I am a constituent who is very concerned about the sex offenders who live in my community and the lack of effective laws to ensure the children of our community are safe.  With all of the recent stories in the news about how the current sex offender registration and notification laws don't work, and need to be changed, it is clear that something more needs to be done.  I urge you to support the provisions of H.R. 4472/ S. 1086 that would create a more comprehensive system for tracking these offenders, improve the way information is released about these predators to our communities, and protect our children.

Today, there are more than 500,000 sex offenders who are supposed to be registered in the U.S.; however, it's believed that 100,000 of these offenders are 'lost' in the system.  We have to:

Close the loopholes between state programs, so sex offenders can't move from state to state and elude authorities.
Provide federal and state funding so law enforcement agencies have the resources to track these predators.

Make sure that information about sex offenders is released to all of our communities.
The time is now to tighten the tracking of sex offenders, and provide higher standards for notifying people like me and my neighbors.  I don't want one more person who's been convicted of sex crimes to be able to hide from our community and law enforcement, and prey upon our children.

Thank you for taking the time to read my views on this issue. 

 Sincerely,