mr. chairman , i thank the gentleman for yielding me time . 
more importantly , i thank the gentleman for his great leadership on the subject of child safety . 
mr. chairman , when i came to this house i hoped that i would have the chance to make a difference in the area of crimes against kids , and thanks to the leadership of the gentleman from wisconsin ( mr. sensenbrenner ) xz4003650 i have had this opportunity . 
in fact , we have all had this opportunity . 
we have made great strides in recent years : the amber alert system ; two strikes and you are out for child molesters ; the debbie smith act which we passed last session which will make sure that our dna databases are up to date and more usable and we will have better training and education for those health care professionals and law enforcement professionals who work in this field . 
but , sadly , we have been reminded in recent months that despite all the work that we have done we have a long way to go . 
dru sjodin , jessica lunsford , sara hunde and , sadly , other names have reminded us painfully , tragically that there is a lot of work to do . 
the children 's safety act is , in my view , a great stride towards doing what we can and what we must to protect our kids from those who would prey upon them . 
first off , it has tough penalties . 
it does have tough penalties . 
it does have mandatory minimums , because i believe and so many people believe that we have to send a clear , unmistakable signal that those who prey upon our kids will not be tolerated . 
secondly , we increased the size of the dna database , which means that we give to law enforcement professionals the tools they need to track down these monitors and to put them away , to put them behind bars . 
and , third , and i believe most importantly , we expand the use of the sex offender registry and increased notification requirements . 
we take that registry system nationwide , we make it accessible online , and we close up some of the loopholes that , sadly , have led to some of the crimes that we have all heard about . 
i would like to speak briefly about one of those loopholes that people in my home state of wisconsin have learned about tragically . 
the situation , the case , the story of amie zyla which has led to the amie zyla provisions in this bill . 
the case of miss zyla , she was a young girl in the county of waukesha , wisconsin , when she was assaulted brutally by a young offender . 
he was found guilty . 
he was sentenced to a juvenile facility . 
but when he turned 18 he was released ; and when he was released , because he had committed that act as a juvenile , the record was sealed . 
law enforcement was not allowed to notify the community that they were having released back into the midst of this community a sex offender , a dangerous sex offender . 
the assailant went on to hold himself out as a youth minister ; and , as you can guess , he preyed upon a number of children , destroyed lives , damaging families and causing so much terror . 
in fact , amie zyla was not notified of the release of this man until she saw him on tv , actually saw him on the news , and there was his face and she realized for the first time that the man who had done so much damage to her was back out on the street right where she was . 
under this bill , we say that if the crime committed by the juvenile offender was so serious that it would have qualified for reporting under the sex offender registry if he were an adult , then that means that law enforcement has the ability , not the obligation but the ability , to notify the community when that sex offender is released back into the community . 
that is about giving tools to our parents , to our families , to our community leaders , to those organizations that are so important to us , giving them the tools to prevent these acts from occurring again ; and nothing is more important . 
now , mr. chairman , a lot of numbers have already been tossed around and will be tossed around in the coming debate . 
you have heard one out of five girls has been sexually exploited before reaching adulthood . 
we have heard that 67 percent of all victims of sexual assault are juveniles . 
but i want to suggest to you that this is not about the numbers and that people will toss around the numbers , but we can not tell if those numbers are accurate because we know that these crimes are the most underreported crimes in society . 
my guess is and most experts will tell you that the damage that is done , the number of crimes is far in excess of any of the studies that are out there . 
more importantly , numbers do not tell the true story . 
each child who is attacked and assaulted by one of these offenders represents a life damaged , an innocence stolen , and , all too often , sadly , tragically , a family destroyed . 
mr. chairman , we need to pass this legislation . 
we need to give tools to community leaders and to parents to make sure those acts never occur again . 
there is so much we have accomplished in the last few years . 
there is so much left to do . 
we do that with the child safety act . 
