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Managing America: Crime

TheWeekInCongress.com (TM)

Week Ending September 28, 2007

H.RES.340 Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives of the importance of providing a voice for the many victims (and families of victims) involved in missing persons cases and unidentified human remains cases.

The preamble notes the macabre facts that there are 40,000 sets of human remains in property rooms that can not be identified. Most are not entered into a law enforcement database and others are buried or cremated without taking a DNA sample.

The resolution aims to give a voice to the victims and their families.

More resolution below….

Sponsor:  Rep. Steve Chabot (OH-1^st)

Vote: Passed House by voice vote September 24, 2007

Cost to the taxpayers: No discernible cost

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MORE INFORMATION

Whereas there are more than 100,000 active missing person cases on any given day;

Whereas every year tens of thousands of people vanish under suspicious circumstances;

Whereas there are more than 40,000 sets of human remains held in the property rooms of medical examiners, coroners, and police departments across the country that cannot be identified by conventional means;

Whereas of such 40,000 sets of human remains, only six thousand sets of human remains have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and fewer have been entered into other Federal databases such as the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program (ViCap) or the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), or the National Missing Persons DNA Database;

Whereas many cities and counties continue to bury or cremate unidentified human remains without any attempt to collect DNA and many laboratories are unable to perform timely DNA analysis of human remains, especially when they are old or are degraded;

Whereas such victims and their families have been without a voice for far too long: Now, therefore, be it

Resolved, That the House of Representatives--

(1) is committed to giving victims involved in missing persons cases and unidentified human remains cases a voice;

(2) supports that such voice should be heard by--

(A) continuing Federal funding for DNA testing and the Combined DNA Index System;

(B) supporting greater cooperation between local, State, and Federal law enforcement;

(C) providing more comprehensive training and education for the more than 17,000 law enforcement agencies involved in missing persons cases and unidentified human remains cases;

(D) providing medical examiners and coroners with greater accessibility into Federal databases to upload and compare evidence so that such victims ultimately may be located and identified and returned to their loved ones where they belong; and

(E) working to raise awareness among victim service providers and the general public about the use of DNA and the Combined DNA Index System to identify the unidentified dead; and

(3) directs the Clerk of the House of Representatives to transmit an enrolled copy of this resolution to the Office for Victims of Crime and the National Institute for Justice in the Department of Justice.

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