OPINION & EDITORIAL
Protecting our children
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Also by Matt Modell:
- Taking responsibility for your decisions (April 24, 2003)
- Fixing the problems of ASM (November 25, 2003)
- The key word is 'illegal' (December 4, 2003)
- Feingold-McCain 'Incumbent Protection Plan' fails (November 13, 2003)
- A fond farewell to UW (December 11, 2003)
Related Stories:
- An indictment of cable news (January 22, 2004)
- A Springer Summer (August 30, 2001)
- Goodbye Brokaw, so-long credibility (October 28, 2004)
- Sloppy reporting promotes hatred (January 28, 2005)
- Hate crime debate needed on campus (January 20, 2006)
by Matt Modell
Wednesday, September 4, 2002
Every summer, the news channels need a story for their focus. Last year it was Chandra Levy; this year it was child abductions.
While abductions and murders are declining, the headlines on these crimes are likely the result of the 24-hour news channels’ need to fill their schedules with stories that will drive ratings.
While during the Clinton perjury scandal we had too much focus on one story, the focus on child abductions has been a necessary and beneficial one.
Each year, approximately 114,600 stranger abductions are attempted, with around 4,000 successful abductions. The FBI says the number of “stereotypical” outside-the-family abduction cases in 2001 — defined as where a child is gone overnight, transported over some distance, and intended to be kept by the perpetrator or killed — were down from 115 cases in 1998 to 93.
Ninety-three families losing a child from abductions is too great a number. Violent acts against children take many forms; sexual abuse, kidnapping, and murder are the most serious offenses.
Thanks to former governor and current Health and Human Services secretary Tommy Thompson, Wisconsin has some of the harshest penalties against people who sexually abuse a child.
Under Wisconsin’s “two strikes, you’re out” law, any person convicted of a second sexual assault against a child is sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. No questions, no debate. Two convictions and you’re spending the rest of your natural life locked up behind bars.
Unfortunately, many states have laws much more lenient than Wisconsin’s. Wisconsin is a leader in dealing with criminals who sexually abuse children. However, this is where Wisconsin’s leadership ends.
The AMBER alert system is a voluntary partnership between law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters to activate an urgent bulletin in the most serious child-abduction cases. The goal of this plan is to instantly alert the entire community and encourage them to assist in the search for a missing child.
Currently, 16 states have the AMBER Plan in effect statewide. This plan has saved over 25 children thus far, with its latest successes this summer in California. Madison and Green Bay have adopted AMBER, but the entire state has yet to act.
We need to call on Gov. McCallum to follow in Thompson’s footsteps and fight to protect children. McCallum has shown he wants children to have a bright future by protecting the K-12 education in the recently passed budget, but he must go further.
He must call on state legislators to protect children from stranger abductions. Children don’t need good schools if we haven’t protected them so they can attend school.
Finally, it is time for the state of Wisconsin to take child murderers more seriously.
Look at five-year-old Samantha Runnion. She was playing with a friend in her yard when Alejandro Avila grabbed her, sexually assaulted her, murdered her and left her on the side of the road, naked. DNA evidence and a false alibi are among the many pieces of evidence that will certainly lead to a guilty verdict for Avila. Samantha was innocent.
This was a cold-hearted murder.
In a recent poll conducted by the research firm Opinion Dynamics, 71 percent of Americans say they favor making the death penalty mandatory for anyone found guilty of murdering a child. It is time for the Legislature, behind Gov. McCallum’s leadership, to act. The politicians at the state Capitol have not done enough to protect the children of this state.
Children are precious. They are our hope and future. We must protect them from terrorism, abuse and murder. We must punish anyone who commits these evil crimes with the ultimate penalty — death.
Matt Modell (mmodell@badgerherald.com) is a senior majoring in journalism and political science. He is in Washington, D.C., this semester for an internship.
