President George W. Bush greets Elizabeth Smart, center, and her mother Lois Smart in the Roosevelt Room Wednesday, April 30, 2003. President Bush met with the Smart family before the signing of the S. 151, PROTECT Act of 2003.
President Bush’s
Commitment to Increasing Children’s Safety
For FY 2003, President Bush has proposed a 26% increase in funding for
the Missing and Exploited Children's Program, which provides training for
state and local enforcement on handling missing child cases. As a result,
the President’s budget request would almost double funding for the Department
of Justice’s Internet Crimes Against Children Task Force (ICACTF) program.
In August, the President also announced the release of a new guidebook
– the “Parent’s Guide to Child Safety.” The guidebook is designed to help
parents take specific steps to improve the safety of their children, and
it includes information that children of all ages can understand.
The guidebook
reflects the work of experts on child safety from the Department of Justice,
the Department of Education, the FBI and the National Center for Missing
and Exploited Children. It is available online in English and in Spanish
at www.missingkids.com.
The Department of Education sent a copy of the English
and Spanish version to every public and private school and all main public
libraries in the country, reaching over 110,000 schools and more than 6,000
libraries.
In the two weeks following the mailing, the Department of Education
took orders for more than 1 million additional copies of the English version
and nearly 200,000 copies of the Spanish version.
