Wheels of Justice

The Adam Walsh Protection and Safety Act
(Part 2 of 2)

In “The Adam Walsh Child Protection & Safety Act, Part 1,” we looked at the facts leading up the kidnapping, sexual abuse and murder of six-year-old Adam Walsh. In this article, I want to review the Adam Walsh Child Protect-ion & Safety Act itself to see what it covers and how truck drivers can help the U.S. Marshals with the enforcement of the act.  
     If you have access to a computer, go online to www.nsopr.gov. This is the National Sex Offender Public Registry sponsored by the U.S. Department of Justice. On this site you are able to look up convicted sex offenders in your state, your town and even your neighborhood. You can also look them up by name or their offense. Try this Web site soon so you can see if you or your family could possibly be living close to a sex of-fender. There are female sex offenders, but the majority of them are male. Most sex offenders victimize persons who they know, are related to or are close with.
     Section 113 of the act describes the registry requirements for sex offenders. They must register and keep their registration current to within three business days of any change in each jurisdiction where the of-fender resides, is an employee and/or is a student. Failure to do so will result in imprisonment that may exceed one year. 
     Here’s an example of having to register:  A registered sex offender wants to take a week’s vacation to Orlando, FL. He lives in Tulsa, OK. In order to be in compliance, he must tell Tulsa police he is leaving town, tell Orlando police he is in Orlando and how long he will be there, where he will stay and what he’ll be doing. When it is time to return home, he must tell Orlando police he is leaving and tell Tulsa he is back home and verify where he’ll stay, work or go to school.  Failure to comply will land him in jail.
     There are upwards of 600,000 convicted sex offenders nationally, and up to 125,000 have failed to register with law enforcement, ac-cording to U.S. Marshal for the Western District of Oklahoma, Michael Roach. 
     “If a driver finds an adult and a child in a suspicious situation, report it,” says Roach. “You won’t be breaking any law by reporting these suspicious situations to law enforcement, but you could be saving a child.”
     Jim C. Klepper is president of Interstate Trucker Ltd., an organization that provides legal defense protection to the nation’s commercial drivers. Jim is a lawyer who focuses on transportation law and the trucking industry in particular. He works to answer your legal questions about trucking, and he holds his Commercial Drivers License.