Please Voice Your Support of NamUs.gov and Billy's Law for The Families of the Missing

The following was written by Billy's Mother, Jan Smolinski ... http://peace4missing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/your-voice-counts-for-missing/edit

If anyone has watched the journey our family has taken to try and find a real person, disappeared, ignored by the authorities as a walk away, hurtful remarks made, evidence lost, entries wrong and incomplete, six years later and still the enormous up hill push just to bring my son home.


Please Help Find Our Missing Loved Ones
We are just a small example of the thousands of families who have to face the reality of a similar nightmare/silent crisis that faces our nation today.

Education is the key~~there is a centralized database that will help connect the dots possibly make matches or bring a loved one home called NamUs.

Imagine a person you love so dearly, a child perhaps (no matter the age they are always your child) go missing with very little attention ~ to then finally receive HOPE ... who would not stand up and say WAIT this is what we have been waiting for! ?? Perhaps a solution?

In our state of Connecticut, like most states, Billy has been missing for six years, but yet the state police ~ public safety ~ have not and will not put Billy as a missing person on their database because they say he is not their case. We questioned and were told Billy's case belongs in the lead agency database, ok, but the computers don't connect, so it will not work.

Our country is in desperate need of a new system, the disjointed, confusing process and tools currently available prior to the creation of NamUs were not working! And unfortunately, until more agencies are required to utilize NamUs (part of what Billy's Law would initiate) this broken, ineffective method will continue.

Now for the first time ever a centralized database is available and incentives are needed to help train law enforcement and medical examiners/coroners how to enter the information and take DNA samples, put into the proper databases, results that are much needed, a resolution for the family of a missing loved one may be possible, it is proven to have worked already.

A missing person DOES NOT have to be deceased for this to work.

Check your local or state clearinghouses, look at the disaster of information entered ... see for yourself the tangled web of missing pieces, entries here there and everywhere and dead ends ... it doesn't make sense.

You decide ... is this the kind of system you'd want to put the majority of your hopes for finding your missing loved one into??

If you say I don't have to worry about this it won't happen to my family, think again ~ NO ONE IS EXEMPT!!

It is time to wake up!

It is time to get the ball rolling and support the best database to date.

If law enforcement is here to serve and protect then lets educate them how to help serve and protect. It is not their fault if they are not trained, incentives are needed to help in the process.

It is 2010, this is why we in this country need S3019 ~ Help Find the Missing Act ~ Billy's Law.

Billy's Law (The Help Find the Missing Act) is a proposed bill that was created in order to strengthen and increase utilization of our National Missing Persons Database (NamUs.Gov)

More info can be found on PEACE4 THE MISSING
Voice Platform and Support Network for Families of Missing and Victims of Crime
http://peace4missing.ning.com/

Peace4 Page on Facebook ... http://www.facebook.com/pages/Peace4-the-Missing/114101641947

NamUs.gov
http://namus.gov/

Billy's Law
http://helpfindthemissingact.blogspot.com/
http://justice4billy.com/

THANK YOU, Senator Joseph Lieberman, for having a HEART for the Missing!

THANK YOU, Senator Joseph Lieberman, for having a HEART for the Missing ... From Peace4 the Missing's Families of Missing Loved Ones ...

LIEBERMAN INTRODUCES BILL TO ASSIST FAMILIES OF MISSING ADULTS

02.23.10

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Today, Senator Joe Lieberman (ID-CT) introduced legislation to assist the families of missing adults.  The measure, called the Help Find the Missing Act, or Billy’s Law (H.R. 3695), is named for Waterbury-resident Billy Smolinski Jr., who disappeared from his home on August 24, 2004.  The legislation will improve data-sharing about missing people; assist law enforcement in advancing their efforts to compile and track missing persons data; and provide funding to improve, monitor and maintain that data. 

 

Senator Lieberman issued the following statement:

 

“As a parent, my heart goes out to every family that has experienced the disappearance of a loved one.  Each year, tens of thousands of Americans go missing, causing heartbreak and loss for people across the country.  Passing Billy’s Law will offer families of missing adults confidence that we are doing everything we can to locate their loved ones.  I thank Jan and Bill Smolinski of Waterbury, Connecticut for their courage and perseverance as they continue the search for their son, Billy Smolinski, Jr., who disappeared without a trace on August 24, 2004.  I am grateful for the support that my colleagues Senator Schumer, Gillibrand, and Merkley have offered for this legislation and remain committed to doing everything possible in the United States Senate to assist families of missing adults.”

The Man behind the Bill - Missing Billy Smolinski - http://justice4billy.com

Billy's Mom, Who ALWAYS HOPES!  -  Jan Smolinski

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Posted on Peace4 the Missing

http://peace4missing.ning.com

Support The Help The Missing Act a.k.a. Billy’s Law (S.3019)

NamUs.gov WITH Billy's Law: Stronger Together - A Perfect Match

Billy's Law (The Help Find the Missing Act) is a proposed bill that was created in order to strengthen and increase utilization of our National Missing Persons Database (NamUs.Gov)

S. 3019 (more commonly known as Billy's Law) would authorize funding for, and increase accessibility to, (NamUs.Gov) the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, to facilitate data sharing between such system and the National Crime Information Center database of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, to provide incentive grants to help facilitate reporting to such systems.

In order to improve the current situation of how all Missing Persons cases are handled within the United States it is of ESSENTIAL importance that we all actively work together to ensure the passage of Billy's Law

 ... please do so now by clicking on the link below and taking action! 
http://peace4missing.ning.com/profiles/blogs/proposed-bill-billys-law

Additional details regarding are updated frequently and can be found on Peace4 the Missing ... http://peace4missing.ning.com/

Billy's Law: Making NamUs.Gov Happen

According to a recent Associated Press (AP) report, the free online database `NamUs' - short for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System - is only being used by 6.5 percent, or 1,100, of the country's 17,000law enforcement agencies, for tracking missing persons.

The clearinghouse, which is designed to help identify over 40,000 sets of unknown remains that languish with the country's medical examiners, is not as widely used as it should be largely because either the lack of adequate publicity has resulted in hardly any awareness about it, or most law enforcement agencies are chary of using their already-limited staff resources to participate in the service.

Nonetheless, the AP report also specified that NamUs - which promises to solve almost 100,000 missing persons' cases of the country - has thus far helped crack 16 cases, after becoming fully operational last year.

Furthermore, the service is home to nearly 6,200 unidentified sets of remains, and 2,800 missing people; has, as per The Crime Report, been accessed by over 185,000 people, for missing persons' details, till January 2009.

To encourage a wider use of NamUs and seeking additional funding set aside for the service, a Cheshire, Connecticut-based woman Janice Smolinski is currently championing a bill in the Congress. The bill - "Billy's Law," named after Smolinski's 31-year-old son Billy, who went missing in 2004 - will mandate law enforcement agencies to database details about all the 21-or-over missing adults.