adult alert legislation nationwide
Why are adult emergency broadcast alerts important nationwide?
In 2019, Texas became the first large-population state in America, and probably the world, to legislate a kidnapping interdiction mechanism as strong as what the CLEAR Alert represents. Only the state of Virginia preceded us in adopting such a sweeping adult emergency broadcast alert mechanism.
The more jurisdictions that develop adult alert programs, the more the public will learn about missing adult recovery, and the more effective those programs will become at saving lives. That is as true in an interstate context (across multiple American states) as it is in any given intrastate realm (for instance, within Texas). We are continuing to track the status of legislative efforts across America, and we are reaching out to other states that are interested in forming their own adult emergency broadcast alert programs.
A federal law called the Ashanti Alert Act was signed by President Trump on December 31, 2018. Ashanti Billie was a 19-year-old college student who was kidnapped in Virginia, and murdered. Her body was found one month to the day before 19-year-old Cayley Mandadi was killed in Texas. Like Cayley's parents in Texas, Ashanti's parents were also active in pursuing legislative changes both in their home state of Virginia, and at the federal level.
The purpose of the Ashanti law is to establish an organizational and informational framework that should make it easier for individual states to adopt their own adult alert programs.
However, there have been delays in implementing the Ashanti law, and no public resources are currently available from the federal government.
Partly for that reason, it is our intention to see if we, as Texans who have "been there", can offer any assistance or lessons learned to other states who are in the process of developing their own programs without the anticipated federal guidance that the Ashanti law was intended to provide.
We will add more information resources to this page as we continue to develop them.
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If you are a legislative representative, a community advocate, or a concerned citizen, we may be able to support you in your mission to your home state. Please contact us to discuss!
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Legislators in Wisconsin and Alabama have recently expressed interest in creating adult emergency broadcast alert programs in their states.