Requires the transmission of reports of missing persons to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System when such person has been missing for thirty days.
NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A8286B
SPONSOR: Otis TITLE OF BILL: An act to amend the executive law, in relation to the
transmission of reports of missing persons to the National Missing and
Unidentified Persons System
PURPOSE OR GENERAL IDEA OF BILL:
The purpose of this bill is to require that missing persons be reported
to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System to aid in find-
ing them.
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:
Section 1 amends Section 837-e of the executive law by adding a new
subdivision 1-b to require that in the event that a child is reported
missing, the commissioner shall transmit the report of the missing child
to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) no later
than thirty days after entry of a report of a missing child into the
register.
Section 2 amends subdivision 4 of section 837-e of the executive law, as
amended by chapter 652 of the laws of 1987, to amend paragraphs (e) and
(f), and to add a new paragraph (g), which requires the commissioner to
establish procedures to transmit a report of a missing child to the
National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)pursuant to
subdivision one-b.
Section 3 amends section 837-f-2 of the executive law, as added by chap-
ter 316 of the laws of 2016, to require that no later than thirty days
after a police agency receives a report that an adult person is missing
under this section, the agency shall submit an electronic report to the
National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
Section 4 establishes the effective date.
DIFFERENCE BETWEEN ORIGINAL AND AMENDED VERSION (IF APPLICABLE):
The bill is amended to correct a technical error.
JUSTIFICATION:
In 2016 New York State enacted chapter 153 of the laws of 2016 to
require all medical examiners and coroners to report all unidentified
remains to the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs)
created by the United States Office of Justice Program's National Insti-
tute of Justice. New York was the first to require that at the state
level and this was viewed by NamUs officials as an important step in
increasing the effectiveness of their system. Other states are now
following this lead. Tennessee recently passed legislation which
included the requirement for reporting to NamUs not only unidentified
remains but all missing persons information that were cases over thirty
days old. A NamUs official indicates that the additional reporting
requirement will increase their ability to locate missing persons. NamUs
officials recommended the language requiring notification no later than
thirty days after the person is reported missing.
Current New York law requires that reports of missing children and
adults be transmitted to the Federal Bureau of Information's National
Crime Information Center register (NCIC), but does not require trans-
mission of such reports to the NamUs. NamUs is the database that family
members and the public use in their search for missing relatives. The
importance of having all missing persons cases included in the NamUs
system cannot be understated in that this is an important tool for find-
ing missing persons. The information about missing persons cases on the
NCIC is only available to law enforcement agencies while the information
on NamUs is available to family members and the public. Law enforcement
agencies can select to withhold sensitive information from public view,
or information that is part of an active investigation, when they trans-
mit the report to NamUs. Families and members of the public may also
submit information to the NamUs database. Making the information avail-
able in both databases greatly increases the chance that people will be
identified and cases closed.
While the NYS Division of Criminal Justice Services recommends that law
enforcement agencies report missing persons to NamUs as well as NCIC,
many do not. NamUs reports that a recent review showed 4000 open missing
persons cases in the NCIC register, but only 551 in NamUs. This discrep-
ancy in cases show that there is a need to require that missing persons
be reported to both databases in order to increase the chances that the
missing are found.
PRIOR LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:
none
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS FOR STATE AND LOCAL GOVERNMENTS:
none
EFFECTIVE DATE:
this act shall take effect immediately.
