Issue Position: Ensuring Public Safety

Issue Position

Ensuring Public Safety

Leading in Times of Emergency

During the severe flooding that hit New Hampshire, Gov. Lynch took quick and decisive actions. The Governor quickly activated the state's emergency management effort and the National Guard. He worked directly with communities to ensure the state was doing everything possible to help them respond and recover. He fought to ensure families affected by the flooding - some of them for the second time in less than a year - received federal disaster assistance in an expedited manner. He worked with the legislature and the private sector to help provide financial assistance so communities could rebuild.

Protecting Children from Sexual Predators

John Lynch knows we must do all we can to protect our most precious resource - our children. That is why he worked collaboratively with the Department of Justice, county prosecutors and the state's law enforcement community to develop and pass the Online Child Safety Act and the Child Protection Act, some of the nation's toughest and most comprehensive laws to protect children from sexual predators.

The Child Protection Act increases registration and monitoring requirements for sex offenders, provides the public more information and toughens sentences on child predators. The Act establishes a presumption that a criminal who preys sexually on a child under 13 will receive a sentence of 25 years, a second offense would carry a mandatory life sentence. The law also establishes a presumption of a 25-year sentence for knowingly causing permanent bodily injury to a child. It also makes the second-degree murder of a child subject to a sentence of 35 years.

In addition to tougher penalties, this new law gives parents and law enforcement new tools to protect children - by increasing registration and monitoring requirements.

The Online Child Safety Act modernizes state laws to help parents better protect their children from on-line predators. It strengthens the penalties in existing law for enticing a child over the Internet, and provides enhanced penalties for repeat offenders; it overhauls and expands existing child pornography laws to better reflect the victimization that occurs every day when images of sexually abused children are created and distributed; and it closes a loophole so that sex offenders using web cams can be held accountable.

Increasing Troopers to Better Protect the Public

With the number of New Hampshire residents and visitors increasing, John Lynch provided funding to pay for seven state trooper positions created last year, and added six more positions to increase the number of state troopers on the roads to protect the public.

Protecting the Families of First Responders

Gov. Lynch signed legislation creating a death benefit for police and firefighters to help ensure the families of our heroes killed in the line of duty will receive the help they deserve.

Protecting Homeowners

Recognizing more and more families find themselves in jeopardy of losing their homes -and the valuable equity they have built into their homes - to foreclosure rescue scams, John Lynch signed legislation imposing new standards on pre-foreclosure sales, requiring greater disclosure from foreclosure consulting companies and creating stiff penalties, including fines and jail time, for those who take advantage of homeowners.

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