The disappearance of Jacob Wetterling in the fall of 1989 focused attention on the tragedy of missing children. In 1990, Governor Rudy Perpich established a Governor’s Task Force on Missing Children, naming Jacob's mother, Patty Wetterling, St. Joseph, to the Task Force.
In 1991, the legislature passed the Missing Children’s Act (1991 Laws of Minnesota, chapter 285), which included the registration of sex offenders, flagging of school records, and additional rewriting of the parental kidnapping statute.