The above quote suggests at least two questions: At what point does prudent concern for a child's safety cross over into paranoia? And does media coverage help find missing children? The first question is debatable. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the answer to the second question is "Absolutely. One in six of the missing kids featured on [cards you receive in the mail] and through the efforts of other NCMEC photo partners are recovered as a direct result of the photograph."8 And as we shall see below, other forms of media coverage and the work of child advocates have been instrumental in coordinating national efforts to count and rescue missing children.
Until recently, there were no reliable estimates of the number of children who went missing each year. The data on the chart come from a study conducted by the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.9 There were an estimated 1.3 million missing children reports filed in 1999.10 Those missing children were far more likely to be gone of their own volition or as a result of being "thrown away" than for any other reason. A thrownaway child is one who has been forced out of the home or refused permission to return.
Kidnappings by nonfamily members are rare (3% of cases in 1999, or about 400 children). Nine percent of missing children were abducted by a family member in 1999, a phenomenon that some attribute to the divorce rate. According to Time magazine, based on OJJDP data, in 2001 there were about 700,000 missing children reports filed, and officials expected that the number of those children who were kidnapped and murdered would be about 100. On average, an estimated 200 to 300 children are abducted by non-family members each year and between 50 and 150 are held for ransom or murdered. Thankfully, about 94% of ransomed children are returned to their parents.
Highly publicized kidnappings breed legislation. The nation was riveted by the abduction of the Lindbergh baby in 1932, and the 1932 Lindbergh Law made it a federal offense to send a kidnap/ransom note across state lines. After the 1981 abduction/murder of 6-year-old Adam Walsh, his father was instrumental in getting Congress to order law enforcement personnel to enter missing children in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. Walsh testified before Congress that "50,000 children disappear annually and are abducted by strangers for reasons of foul play" (the 50,000 figure has been challenged). Walsh later became host of the television program "America's Most Wanted."
In 1984 Congress launched NCMEC and passed the Missing Children Act to address the nation's inability to coordinate resources to locate and recover missing children.11 After the 1993 kidnapping/murder of 12-year-old Polly Klaas, Congress passed the International Parental Kidnapping Crime Act. Before all of this happened, says NCMEC head Ernest Allen: "If you were the parents of a missing child, you were on your own."
A recent innovation, Amber, arose out of the 1996 kidnapping of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman. Amber (America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) is a voluntary abduction-notification system that uses the Emergency Alert System created during the Cold War to distribute information about missing children to television and radio stations. Some states notify the public of an abduction via road signs. Between 1996 and 2002, at least 22 children are believed to have been saved with the help of an Amber alert. In October 2002 Congress was moving toward mandating the Amber system nationwide.
The Internet plays a role in the missing children drama, for good and ill. Amber alerts are broadcast on the Internet. Some Web sites maintain databases with profiles of missing children. After a 5-year-old girl disappeared from foster care in Florida and authorities failed to notice, protective service agencies across the nation were goaded into action. Michigan was the first state to post the names and photos of missing foster children on the Internet (September 2002); other states followed. Meanwhile, bogus e-mails purporting to be from the anguished parents of kidnapped children now circulate, and pedophiles make use of the Internet to ensnare children.
Sources: Chart: U.S. Department of Justice, National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, ojjdp.ncjrs.org. Eugene Kraybill, "Scaring Our Kids," U.S. News & World Report, February 10, 1986, v100 p81(1). Chitra Ragavan et al, "Lost and Found," U.S. News & World Report, August 13, 2001, v131 i6 p12. "Statement on signing the memorandum on missing persons and missing children," Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, January 22, 1996, v32 n3 p78(2). Glen Hodges, "When Good Guys Lie," The Washington Monthly, Jan/Feb 1997. Information retrieved October 16, 2002. Jessica Reaves, "Amber Alert: Does It Work?" Time.com, August 21, 2002, and "How to Keep Your Child Safe," Time.com, July 18, 2002.
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