Missing Child Issue

The search for a missing Arkansas boy has shifted from searching the local woods and lake towards an abduction scenario. Since it couldn’t be proven that the child was taken, an Amber Alert was not immediately issued. Authorities in the area spent days searching the immediate woods and lake area where the child went missing and after turning up no leads, now believe the child may have been taken from his home.

If Dominick was taken by a stranger, his odds of returning home safely are slim, according to national studies on youth kidnappings. Forty percent of children abducted in "stereotypical kidnappings" are killed, and 4 percent are never found, according to a U.S. Department of Justice report from 2002. Stereotypical kidnappings involve a stranger or slight acquaintance who takes a child with the intent of keeping him, holding him for ransom or killing him.

Time is of the essence in such cases. Among abducted children who are ultimately murdered, 74 percent are dead within three hours of going missing, according to an oft-referenced report from 1997 by the Washington state attorney general.

"When it comes to abductions, to be honest, the first couple of days are absolutely critical," Browne said. "The timeline for recovering kids, it’s a sad kind of timeline."

 

Arkansas Amber Alerts

A heads up to those of you in Arkansas who get notifications from the Amber Alert system in the state. Police is reporting that some changes are going to be made:

The Morgan Nick Amber Alert System was among the first system in the country to allow state police to interrupt local radio and television programming in order to provide information about abducted children in danger.

Officials hope changes to the system will speed up the alerts.

 

Kansas Amber Alert

Officials in the state of Kansas are stepping up their awareness program for the Amber Alert system. The campaign, consisting of two radio ads and two television spots, aims to remind people about the existence of the Amber Alert program and also the wireless alert system.

"It is important the public know and understand the criteria for an AMBER Alert to be issued," [Kansas Attorney General Steve] Six said. "These public service announcements will help Kansans remember that law enforcement will only issue AMBER Alerts when they believe the public can help locate a child under 18 who is believed to have been abducted and in serious danger."

 

Amber Alerts Unfunded?

Were you aware that the state of Utah does not have funds appropriated for the Amber Alert system? Currently the system works on tax deductible donations, but some would like to see that change.

“It’s worth discussing,” said Senate President-elect Mike Waddoups.  “I was unaware we didn’t fund it, but in a year where revenues are down, it’s hard to add a new program.”

Perhaps surprisingly, Murphy is against state funding.  He says Utah’s Amber Alert program, not tethered with abundant state regulation, is able to adapt to change and is thus more effective.  "If it’s put into statute, and there are laws tied to it, I’m worried we won’t be able to move as quickly, and I’ve seen that in other states," said Murphy.

 

Twitter and Amber Alerts

One of the newest web 2.0 technologies out there is a communication tool called Twitter. With Twitter, you can subscribe to what other people are saying, or their “tweets”. One of the greatest uses of Twitter has become news outlets using the network to spread the word of breaking news, or other entities doing the same. One great usage of Twitter is the official Amber Alert Twitter feed. As soon as an Amber Alert is issued, the system will let you know and you can help spread the word as well. If you are a Twitter user and are interested in following Amber Alerts via Twitter, then you can follow them at twitter.com/amberalert.

Child Safety Service

There are a lot of child safety options out there when it comes to storing our child’s information should you need it in the event something happens to them. One of the more interesting ones is a service called InstantAmber that instead of storing your child’s vital information on a piece of physical media, it stores it on the web. The company is offering up a 30 day free trial of the service if it is something you think you’d be interested in using. From InstantAmber.com:

With the 30 day free trial, you can explore all of the amazing tools of InstantAmber. Your child’s information will include their basic vital stats as well as recent photos, their medial information, and information on other relationships they have. And a great thing about storing all of this information on the web? It can easily be updated with the click of a button….no need to update your child’s info on discs or flash drives which is not only tedious but can easily be lost. We all know how quickly children grow and change, and with the ability to keep this information up to date, you’ll save valuable time in the search for your child should you ever need to access it.

 

Amber Alert Sinage

The state of California is toying with the idea of selling advertising space on Amber Alert billboards that dot the highway system when they are not in use for alerts. The potential ad revenue generated would go towards repairs on the CalTran System.

"I think when you look at the state of California’s transportation system and the need for repairs and rehabilitation to that system, we’ve got to figure out different ways to provide resources to accomplish that rehabilitation," said CalTrans Director Will Kempton.

Some, however, oppose the idea:

"This is absolutely the last thing we need. It’s a bad proposal. It can compromise highway safety. It’s a driver distraction," said Dennis Hathaway, Coalition to Ban Billboard Blight.

Opponents also question how effective the message boards will be if they’re used for something other than a true emergency.

Your thoughts? Good idea or bad?

 

Secondary Amber Alert System

A new secondary Amber Alert system called the Rilya Alert system has popped up via an organization called Peas In Their Pods.

For the Rilya Alert System to work, parents of missing children should immediately contact their local police department to file a report and request that their child be entered into the National Crime Information Center Missing Person File. Once the report is filed, parents should immediately contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) which serves as a liaison between law enforcement and the community. Parents should then contact Peas In Their Pods by calling 516-333-9882. Peas In Their Pods will then contact local news stations and radio stations to have the missing child’s information broadcasted. This broadcasted information is known as the Rilya Alert.

Why the new system?

“The founder of Peas In Their Pods, Janice Lowery, was frustrated that the abducted, African American children were not receiving an adequate amount of media attention,” said Gaetane Borders, president of the organization. “Ms. Lowery felt that starting Peas In Their Pods was a calling from God.”

The purpose of the Georgia based Peas In Their Pods is to spread awareness about the number of African American children who are reported missing every day and to make sure that they do receive attention from the media. With help from the creator of the Amber Alert, the organization produced the Rilya Alert System.

 

Too Many False Alarms?

While Amber Alerts have been on the decline around the country, they have been up this year in the state of Massachusetts, which has become a concern for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

"Those Amber coordinators have been very, very careful and diligent in safeguarding the overuse and abuse of the system because we’re afraid of the public becoming desensitized," says Bob Hoever of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

And what would that mean?

"What we typically call it is the Car Alarm Syndrome. After a while when people hear a car alarm going off they don’t even pay attention and that’s what we don’t want to happen," Hoever says.

There are some detractors of the system, however in the state of Massachusetts, all 22 children which Amber Alerts have been issued for have been recovered safely.

 

Child Abduction Response Team

Some interesting news from Orlando regarding the forming of what is being called the Child Abduction Response Team, or CART for short:

It was images in 2004 of Carlie Brucia, 11, being abducted from a Sarasota car wash and news of her murder that finally had an agent with the Florida Department of Enforcement saying enough is enough, Forbes reported.

The agent formed a new kind of task force to deal with missing and kidnapped children called the Child Abduction Response Team or CART.

The force is made up of dozens of specialists whose only job is to find missing children.

"Forty-four percent of the children that are abducted by a predator are killed within approximately one hour," Palm Bay police Maj. John Blackledge said

Blackledge is part of Brevard County’s CART unit.

"In many cases of a missing child where there is malicious intent and where they’ve been abducted by a predator, it is highly likely we will find that child either alive or dead within one or two miles from the original point that they have been abducted from," Blackledge said.

Statistics also show that 74 percent of children were killed with in three hours of their disappearance, 91 percent were killed within 24 hours and 99 percent were killed within seven days, Forbes reported.

The CART team was successful in the discovery of a Winter Garden girl who was abducted in 2004, Forbes reported. Her abductor, Brent Mackinder was arrested and convicted.

In 15 of 19 times the CART team has been activated, they have been successful in finding a child they said would have been killed otherwise.

"Minutes make a difference," Blackledge said. "Minutes may save a life."