Science Leadership Academy

According to research conducted by The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, of all the cases of long-term child abduction in which the child was found alive, 85% of the children did not consider the kidnapper a stranger. Also of at least 65% cases in which the child was found dead, it was evident that the child would not have considered the kidnapper a stranger. That was either because the parent’s identified the kidnapper as someone they knew, or the kidnapper admitted to having some sort of relationship with the child. Those statistics prove that parents need to use a different approach than “Don’t talk to strangers” because that method is scary and not beneficial.

So to try and fix this, our country is trying to get systems such as the Amber Alert system active in all 50 states. So far such systems are active in 47 states. Some experiences with the systems are as follows; a statewide program in California, titled, Child Abduction Regional Emergency Alert, has been activated twice in the past month. This would be a good thing if we were just talking about the fact that the systems are active. But it is not so good since the system being activated twice in the past month, means that two children in California were abducted in the past month. An Amber Alert was issued August 15^th 2007 in Virginia when a 9 year old girl was kidnapped after her parents were found shot to death in their home. The girl had not yet been found. Nevada’s alert system was activated just last Tuesday when 10-year-old was Nichole Timmons was abducted. The alert helped Nichole get reunited with her family just 5 hours after she was reported missing.

North Carolina has a unique alert system titled North Carolina Child Alert Notification, which is similar to the system in California. It was implemented in four countries and has spread to 14 different countries. It is unique in a negative way though. I say it is unique because it is only activated if the child is thought to be in danger of physical injury or death, but the system will not be used in the case of a parental abduction or if the child is a runaway. This idea worries me because when a child is reported missing by the parents, the police do not know who took the child right away so, they cannot determine if the child is in physical danger. So what sense does it make to wait until you know for sure that the child is in danger to activate an alert system? The last time this system was used was 2 years ago when an 18-month-old child was taken by his baby-sitter, and the alert was only issued because the babysitter was a reported crack user. Some questions I have about that are; When did the police find out that the baby-sitter took the child, when and how did they find out that the baby-sitter was a crack user, why would the parents leave their child in the care of a baby-sitter who was a crack user? Whatever amount of time if took the police and the parents to figure out that the baby-sitter was a suspect, they could have issued the alert during that time. It does not make sense to wait until you have details about the case, they know for sure that the child is missing and I think that is enough to issue an alert.