Missing and Kidnapped Children Identifying Victims Using DNA: A Guide for Families This 8-page booklet is an overview of DNA analysis for friends and family of missing persons to help them understand the process forensic scientists go through to identify human remains. Available from the National Institute of Justice at the link above. Pdf. ++++++++++ Police Fumble Missing Children Cases The Scripps Howard News Service conducted a study of computer files at the National Center for Missing ad Exploited Children and found that dozens of police departments across the national failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990. Seventeen of these unreported children are dead, 131 are still missing. ++++++++++ Sex Offender Alerts Via E-Mail A Long Island school district is the first to adopt an e-mail alert system that notifies subscribers when a sex offender moves to any Long Island Community. The email program increases the information parents can access about convicted sex offenders because the no-cost method informs subscribers when a registered offender moves into the school district or any other community. It supersedes a postcard mailing service. ++++++++++ National Estimates of Missing Children: Selected Trends, 1989-1999 This OJJDP Bulletin presents the results of a special analysis comparing selected findings from NISMART-2 and its predecessor, NISMART-1 (National incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Throwaway Children). Key findings -- In the three categories considered (family abductions, runaways, and lost, injured or otherwise missing children), the analysis found: No evidence of any increase in the incidence of missing children between 1988 and 1999. Decreases in the incidence rates for some types of episodes of missing children between 1988 and 1999. The most important finding of the study is the absence of increases in any of these problems.
++++++++++ Operation Predator stalks those who prey on children Operation Predator, run by Immigration and Customs Enforcement, brings together U.S. agencies, INTERPOL, and the Justice Department, with several non-governmental bodies, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, and state and local law enforcement to impact child sex predators. Over 3,200 people were arrested in the first year of operation, of which more than half have been deportation cases, and there were six arrests for sex tourism. ++++++++++ Caught in the Web Cathy Frye, a reporter with the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette has won an award from the American Society of Newspaper Editors for her series, “Caught in the Web, “which brought to light the risks of Internet chat rooms after the abduction and murder of 13-year-old Kacie Woody by a 47 year-old-man who had posed as a teenage boy. Frye’s intent was to inform parents of the very real dangers of the Internet for their young teens. Read the four part series Read about why and how she wrote the series Read Internet Crimes Against Children, an Office of Victims of Crime Bulletin ++++++++++ Kidnapping Attempt Foiled by a Steady Young Girl and a Family Code Word In Salt Lake City, Utah a seven-year-old girl first turned down an offer of candy from a man. The man next said her mom had been in an accident and he was sent to pick her up. Shelby Flanders asked him the family code word and, when he didn’t answer, ran. The family has had a code word in place for 10 years. ++++++++++ Parental Abduction (click on this link, then on the search site bar type in "parental abduction." The URLs at this site are impossible.) This article from the St. Louis Dispatch examines the issue of parental abduction. There are approximately 200,000 parents in the country whose children are abducted each year. While the majority of parental abductions are resolved fairly quickly, many the same day the child is reported missing, some 25% last a month or more, and 7% last more than six months. One of the greatest misperceptions held by many in the public and in law enforcement is that a child abducted by a parent is safe. Parental abduction cases can be dangerous and complicated. More information available at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children at the Family Abduction Handbook page and the Polly Klaas Foundation special section on Family Abduction, How to Protect Yourself and Your Child. ++++++++++ National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) A question following last week’s satellite downlink program about sexual exploitation of children sent me to the NCMEC. Here you’ll find such resources as Legal Resources for Child-Sexual-Exploitation Cases and a public relations campaign with downloadable posters: The Sound a Child Makes When Sexually Assaulted Is Often Silence. There is, of course, much more here to look over. ++++++++++ Prevention of International Parental Child Abduction Law Passed in Texas This new law is intended to give Texas courts the tools they need to prevent children from being abducted into foreign countries. It provides safeguards that allow a parent to protect a child when they know an abduction is about to take place or is in progress. The text of the proposed bill (now law, passed and signed by the governor on June 23) is available at this web site. Click on “full text of HB 1899” to read it. ++++++++++ New Spanish Version Guides for the families of Missing, Kidnapped Children ++++++++++ NISMART ( National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children Before the original NISMART study, published in 1990, was mandated by Congress, the estimated number of missing children in the country varied wildly. No one knew what the actual numbers were. The same was true of abducted, runaway, and thrownaway children. This study, conducted and published almost 15 years later, further refines the original NISMART study. Here are three links to different aspects of the study: | Contrary to the common assumption that abduction is a principal reason why children become missing, the NISMART-2 findings indicate that only a small minority of missing children were abducted, and most of these children were abducted by family members (9 percent of all caretaker missing children). Close to 3 percent of caretaker missing children were abducted by a nonfamily perpetrator; among these, an extremely small number (90) were victims of stereotypical kidnapping.” from NISMART-2 |
Caretaker missing children - Children identified as missing from their caretakers. Stereotypical kidnapping – When a stranger or slight acquaintance perpetrates a nonfamily abduction in which the child is detained overnight, transported at least 50 miles, held for ransom, abducted with intent to keep the child permanently, or killed. ++++++++++ Who Would Abduct a Child? (To get to this article in the NYT archives you'll have to register. It's free and no-hassle. The other choice is to go to www.nytimes.com and in the Search bar type in "Who Would Abduct a Child?") The number of cases of child abduction by strangers remains steady at 115 year according to experts, in spite of the spate of startling abduction cases this summer. New York Times reporter Mary Duenwald asked, "What kind of person would do such a thing?" in a recent article in the NYTimes. Retired FBI agent Ken Lanning who specialized in missing children cases for the Bureau and Dr. David Finkelhor at the University of New Hampshire , and an expert on child abuse, were interviewed for this article. Here are some of the characteristics of child abductors: - At least 95 percent are men, and they tend to be unmarried and have few friends.
- Many harbor sexual fantasies that involve children.
- They usually have very little, if any, contact with children in their daily lives. They have few skills to win children’s trust and friendship.
- About 40 percent of the time abductors kill their child victims; in 32 percent of cases children are seriously injured.
Click here and read “Who Would Abduct a Child? Previous Cases Offer Clues” ++++++++++ From the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children Press Release: National Children’s Organization Advises Parents to Stay Calm in Response to Recent Child Abductions – Presents basic facts about child abductions as well as safety tips for parents and children. See box below.
- Parental abductions and runaways make up the majority of missing children in the country. About 725,000 children in this category were reported missing in 2001 and in most cases they were recovered quickly.
- There are about 3,000 to 5,000 non-family abductions reported to police each year. About 200 to 300 of these cases, or six percent, make up the most serious cases where the child was murdered, ransomed or taken with the intent to keep.
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At The NCMEC site click on Education and Resources to see these brochures among others: Child Protection and Summer Safety Tips for Parents and Children. From Time Magazine – The New Safety Rules for Kids: Yell and Tell. Tell a Mom. Protecting Children Goes beyond “Don’t Talk to Strangers.” - This article presents safety lessons parents can teach kids. Some original thinking went into this list. Go Tell a Mom, for instance, says that, instead of teaching kids to find a police officer, security guard or salesperson if they’re lost and scared, instead tell them to find a mom, which generally means someone with a stroller or a child in tow. Police officers and clerks are scarce when you need them, women are more likely than men to stop to help lost children and stay with them until they are found.
++++++++++ When Your Child Is Missing: A Family Survival Guide Written by parents for parents, the guide provides information and insight into what families should do and expect when their children are missing. It "describes the steps that families and law enforcement agencies take as they forge a constructive partnership in their efforts to find the missing child." The Guide has been distributed to every law enforcement agency and public library across the country and to a variety of other resource organizations. Published in 1998, more than 75,000 copies have been mailed out. This 94-page document is downloadable. Hard copies are available from the Juvenile Justice Clearinghouse by sending an email request to or write JJC at PO Box 6000, Rockville MD 20849-6000. The Guide is free. You may want to take a look at OJJDP’s Missing and Exploited Children website as well. +++++++++++ The Criminal Justice Response to Parental Abduction - 15 pages . Highlights the efforts of law enforcement and criminal court officials in finding victims and prosecuting the perpetrators. ++++++++++ Issues in Resolving Cases in International Child Abduction by Parents - 19 page bulletin. Features key findings from research funded by OJJDP to identify barriers encountered by those seeking to resolve cases of international child abduction by parents. Includes overview of international parental abductions and describes the legal framework impacting such cases. ++++++++++ Resources for Judges on International Parental Child Abduction This page from the U.S. Department of State web site consists of links to resource documents that can be read and/or downloaded from the site. Includes Judicial Best Practices on Hague Convention Cases and International Child Custody Disputes - A Summary of Relevant Statutes and Treaties. ++++++++++ US Department of State - The Office of Children's Issues This special web page is produced by the Office of Children's Issues. The office handles only international parental child abduction and international adoption matters. Resources here include the Child Passport Issuance Alert Program and Resources for Judges on International Parental Child Abduction. Links to a number of relevant sites. ++++++++++ Early Identification of Risk Factors for parental Abduction This Juvenile Justice Bulletin reports on the design and findings from four research projects funded by OJJDP on preventing family abductions. The four studies are a documentary study, a criminal sanctions study, an interview study, and an intervention study. Findings provide information on risk factors, the characteristics of parents who abduct their own children, how to identify children at risk of being abducted, and steps that can protect children from family abduction ++++++++++ The Committee for Missing Children, Inc. If you are looking for information on international abductions, child custody laws in the 50 states, the Hague Treaty, and an entire range of information on missing, abducted, or exploited children, this is a very good place to visit. Links to such sites as the Department of State’s site on international child abductions, the Convention on the Rights of the Child, resources, statistics. There are two sites to look at here, the US site and the European site. ++++++++++ New Study Shows that Commercial Child Sexual Exploitation is Epidemic in U.S. This new study released September 10 contains disturbing information. University of Pennsylvania researchers, professors Richard Estes and Neil Weiner, say that "Child sexual exploitation is the most hidden form of child abuse in the U.S. and North America today. It is the nation’s least recognized epidemic." The study results say that tens of thousands of U.S., Mexican and Canadian children and youths become victims of juvenile pornography, prostitution and trafficking each year. The study estimates that in the United States 325,000 children a year are subjected to sexual exploitation. Among the sexually exploited children in the United States, the study estimates that: - 121,911 ran away from home
- 6793 fled mental hospitals, foster homes or other institutions
- 51,602 were thrown out of their home by a parent or guardian.
The study identifies 17 groups of children in the U.S. who are at "substantial risk" of being sexually exploited. The largest groups are runaway, thrownaway and other homeless American children who use survival sex to acquire food, shelter, clothing and other things needed to survive on American streets. The customers of street children include - pedophiles, pederasts, pimps and traffickers,
- transient males, including members of the military,
- long-haul truck drivers,
- seasonal workers,
- conventioneers, and
- sex tourists.
Other groups of commercially sexually exploited children in the U.S. include girls in gangs; transgender street youths; foreign children brought into the U.S. illegally, especially from Africa, Asia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere in the Americas; and U.S. youth who are trafficked nationally and internationally as part of organized sex crime rings. According to Estes, in the U.S. child sexual exploitation affects as many boys as girls, but boys are less well served by human-service and law enforcement systems because of the widespread belief that boys are better able than girls to fend for themselves. Given the high levels of emotional dysfunctions, drug abuse and violence that exists for boys living on America’s streets, however, this is not true. In time, many boys shift from being victims of sexual abuse to victimizing other boys and girls as pimps and traffickers. Some U.S. children engage in commercial sex while living at home. Many of them live in secure middle-class homes and few of their parents are aware of their children’s involvement in pornography or prostitution. Most of their customers are members of their own junior and senior high school peer groups. Estes and Weiner have identified an 11-point action agenda focused on eliminating the further commercial sexual exploitation of America’s youth. They say that official reports seriously underestimate the problem. The study found gaps in policies and services to combat sexual exploitation and help the victims. The three-year project was funded by the National Institute of Justice , the W. T. Grant Foundation, the Fund for Nonviolence, and the Research Foundation of the University of Pennsylvania. For links to the executive summary (38 pages) , the complete 257 page report, and a nine-page set of recommendations, click below The Commercial Exploitation of Children in the U.S., Canada and Mexico. ++++++++++ In 1997 the Attorney General’s Office of the State of Washington published Case Management for Missing Children Homicide Investigation. This study, intended for the use of law enforcement missing children investigations, also includes an executive summary and a fact sheet of interest to readers. From the Executive Summary, the following information: - There are estimated to be about 100 murders of children who are abducted by strangers each year, approximately one child abduction murder for every 10,000 reports of a missing child.
- In 80 percent of these cases, the initial contact between the victim and the killer is within 1/4 mile of the victim’s residence.
- The vast majority of child abduction homicides are girls (76%). The average age is slightly over 11 years old.
- Over half (57%) of child abduction murders are committed by a killer who is a stranger to the victim.
- Most of the victims of child abduction murder are victims of opportunity (57%). Only in 14% of cases did the killer choose his victim because of some physical characteristic of the victim.
- The primary motivation for the child abduction murder is sexual assault.
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