Title: Amber Alert
Author: Christie Barnes
Date: Monday, January 12, 2009
Article:

As parents, there is no bigger dread than the kidnapping of a child. These are places we don’t want to go, but natural fears loom large.           

Propelling our instincts in this area, are the dreadful worse-case-scenario stories that fill the media—coverage that often drives ratings but doesn’t accurately reflect the statistics of kidnappings.

Surprisingly, a tool meant to assist parents in these moments also can confuse parental perceptions of the likely circumstances of kidnappings. I’m talking about AMBER Alerts.

The AMBER Alert works with federal and law enforcement agencies as well as the media to trigger bulletins in high-risk child-abduction cases. According to the U.S. Justice Department’s website, “The goal of an AMBER Alert is to instantly galvanize the entire community to assist in the search for and the safe recovery of the child.”

I want to preface this conversation by saying that I’m in favor of anything that helps parents protect their children from harm—one child kidnapped is one too many. The Amber Alert program saves children’s lives and makes children’s safety a community cause.  And, there is a critical reason for the rapidly deployed alerts: children are most often murdered within the first three hours of their abduction.

But, AMBER Alerts also create an atmosphere that makes parents believe that the kidnapping of children by strangers and resulting violence is pervasive. It’s not.

It’s important for parents to know the true data connected to child kidnappings, so that they may protect their children from real threats, and also worry less. Our perception is that many young children are actually being kidnapped and murdered daily. 

Real kidnappings are few and teen girls are the usual victims of non-family kidnappings.When most people think of AMBER Alerts they envision a child under 10 being kidnapped, abused and killed by a stranger. 

In actuality, data from the AMBER Alert Report reveals that only 44,  44 child (under 10 yrs old) kidnappings were initiated by strangers and only 1 child, a 12 year old girl was murdered.  That one is one too many but for that terror to be ever-present in a parents mind who conveys that fear to the child on a routine trip to the store or what should be a fun family vacation. 

         So who is taking children? The overwhelming amount of child kidnappings are conducted by a family member trying to take the child from the parent with legal custody. According to National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® 2007 AMBER ALERT™ REPORT 98% of these children were returned.     

Completely different from parents’ perceptions, only 6 ‘Amber Alert’ children died but the reality is only one was abducted, the other 5 were lost or missing children, one child drowned, one died of exposure in a local park, the others the parents were implicated in the deaths. 

Now, here is some data for “non-family” initiated abductions—the ones parents worry about the most: the 2007 Amber Alert Report, 29 persons or 40% of non-family abductors were known to the children. That is, these strangers usually seize opportunities rather than planning a kidnapping and, when they involve a child rather than a teenager, the child is often snatched from a parked car, the street, a park or wooded area.

Amber Alert gets huge funding for the kidnappings that actually happen—which are mercifully, incredibly few.  But there is no way put a figure on attempted kidnappings; it is hard to know who is attempting the kidnappings (family or stranger).  What we need is calm education for our children and parents--not frightened parents and teachers frightening children.

So what are the best ways to guard your children from stranger abduction?Do not panic your child.  But they do need to know to shout, fight and run. It will happen when they are alone or with other children.  Luckily there are so few real Amber Alerts because children fight and escape.

As difficult as it can be on some time-deficit days, dress and groom your child carefully. That doesn’t mean spending money you don’t have on expensive clothes or inappropriately making-up a child. It has to do with the amount of care it appears your child receives from an adult. Predators often conclude that a carefully dressed child is more likely to be consistently watched and that taking that child entails a higher risk of capture, an outcome they don’t want. In addition, kidnappers are more likely to abscond a scruffy child, believing that if a scruffy child is carried away screaming they’ll be mistaken for a kid misbehaving.

Conversely, predators are more likely to skip over children dressed in bright or distinctive outfits, because they stand out and an attempt to snatch them is more easily noted by a surrounding crowd.           

I’m glad that AMBER Alerts have successfully returned some at-risk children to their parents, but what’s interesting to me, is, in almost every situation, including kidnappings, it’s often simple pragmatic tools that can help the most. Kidnappings are the transgression of the perpetrator, they are never a parent’s fault, but we can take some simple steps to help alleviate our worrying and simply enjoy our kids.