|
Tuesday, October 1, 2013
Stranger Danger According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC),
every year, more than 200,000 children are abducted by family members. An additional 58,000 are taken by nonrelatives with
primarily sexual motives. However, only 115 reported abductions represent cases in which strangers abduct and kill children,
hold them for ransom, or take them with the intention to keep.Media news outlets have portrayed that abductors primarily consist of strangers or registered sex offenders (RSO),
which has proven invalid in the past 2 fiscal years (FY). When a child is reported missing, members of the media advise parents
to check sex offender registries to prevent their child from possible abduction or sexual victimization. However, FBI reporting
indicates that RSOs are a minimal part of the problem. In FY 2009, an RSO was the abductor in 2 percent of child abduction
cases; in FY 2010, this figure dropped to 1 percent.Although
parents teach their children to stay away from strangers, most neglect to teach them not to allow anyone, even someone they
know, to take them without parental consent. Additionally, children frequently are instructed to obey elders without question,
adding to their vulnerability to offenders known to the child victim.Although abductors can vary in age, race, or physicality, the FBI assesses with high confidence that the
majority of child abductors involved in FBI child abduction cases, CARD team deployments, and AMBER Alerts have a relationship
with the child victim. Moreover, despite media reporting, the FBI confidently assesses that the majority of child abductions
are committed by persons with a relationship to the child they abduct.Retrieved April 22, 2013 from: http://ww.fbi.gov/stats-services/publications/law-enforcement-bulletin/august-2011/police-practice
9:07 am edt
|
