Here's an article on missing children

[conuly]

Clicky

It confirms that that 50 year old man who thought he was the missing two year old from years ago was not - a tragedy for both families (his actual family is pissed as hell that he went through this when they KNOW he was born in such-and-fuch hospital), no doubt.

Some interesting quotes, though:

More than 778,000 people nationwide were reported missing last year. Nearly 80 percent of them were under 18, FBI statistics show.

778,000... let's see. 80% of that is 622,400 people. Only a quarter of the population is under the age of 18, so yes, this IS pretty disproportionate. The US has, in fact, some 8,514,931 minors. So every year, maybe 10% of them are reported missing.

Some of those reports are false reports, or doubles, or errors of other kinds. Some are runaways and whatnot.

What does the article say?

Most missing children are found fairly quickly, according to a 2002 study done for the federal Department of Justice. The study found fewer than 10 percent of missing children were kidnapped, usually by relatives.

So of the 10% reported missing every year, fewer than 10% are kidnapped (most are runaways, kids who happened to wander off, and errors). So your kid has a less than 1% chance of being kidnapped. And if they ARE kidnapped, odds are that they'll be taken by a relative in a custody dispute. Usually, the relative wants to take care of them (however poorly they might do so), so it's not ideal but it's not your worst nightmare either.

Police in New York — where 8,202 missing persons cases were opened last year — also say that nearly all children reported missing soon turn up.

Even those kids who are reported missing are found at such a percentage that we can call it "nearly all".

This has been known for ages, of course, but it's nice to see it confirmed. Again. (And my sympathies go out to those who are on the bad end of statistics, but my sympathies go out to people attacked by sharks and struck by lightning as well. I take reasonable precautions and assume unlikely events are just that - unlikely.)

Comments

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Ha! Post THAT on parenting101!

[conuly]

Dare you!

[sayga.livejournal.com]

I can't; I'm a mod! I won't say anything if YOU do, though! :P

[conuly]

Yeah, I'm SO not jumping into that pit with this article.

There's no rule saying mods can't post things, you just... can't argue with people. So don't! Post and run, post and run. Or! Use a side account to post and run.

[conuly]

BTW, you ever read or post on FreeRange Kids?

[sayga.livejournal.com]

Nope, I've never heard of it before today. I'm going to be a good kid and go to bed, but I'm going to check it out later.

[houseboatonstyx.livejournal.com]

Where did you get that 1%?

It would be good to break down the figure for 'kidnapping' between custody disputes and actual ransom/molestation cases -- so that a parent who is NOT involved in a custody dispute may know what their own risk is.

[conuly]

10% of all missing children are kidnappings, and every year approximately 10% of the under-18 population of the US is reported missing, so I just divided. That math works, doesn't it?

[conuly]

It would be good to break down the figure for 'kidnapping' between custody disputes and actual ransom/molestation cases

I've seen several different sets of numbers for this, presumably ranging from a very lax view of "standard" kidnappings (which are incredibly rare) to a very strict view.

The lowest figures I've seen are that less than 200 children a year are kidnapped in the "standard" way - held for over a night, kept for ransom, raped, or killed; and the biggest number I've seen holds that somewhere under 3000 children a year (more or less) are kidnapped by strangers.

Even with the bigger number, there's not much of a risk for most people - there are millions of children in this country.

It's important to note that the vast majority of molesters, something like 90%, target children they know - and within that 90% most of them target their own families, usually their own kids.

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

When I worked in a teen crisis center, we used the term "runaway" but also "throwaway" - which was just as common as the runaways, but probably more sad.

[conuly]

Do parents report their children missing when they don't want them?

[xmorningxrosex.livejournal.com]

Parent can't accept that son is gay, kicks him out. Kid crashes with friends/partner/sleeps on the streets, and misses a lot of school. Teachers call parent to find out why kid is truant, parent doesn't really care where kid is, reports him as "runaway" or "missing" to fault the "bad kid" rather than acknowledge that the parent couldn't be a parent. Same goes for some parents with mental illness, substance abuse issues, choosing new partner over kid, etc.

[ksol1460.livejournal.com]

Happened to my (non-gay but learning disabled) uncle in the 1930s.

[siderea]

Yeah, this. I found some .gov site (IIRC) with stats about missing kids, and "Throwaway" was one of the largest categories.

[leora.livejournal.com]

It is exceptionally rare. This is part of why I still find it odd that someone did probably try to kidnap me or some of my friends (we were a small group, I think 4 girls) when a car pulled up near us and lied to us and asked us to come over to the car. I can't be sure it was a kidnapping attempt (and I still suspect mental illness may have been involved) as none of us was foolish enough to go near a stranger's car, especially really creepy strangers asking for a kiss. We ran away and reported it. So, who knows.

Really people, I know we were young, but if you want to kidnap a kid, please at least respect our intelligence a little more than ~that~. Or, well, don't. It's best if possible kidnappers are massively ineffective.

[conuly]

Or, well, don't. It's best if possible kidnappers are massively ineffective.

Yeah, really!

And of course it's odd, but that's how statistics work. SOMEbody has to be on the weird end.

[dandelion.livejournal.com]

Hang on - the US has far more than 8m minors. The CIA World Factbook says you have 42.7m males and 40.3m females under 19. 83m minors, so 0.75% of them are reported missing each year, not 10%.

[conuly]

Okay. I thought the number seemed a bit odd. I'll correct that.