AMBER Alert Partners With Facebook

wiredmikey writes "The AMBER Alert program, credited with the safe recovery of 525 children across the country, has a new ally today: Facebook. Facebook users are able to sign up to receive AMBER Alert bulletins for their state which will be sent to them through the Facebook 'News Feed' feature. An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing every year. AMBER Alert is a voluntary partnership involving law-enforcement agencies and broadcasters. The new Facebook AMBER Alert pages represent an important expansion of the secondary distribution system and will enable AMBER Alerts to dramatically increase the reach of and impact of these life-saving bulletins."

Comments

Low success rate?

[betterunixthanunix]

525 children in total...when 800000 are reported missing each year? I think this program is going to need more than Facebook...

Re:Low success rate?

[orphiuchus]

Well, only about 30% of amber alerts are actually strangers, most are custody disputes, and according to wikipedia in 2004 there were only 233 alerts issued. I would write a bunch more stuff about this, but its all straight from wikipedia and you should all just read it yourselves anyway. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert#Retrieval_rate

Re:Low success rate?

[betterunixthanunix]

I did not say that I had better ideas; however, I am not the only person to point out that the AMBER Alert system is not highly effective:

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2008/07/20/abducted/

Re:Low success rate?

[icebike]

800000 "children reported missing" includes anyone under the age of 18 who runs away. (This is about 1% of the Children in the US in the 0 thru 17 age group).

Amber Alerts are specifically for kidnapped or abducted children usually less than 16.

An Amber alert will not be issued for your 14 yro daughter when she runs off with that creep she met on line.

Its not the same thing.

Re:Low success rate?

[ae1294]

That really doesn't sound like human compassion to me...

Re:Low success rate?

[Locke2005]

Wait... so more than 1% of American children are reported missing each year? Why haven't I heard of a single incident of any of the hundreds of kids I know of being reported missing? Your child stands a much higher chance of getting injured riding in the car with it's parents than of being abducted.

Re:Low success rate?

[jellomizer]

Being inefficient with tax payers money for a system that barely works, is not compassion. Could the money used used be put into an other program that could retrieve even more children. Like say 500,000 a year. I could buy an iPad to keep my face dry when it is raining. or I can get an umbrella for a lot less and it will do a better job.

Re:Low success rate?

[betterunixthanunix]

Actually, it is not a result of poisoning the data; AMBER alerts almost always fail in cases of children being abducted by people who plan to harm or kill them. The authors basically say that the success rate of AMBER is inflated by the inclusion of custodial cases, and that if those cases are excluded AMBER has a success rate that is nearly 0. AMBER has not actually augmented traditional police techniques in any meaningful way; in cases where traditional investigative methods fail, AMBER fails as well.

Re:Low success rate?

[hairyfeet]

Exactly, we have turned childhood into a siege mentality. When I was a kid once school let out you would walk across the street to the little food mart, not having to worry about traffic because somebody's mom or grandma was crossing guard that week, grab a coke or a bag of chips and laugh and talk for awhile. Then those that were within walking distance did so while those of us that weren't got picked up in the parking lot by a relative after they inevitably went into the store for some little something they forgot.

Now at both the elementary and middle school they have had to add another lane in both directions at great expense because the lines of cars were literally going back for miles, you have armed police with cruisers at BOTH exits at BOTH schools acting as security and crossing guards, again at great expense I'm sure. And finally the kids can't even interact with each other because they have to be kept single file to speed up delivery in order to keep the traffic flowing, and of course the number of kids being fat is getting nuts because the parents would rather have them playing the X360 than going outside where the bogeyman might snatch them.

Now it is pretty obvious to anyone with eyes the paranoia is doing more harm than good. The kids don't get enough time to socially interact anymore which sure isn't good for them mentally or emotionally, they don't get enough exercise because the constantly "Look out! They are after you!" atmosphere created by things like Amber alerts keeps the parents edgy enough they'd rather just let the kid sit at home in front of the TV or console, which in turn makes for a whole lot of fat kids which at that age is horrible for your health. It is any wonder things like juvenile diabetes and obesity is through the roof? Kids aren't even allowed outside anymore!

Re:Do those numbers make sense?

[Amorymeltzer]

Some interesting stats from the FBI:

As of December 31, 2007, there were 105,229 active missing person records in NCIC. Juveniles under the age of 18 accounted for 54,648 (51.93%) of the records, and 12,362 (11.75%) were for juveniles between the ages of 18 and 20.

During 2007, 814,967 missing person records were entered into NCIC, a decrease of 2.53% from the 836,131 records entered in 2006. Missing person records cleared or canceled during the same period totaled 820,212. Reasons for these removals include: the subject was located by a law enforcement agency; the individual returned home; or the record had to be removed by the entering agency due to a determination that the record was invalid.

In 2007, there were 518 records entered as Abducted by a Stranger; 299,787 entered as Runaway; and 2,919 entered as Abducted by Non-Custodial Parent. This only accounts for 303,224 entries of the 418,967 entered, or 72.4%, which is an increase from 297,632 entries of the 836,131 entered, or 35.6%, in 2006.