Are we doing enough to protect our children?

I have to admit that I'm not following all of the recent news storys about child kidnaping and murder very closely, although I'm mostly familiar with all of them. In part it's because I find all of it sickening and disturbing. But also, these stories have become sensational, and as soon as that happens a big metal door comes crashing down. I find it hard to get invested because I begin to feel manipulated.

Which is not to say these are unimportant issues. But as I was learning about the latest (at the time) missing child (in Tennessee on Saturday, a four-year-old), the network followed up the announcement with the title of the latest phone-in survey (and, presumably, the focus of a new series), asking whether we are doing enough to protect our children. As if this recent rash of publicity is highlighting an increased incidence of this sort of thing. I did a little research online today. Courtesy of Missing Kids dot org.

In 2001, over 840,000 adults and juveniles were reported missing to the FBI's National Crime Information Center via police report. 85-90% of those cases involved juveniles, which is about 2,000 per day.

These figures represent a 4.1% decrease from the number of reported cases in 2000, although the amount is up an astonishing 444% since 1982 when the Missing Children's Act was passed. This is only the fourth decrease in 20 years.

in 1990 Congress passed the National Child Search Assistance Act, mandating immediate police report and NCIC entry in every case. Since then, the reports to NCIC have increased 27%

The primary categories of NCIC missing children reports are: Juvenile, Endangered and Involuntary. Juvenile cases (involving familial and non-familial abductions) were down 5% in 2001 from 2000. The Endangered cases are down 1.2% from 2000, and Involuntary cases down 8.8%. The latter two categories include both children and adults.

The site also talks about the effectiveness of those little postcards you get in the mail (they work), and the kinds of advice one should impart to children about how to stay safe. These data suggest that a) these new reporting systems are possibly having a deterrent effect and missing child cases are on the way down, or b) some cases may go unreported. So this leads me to wonder why the recent handful of cases is gaining so much publicity. Out of the 2,000 or so that occur every day. Perhaps this is a reflection of a more pervasive sense of helplessness that we collectively might be feeling. Or it's a sensationalist media out to ratchet up the anxiety (no terrorist warnings these days). Or maybe something else. But it seems like inciting panic is not productive in these situations, although I am certainly all in favor of publicizing these stories if that helps to find these kids sooner.

South Park last week pointed a typically caustic light on all of this, in an episode where the town reacts to an attempted child-naping by building a wall around the town a la the Great Wall of China and, in a flurry of overreaction to the latest TV statistics ("Kids are likely to be kidnaped by strangers," "No, new data shows that kids are more likely to be kidnaped by their own parents!") shipping all of their kids out to live with marauding Mongolian warriors that are trying to tear down the wall. The flailing reaction seems spot-on to me.

Reminds me of the "Summer of the Shark!" nonsense from last year. We are more likely to be hit by lightning than to be killed by a shark, and internationally, shark attacks were actually down in 2001, but that didn't stop the media from painting this as the next biblical plague to hit the world.

And to finish out my little rant here, found this entertaining article describing how NASA is accusing the British press of causing a panic over the asteroid due to come our way in 2019. Love all the highbrow sniffing and dismissive banter. And meeting Benny Peiser, who now has the most interesting job title I've yet encountered: professor of neocatastrophism at Liverpool John Moores University. I hear his thesis was titled "It's Gonna Blow! -- and Other Horror Stories You Ought Not Lose Sleep Over."


posted by MT at 4:00 PM |