How to Keep Kids Safe from Child Abduction
Parents Should Know Sex Offenders Pose a Real Threat to Children
Every parent's worst nightmare is turning around in a crowd and realizing his son or daughter – there just a moment ago – is suddenly gone. You could fall off a cliff and not get an adrenaline jolt anything like it. The fear is that some predator has kidnapped your child. The reality is usually something different, but not always.
Statistics on Missing Children
Round numbers: 1.2 million kids go missing each year. About half of those are runaways. Of the remaining 50 percent, about 500,000 children, most were taken by their non-custodial parents.
"Conservatively, it's only about one percent that get abducted," Stephen Jenkevice, one of the nation's most successful child finders, said in a February 2009 phone interview. "It's people who want children for their own gratification, or because they lost a child through death or other means, or because they're crazy and they have it in for kids," he says.
Jenkevice had a 25-year career with a national missing children center in Portland. He found thousands of children.
One percent of the total doesn't sound like many, but it's more than 10,000 kids a year. "Most of them we don't get back," Jenkevice says. "If we do they're usually deceased."
Child Sex Offender Online Registry
"Sex offenders used to be in jail or mental institutions," he says. "Thanks to (mental health) budget cuts and plea bargaining, today they're in our communities. I don't care if you live in Brentwood or Watts or a town of 500 in the middle of nowhere: Your kids are not safe."
Most states keep an online registry of child sex offenders. Every parent should check these out, he says. Prepare to be shocked. Usually, you can see names, addresses and even photographs of convicted sex offenders living in your neighborhood.
Find these registries through your state police's web site, your state attorney general's site or at the nation-wide Megan's Law listing.
They live in our neighborhoods and they are good at what they do, Jenkevice says. "'Hi, Andrew, I'm Uncle Bill. We met that time at the store. Can you help me find my, puppy? Mom said it was OK.'"
How to Keep Your Kids Safe From Child Abduction
Condensed and augmented with ideas from other missing children's organizations, here is advice for keeping your kids safe.
- Keep them in sight. Don't leave them in the car, don't leave them in the front yard, not even for a minute. Definitely do not leave kids in a toy store while parents shop elsewhere.
- Children should know their address and phone number, especially the area code. They should know if approached or touched they should yell something meaningful. "Help me! This is not my daddy!"
- A stranger is anyone who doesn't know the family code word.
- In public, pick a prearranged meeting spot in case anyone gets lost. In stores, young children who get separated should find a store employee; look near a cash register.
- "Cute" is not an accurate description of your child. Know height, weight, eye color, distinguishing marks and what they're wearing.
- Kids should know, adults in trouble don't ask children for help. Not for directions, not to find a dog, nothing.
Parents who make themselves aware of the serious dangers families face, keep their small children in sight and teach them how to behave in public and with strangers minimize the chances of harm coming to their kids.
For more information:
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, Alexandria, Va.; 800-THE-LOST.
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