Technology gives missing children a better chance today

Technology gives missing children a better chance today

Messages posted all over Facebook and other digital media may look annoying to some but they are the strongest links of communication in trying to save a missing child's life.

"Technology has fundamentally changed how we search for missing kids," says Ernie Allen, president of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

The hunt for missing children has come a long way since the milk-carton alerts that appeared after the 1979 disappearance of 6-year-old Etan Patz in New York City. Etan, who vanished while walking alone to school one morning, was never found, although investigators are combing through a Manhattan basement this week with a possible fresh lead on where he may have be en buried.

Since Etan disappeared, the lines of communication have improved. When the missing children center first opened in 1984, it could take days before a missing child's photo was disseminated, Allen says. But now, details about a child or potential abductor can be circulated almost instantaneously through e-mail, text messages, social media and other electronic media.

That's vital, because "time is the enemy," when a child vanishes, he says. Law enforcement needs to move quickly to prevent an abducted child from being taken out of town, hurt or even murdered.

"In 1990, our recovery rate for the cases that we intake here at the center was 62" and now it's 97, he says. "The primary reason for that change is technology."

The digital advances are varied ranging from cellphone text-messages alerts to digital billboards that provide information about a missing child.

< p class="inside-copy">The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children works closely with media companies such as Facebook and the Outdoor Advertising Association of America to get the word out about missing children.

Facebook, for instance, has a page that posts safety information for parents, gives details on recent kidnappings and provides information on the Amber Alert program. Amber Alerts which go out when a child is missing were created after the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman in 1996.

The Outdoor Advertising Association of America works with the operators of about 3,200 digital billboards nationwide to post messages about missing children. The majority of those billboard operators have agreed to take down advertising mess ages and post details about a missing child or suspect when a local Amber Alert arises, says Nicole Hayes, a spokeswoman for the association.

Wireless organizations also work closely with the center.

"There are a whole host of ways that wireless technology has been put in use," says David Diggs, VP of wireless Internet development at wireless association CTIA.

For instance, he says, suspicious citizens can use camera-enabled cellphones to snap pictures of a child they think has been abducted and bring them to local authorizes.

While technology puts potential saviors on alert it also assists in another way: Once an abductor hears that news is spreading of the kidnapping, that person may set the child free, Allen says.

"It's the deterrent effect," he says. "The guys who prey upon children are by and large looking for the risk of apprehension to be a s low as possible."

When the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children first started, it used strategies such as putting images on the back of milk cartons to solicit tips about a missing child.

The milk carton campaigns began to fade in the late 1980s after pediatricians such as Benjamin Spock said the images conjured unwarranted fear in children as they ate breakfast, Allen said.

Even though technology has evolved, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children still continues to tap into effective low-tech methods that have been used since the group was founded, such as mailing out fliers that describe details of a missing child's case, Allen says.

And while he credits digital advances as "primarily why more missing kids come home safely today," he adds that here are some vital, no-tech methods that can help prevent a kid from disappearing.

An important one: making sure the child always has a companion be it a parent, another adult or even another kid.

"We still encourage the use of the buddy system," Allen says. "There is relative safety in numbers."