United States

http://amberalert.com/

About AMBER Alert

The AMBER Alert program was created as a result of the January 13, 1996 abduction of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman from Arlington, Texas. A stranger kidnapped her while she was riding her bike near her grandparents’ house, and she was discovered brutally murdered four days later. For those four days there was a massive manhunt underway that relied heavily upon television news and radio stations covering the story and capturing the community’s attention.

Although a neighbor provided police with a possible suspect description, a man walking his dog days later found her body in a creek bed. No arrests were ever made although police later developed a “person of interest” in Amber’s death that was a suspect in another similar crime.

News and radio were very effective in alerting and notifying the public, accordingly the subsequent reliance on the media in the distribution of AMBER Alerts today. The world of technical communications has expanded greatly in the years since Amber’s abduction, and today, AMBER Alerts can be broadcast through the Emergency Broadcast network, through traffic signs, wireless phone alerts, e-mails and web portals such as www.AmberAlert.com.

The US House of Representatives put into action H.R. 605 in 2000, which set forth a nationwide initiative to implement the “AMBER Plan.” In 2003, President George W. Bush signed the AMBER Alert legislation making it a national program.

The Emergency Broadcast System (EBS) guideline was put into place, acting as an alert distribution system for all states to use. This system was originally designed as a weather alerting technology system that sends voice recordings to radio and television stations. The same system is still used today and is now called the Emergency Alert System (EAS).

Some states still use the EAS as their Primary Alerting System. Other states have adopted more technologically advanced and quicker alert distribution systems, such as The AMBER Alert Web Portal, operated by AmberAlert.com. This Primary Abduction Alerting and Notification System is free to AmberAlert.com’s participating states. Our Company explains in more detail The AMBER Web Portal.

There are also secondary alert distributors like the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, founded in 1984, that work with Primary Alerting companies to re-distribute alerts to their own distribution list and offer a wonderful source of information and reference data in missing children, sexual exploitation and the alerting systems.

There is a common misconception is that there is a “National AMBER System.” In fact, the Department of Justice administers an unfunded mandate that requires each state to implement the AMBER Plan. Each state been challenged to find, develop and maintain its own alert distribution partners and channels.

With more than 750,000 children that reportedly ‘go missing’ each year, the national program remains a work in progress that brings private and public resources to bear in a cooperative effort to provide for the safety of America’s children. We remain dedicated to that purpose.

Sincerely,

AmberAlert.com

A Missing Child vs. an AMBER Alert



by Sarah Gianetto on November 1, 2007

It’s understandably easy that an AMBER Alert’s criteria be slightly confusing, given that AMBER stands for “America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response,” but is not a system designed for simply missing children. The AMBER Alert system was designed specifically for abducted children.

The AMBER Alert system differs state-to-state with its criteria, although guidelines for a set of minimum criteria was issued by the Department of Justice after the PROTECT Act, passed in 2003, which most states adhere closely to.

The Department’s Guidance on Criteria for Issuing AMBER Alerts follows:

Law enforcement must confirm that an abduction has taken place
(This means that someone must have witnessed the abduction of the child.)
The child is at risk of serious injury or death
(In most cases, a child is abducted by someone they know; In the most dangerous cases, they are abducted by a stranger. Law enforcement may evaluate a child’s risk dependent on whom the abductor is.)
There is sufficient descriptive information of child, captor or captor’s vehicle to issue an Alert
(Depending on the state in which the alert is being issued, the minimum information needed may be the license plate number.)
The child must be 17-years-old or younger
(This is the variable that ranges most from state-to-state, some having set the age at 10 or younger.)
It is recommended that immediate entry of AMBER Alert data be entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC). Text information describing the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the child should be entered, and the case flagged as Child Abduction.
(The NCIC is a computerized database of documented criminal justice information available to virtually every law enforcement agency nationwide, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.)
If these criteria are met, alert information is assembled for public distribution. This information may include descriptions and pictures of the missing child, the suspected abductor, and a suspected vehicle along with any other information available and valuable to identifying the child and suspect.

All these restrictions may lead one to wonder if their missing child is insignificant.Absolutely not. However, the circumstances by which a child typically becomes missing– wandering off by mistake, running away after an argument, etc– deem state or nationwide lookouts for a child at deathly risk to be excessive. AMBER Alerts are heard on the radio, seen on the television, or even displayed on freeway bulletins or sent as text-messages to cell phones. There are many measures in place, from government to local levels to retrieve a missing child.

Advocates for missing children are concerned that the public is becoming desensitized to AMBER Alerts because of a large number of false alarms. where police issue an AMBER Alert without strictly adhering to the Department of Justice’s activation guidelines.

For example, only 70 of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully traveling with adults other than their legal guardians.

In either case. missing or abducted. contact law enforcement and be armed with information.

http://tinyurl.com/3qbnna

Wikipedia:


Activation criteria

To avoid both false alarms and having alerts ignored as a "wolf cry", the criteria for issuing an alert are rather strict.

Each state's or province's AMBER alert plan sets its own criteria for activation, meaning that there are differences between alerting agencies as to which incidents are considered to justify the use of the system. However, the U.S. Department of Justice issues the following "guidance", which most states are said to "adhere closely to"[6]:

law enforcement must confirm that an abduction has taken place
the child must be at risk of serious injury or death
there must be sufficient descriptive information of child, captor, or captor's vehicle to issue an alert
the child must be 17 years old or younger
Many law enforcement agencies have not used #2 as a criterion, resulting in many parental abductions triggering an Amber Alert where the child is not known or assumed to be at risk of serious injury or death.

It is recommended that immediate entry of AMBER Alert data be entered into the Federal Bureau of Investigation's National Crime Information Center. Text information describing the circumstances surrounding the abduction of the child should be entered, and the case flagged as child abduction.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police's (RCMP) requirements in Canada are nearly identical to the above list, with the obvious exception that the RCMP instead of the FBI is normally notified.[7] One may notify the other if there is reason to suspect that the border may be crossed.


[edit] False alarms

Advocates for missing children are concerned that the public is becoming desensitized to AMBER Alerts because of a large number of false alarms — where police issue an AMBER Alert without strictly adhering to the U.S. Department of Justice's activation guidelines.

A Scripps Howard study of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in the United States in 2004 found that most issued alerts did not meet the Department of Justice's criteria. Fully 50% (117 alerts) were categorized by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as being "family abductions," very often a parent involved in a custody dispute. There were 48 alerts for children who had not been abducted at all, but were lost, ran away, involved in family misunderstandings (for instance, two instances where the child was with grandparents), or as the result of hoaxes. Another 23 alerts were issued in cases where police didn't know the name of the allegedly abducted child, often as the result of misunderstandings by witnesses who reported an abduction.

Only 70 of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully traveling with adults other than their legal guardians. [8]


[edit] England's Child Rescue Alert system


England has developed the Child Rescue Alert, similar to the American AMBER Alert.[9] The system works in a way, where in the local area of the suspected abduction, radio and television broadcasts are immediately interrupted (even in some cases during mid-speech) and listeners/viewers are provided details of anything to look out for. Some counties include Variable message signs which alerts drivers on major roads to be on the lookout for that missing person or a car on the road.

In England, the counties of Hampshire, Leicestershire, Surrey, Sussex, Gloucestershire, Cambridgeshire, Bedfordshire, Norfolk, Derbyshire, Suffolk, Thames Valley, Wiltshire, and Somerset, and the London Metropolitan Police Service, have adopted a similar program called the Child Rescue Alert system. Sussex was the first to launch the system, on November 14, 2002.[10] It is based on and has alert requirements similar to the American system.[11][12][13][14][15][16][17][18][19]

There are four key criteria in England's Child Rescue Alert system to be met before a Child Rescue Alert is issued

The child is apparently under 18 years old.
There is a reasonable belief that the child has been kidnapped or abducted.
There is reasonable belief that the child is in imminent danger of serious harm or death, and
There is sufficient information available to enable the public to assist police in locating the child.
Members of the public will be encouraged to keep their eyes and ears open for anything that may help the police in finding the abducted child. If they see anything they should call the police on 999.[20]

On 20 June 2007, the first such alert for a long period was issued.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AMBER_Alert

From Abc News:


"Issuing an Amber Alert is one of the toughest decisions you make as a law enforcement official," said Terrant County Sheriff Dee Anderson, who pioneered the Amber Alert System after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was abducted from her Houston neighborhood and killed in 1996. "It's a huge responsibility."
Officials Forced to Stand up to Media, Parental Pressure
"The plan is a victim of its own success," Anderson said. "The more children we recover the more popular it becomes. People think it's the magic bullet to recover missing children."
Before issuing Amber Alerts, authorities must meet several criteria, and although they vary from state to state, their decisions hinge on the same basic principles. The missing child must be younger than 18 and believed to be in imminent danger. Officials must also have information such as a car model or a description of the abductor to provide in the alert, and authorities must be certain that the child has been abducted by a stranger (in some states this provision is extended to include family members).

And while authorities are trained to abide by these restrictions before issuing an alert, pressure from the child's family and the media to just "push the button," Anderson said, make discretion even more difficult.

"Parents demand Amber Alerts with all their might -- sometimes they ask for it before we know the story or before we know that the child isn't just across the street playing video games," Anderson said. "You have to have a tremendous backbone."
Parents who demand Amber Alerts before the details of a case emerge don't realize how useless an Amber Alert would be, Anderson said.
"It doesn't really do any good to activate a plan unless you have something to say," Anderson said. "It may make you feel better, but what does it do? Parents don't understand that."
Anderson said that 66 percent of abducted children are dead within the first two hours, and 40 percent are dead before they're ever reported, making quick decisions -- like whether or not to use the alert system -- even harder.
"Every second works against you, and the toughest calls are when you have no information either way and the kid is just gone," Anderson said. "You're not supposed to activate them on a lost child, but the longer the clock ticks the more the pressure mounts."
Authorities Fear Overuse, Desensitization of Public
"I worry that the system will become useless," Anderson added. "You need to save this plan for when the circumstance is the worst -- it needs to be your direst abduction."
The more Amber Alerts are used, the less effective they will become, said Anderson, who worries of a day when someone hearing an alert over the radio will just switch the dial, tired of the constant announcements.
In 2007, 68 of the 278 children who were part of an Amber Alert were found, nearly 24 percent. Since the program was first implemented in December 1996, 393 of the approximately 1,000 Amber Alerts activated -- 39 percent -- have succeeded, according to Bob Hoever, associate director of training for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
"This is incredible," said Hoever of the statistics.

In addition to the constant worry that law enforcement will act too quickly to issue an Alert, there are always some that are acted on correctly but turn out to be disingenuous tips or hoaxes.

"In one case an individual killed a child and then tried to active an Amber Alert to cover up the murder," said Hoever, who added that he hass also seen people try to get police attention for their stolen vehicles by claiming a child was riding in the backseat.
There are punishments for those agencies that activate too many alerts, and while no department has yet to be stripped of their Amber Alert privileges, many officers are questioned after the fact about why they chose to implement the system.
Eager to get a head start on an investigation when a missing child is announced abducted, officials must scramble to make a decision, and account for it later.
"Authorities are put in this balancing act of weighing the safety and welfare concerns of the child versus the overuse and abuse of the system," Hoever said. "If the system is used too much the public criticizes them and loses interest in the integrity of the program."
"Basically," he said, "they're d**ned if they do and d**ned if they don't."


http://abcnews.go.com/US/Story?id=4576301&page=3

French System.

Alerte Enlevement



http://www.alerte-enlevement.gouv.fr/

Greek Alert System:

http://www.hamogelo.gr/

UK Alert System:

http://www.npia.police.uk/en/10239.htm

Australian Alert System:

http://www.police.qld.gov.au/News+and+A ... mation.htm

Dutch introduce nationwide missing child alert


RNW News

12-11-2008

When trying to find a child who has been kidnapped, the first three hours are crucial, police say. Inspired by similar schemes in the US and France, Dutch authorities have now introduced a nationwide alarm system for missing children.

The system, which relies heavily on advanced technology, went online at midday on Tuesday. And, like its North American counterpart, it's called Amber Alert. This is how it works: the police broadcast detailed information about the missing child, including photos, via e-mail and text message to citizens all over the Netherlands who registered via the Amber Alert website. It takes just one push of a button to disseminate the information.



The data will also be shown on the large-size video screens that are becoming ever more common in large stores and other public places, such as airports. Police are negotiating with the Ministry of Public Works so as to be able to post the information on motorway information screens.
A police spokesperson said the success or failure of the system depends on the number of people who participate, "We'll be promoting the system heavily over the next few weeks in order to encourage the public to take part". It is expected that a nationwide alert will be sent out five to ten times a year. Not every case qualifies, though. Dutch police spokesperson Ed Kraszewski explains:

"The missing child has to be under 18 years of age, his/her life in danger, or risking physical or psychological damage."

Madeleine McCann
A similar, Europe-wide system was suggested last year by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, but that is still in the making. The European Commission set up a central telephone number, 116000, to report missing children, but this has not been generally adopted. It is being used in Belgium, Denmark, Greece and Portugal.

National systems to report and publicize child disappearances are in place in France, Belgium, Britain, Greece and the Netherlands. Had an Amber Alert system been up and running in the whole of Europe, the disappearance of British three-year old Madeleine McCann in Portugal in May 2007 might have been avoided.

Cross-border system
Madeleine McCann

In talks with European lawmakers in Brussels earlier this year, the McCanns called for the introduction of a cross-border alerting system to prevent similar incidents. MEPs appeared reluctant to sign a written declaration which would have put the Amber Alert proposal onto the official parliamentary agenda.

Critics of the proposal, such as British police commisioner Richard Bryan, point out that legal differences between European countries may be an obstacle to an international child rescue system. He advocates starting with national systems in all countries, and gradually move towards an integrated EU-wide approach.



http://www.rnw.nl/english