For Parents and Guardians

The difference between a missing child and an AMBER Alert

By Sarah Gianetto on August 30th, 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.

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