Missing Children

There is a lot of debate about the proper information to have on file for each of your children. The problem is most of the debate is going on among people who have never searched for a missing child and have never had to deal with gathering all the information needed to help find them quickly.

There have been many examples of technology applied to the search for missing children, some we endorse, some we don’t.

Digital Fingerprinting is a great use of technology. I don’t get ink all over me when I’m doing the fingerprinting. However the fingerprints should NEVER be stored in the computer by those doing the fingerprinting! Make sure, if you take your child to be fingerprinted and they do it digitally, that they erase the information afterwards. Ask about their policy.

Kidsearch does not support the use of centralized databases with the child’s information in them. One child sexual predator, or serial killer, in the San Francisco Bay Area found all of his victims through the Social Security Administration’s Database. They all had a social security card. He worked for the Social Security Administration and got their contact information that way.

We believe you should keep the Child ID Kit in your home locked away for an emergency only. A copy of it should be with a relative for security. The Kidsearch Network believes no one should have that much information about your child.

Advances in DNA technology help us by making the identification of a child easier. Unfortunately, if we are using DNA or Fingerprints, the news is not usually good.

One use of technology we do not endorse is the promotion of small child ID cards.

1. The fingerprints, alone, have never found or even identified a missing child,. The fingerprints are an important part of a Child ID Kit, just not the most important part as some would have you believe.

2. The picture on the ID Card is too small to enlarge into the size we need to make flyers on the missing child.

3. Companies have gotten into the act, as well as unscrupulous organizations. They are in it for a profit. The bottom line, to sell ID Cards. As a result, they over-emphasize the card’s importance, leading people to believe these little ID Cards are all the information the police will need to help find your lost or missing child.

I see the results all the time at Child ID Events. People hold up one of those little cards and say, “I already have everything I need, thanks.” This is not the parents fault. They were told that by the people selling the cards.

4. If your child is ever missing or abducted, the police will need a lot more than that card can provide and you will be too upset to answer all the questions they are going to be asking you. Having to think of those answers when you are that upset wastes valuable time. Every minute a child is missing expands the search area by one mile in every direction.

The Kidsearch Network has spent a lot of time on the actual searches for missing children. We know what information is of value to the police and which is not. With the help of Detectives who investigate cases involving missing and abducted children, we developed the Kidsearch Network Child ID Kit. It answers the questions the police are going to be asking you if your child is lost or stolen. You simply give it to the detective who answers the call about your child and the police can start searching for your child right away. And guess what? It’s free!

Click here to get your Free Child ID Kit you can print right from our website right now.

Kidsearch Network.org

Kidsearch Network Missing Children Forum. Post your comments or questions!

Now, here is a hotly debated topic for you. GPS Implants in Children!

GPS (Global Positioning Satellite) is technology that can use a chip to locate objects or people wherever they are at any time. Already you can be located within 100 feet of where you are if you own a cell phone and have it with you.

The US Goverment tells us it’s for our own safety in case of an emergency. Advertisers want to use it, so that if you are passing near say, McDonalds, they can message you on your phone to tell you that their food is much leaner now and cheeseburgers are on special. C’mon over here and get one! We know where you are!

There are those who are trying to apply this technology to finding missing children. Sounds good hunh? In theory it is, but I have yet to see a way it can be applied without major problems and implications.

One way is to put items on the child, such as a backpack (Tried but the thing weighed like 3 pounds and an abductor will just get rid of the backpack). For a child who is lost or hurt somewhere and had their backpack with them, it would be helpful.

How about in clothing or in shoes? Well, same problem with the abductor getting rid of it, but IF it were small enough, and IF the child didn’t even know they had it on them, and IF it didn’t cost say $500 per chip, it might work in some cases. You would need to have several chips and sew them into the lining of shoes, coats, etc. If they aren’t cheap enough so that losing a few wouldn’t hurt I’d say it’s doable, IF the parents would take the time to do it. If you leave it to the clothing and shoe manufacturerers and marketers, the child abductors will know exactly which items and brands of clothing to get rid of.

How about implants? Did I ask that out loud? First of all, try getting the church to endorse an item like implants for children. Try convincing parents to let you put implants into their children. Even IF you could get them to do it, the medical profession would be your next obstacle. They would insist on developing approved techniques and procedures for each implant, therefore the implants would all be placed in the same part of the body at the same depth under the skin. It would all be published in journals, including the proper removal techniques, assuming the child abductor would care about the safest way to remove it, since he’s in a hurry.

There has been a lot of talk about the implants for children and for adults that would contain medical information such as being allergic to certain medications or alerting healthcare professionals to medical conmditons they need to know about before treating you. This is a good way to apply implants and identifying John and Jane Doe unidentified bodies would also be easier, leading to police solving more murders and possibly resolving some more missing persons cases.

One final note about GPS implants in children As in the case of the serial killer who worked for the Social Security Administration using a database to locate his victims, could another serial killer or child abductor gain access to the system and track their small victim until they know they are in a place where they are easily taken?

To Implant or not to Implant, that is the question. Not one easily solved, but although I shoot holes in many of the ideas presented so far, I applaud the efforts of those trying to find a way to use this technology to help find missing and abducted children and I sincerely hope they resolve the issues I mentioned as well as ones I haven’t even thought of yet before they try implementing this on a large scale.

Kidsearch Network.org
Comment on our message Board
Missing Children Blog

It is very frustrating trying to keep a legitimate charity operating. The way grants are distributed is partially to blame. It’s a “who you know” mentality vs a “productivity” mentality.

In other words those who know the right people and have connections can get grants for virtually nothing. Their purpose is cloudy at best, they draw huge salaries for administering the virtual charity, but they know how to generate a lot of paperwork. If you can generate paperwork and “look” like you’re doing something, you can get a grant. Why not? These people have plenty of time to generate paperwork because they aren’t really doing anything else.

Those of us who are in it because we believe in what we are doing are too busy helping people to generate stacks of paperwork. We are the ones who actually have and are achieving a purpose while we struggle to pay the bills.

If grants were based on actual performance, we would have no problem paying the bills. We would be well-funded because we have actually FOUND missing children. Many people think all missing children organizations search for them. They don’t. There is 2 that do besides Kidsearch Network. One of those used to but has no search team right now and the other focuses on parental abductions.

We are the only organization that actually shows up and helps police coordinate the search for a missing child! We need to activate a national search team based on this type of immediate response. We have proven that it works. Once the national team is created, then we can break it down into regional teams, then statewide teams, then even into local chapters. The plan is in place.

The problem is this. We know how to search for and find missing children. We don’t know the right people and we don’t know how to or have time to create the mountains of paperwork needed to get the funding for it.

The NCMEC gets 20 million dollars a year and has no search team! This is a travesty! In the law that created the NCMEC (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) it says they are to pass along some of that funding to organizations that help find missing children. We have FOUND missing children, yet they turn us down for funding and suggest we ask the state for funding. They get taxpayer money and are suggesting we do the same instead of following the law and passing on some of the funding to organizations like Kidsearch.

If you know how to help us get funding, contact us!

missing children Blog

I’ve covered this topis before, but this article from the NY Times adds to what I posted before. Notice how Fox News only talks about ratings while CNN talks about responsible journalism and reporting only when there are new developments. Also kudos to Bob Costas for deciding not to rehash the topic further. When someone makes a moral or ethical decision that actually costs them, it is to be commended.

August 24, 2005
Bob Costas Says No to Hour on Aruba
By BILL CARTER
For Bob Costas, the issue was not complicated.

The longtime NBC sports and talk show host, who signed on this year to be an occasional substitute for Larry King on CNN, resisted a request last Thursday to be the host of a King program devoted to interviewing guests about the already widely covered Natalee Holloway missing-person case in Aruba.

When he could not get the show’s topic changed, Mr. Costas said he respectfully decided not to participate.

“I don’t believe there was a single American who was sitting around saying ‘I’d really like to see Bob Costas’s take on this,’ ” Mr. Costas said in telephone interview.

Having a host oppose a topic and decline to participate in a show is certainly not common, though hosts of morning shows like “Today” have been know to refuse to interview certain guests. But Mr. Costas is not an employee of CNN and has wide latitude about deciding if he will take part in a program.

Mr. Costas said he had found out “about two days before” the show that the topic would be Ms. Holloway, who disappeared on May 30. He told the producers that he hoped the topic would change. On Wednesday, when he learned that it would not, he declined to serve as host. The program went on with Chris Pixley as the host.

“Nothing had been spelled out about my being able to turn down certain topics, but it was implied,” Mr. Costas said. Jonathan Klein, president of CNN’s domestic operations, backed that up, saying, “It’s important that we never have an anchor doing a story he does not believe in.”

Mr. Costas’s decision has drawn further attention to the Holloway case, which has become the latest in a stream of stories about missing young women that have been turned into daily - if not hourly - staples of coverage on all-news channels.

Many critics have questioned why the story of the disappearance deserves blanket coverage. Some have deplored the emphasis on white women who go missing, while missing women of other ethnic groups are ignored. One critic, Matthew Felling of the Center for Media and Public Affairs, told The Associated Press that the Holloway coverage amounted to “emotional pornography.”

The Holloway case has certainly received extensive airtime, not just on cable but on broadcast-network morning shows as well. Yet the coverage appears to have been heaviest on one program on the Fox News Channel, Greta Van Susteren’s “On the Record.”

The easy rationale is ratings: on cable news networks, the Holloway case - like the Laci Peterson murder, the “Runaway Bride” Jennifer Wilbanks, and many others - sells. Ms Van Susteren has seen her program’s audience totals spike about 60 percent from a year ago.

The Holloway story has been less prevalent - though not absent - on CNN. In early July, Mr. Klein pulled CNN’s correspondent out of Aruba and dropped the subject from most CNN shows in the absence of new developments.

“It’s easy and it’s brainless,” Mr. Klein said in a telephone interview, explaining why cable news outlets have gravitated to it. “They’re looking for an ongoing drama” along the lines of the NBC crime show “Law & Order,” he said, adding “Except ‘Law & Order’ doesn’t do the same plot every night.”

Mr. Klein said that the audience that sought out news all day on the Internet was not clamoring for a rehash of the Holloway case every night. Besides, Mr. Klein said, there has been ample other news to cover.

He said that on the day earlier this month when 14 marines were killed in a roadside bombing in Iraq, Ms. Van Susteren, who was in Aruba that night, stuck with the Holloway case. “Fourteen Americans dead, and they have Natalee Holloway on,” Mr. Klein said. “And they’re supposedly America’s news channel.”

Fox executives accused CNN of flailing with holier-than-thou criticisms because the channel is falling farther behind Fox in the ratings. Fox’s margin in viewers over CNN has grown 57 percent since Mr. Klein took over last December.

“If Jon performed as well as he talks he wouldn’t have to explain his network’s dismal ratings,” said Irena Briganti, a spokeswoman for Fox News. “We have trounced him on every breaking news story from the London bombings and last week’s events in Gaza.”

Mr. Klein said CNN is looking at the long term and trying to set itself apart as a news organization that wants to reach the serious news viewer, one who watches less TV news over all, and is younger than the steady audience for more tabloid news fare.

“There are an awful lot of things you can cover if you don’t have people tied up with this meaningless nonsense,” Mr. Klein said. He clarified, adding that the Holloway case is, of course, far from meaningless nonsense to the young woman’s family, and whenever the story had real new details it was worthy of coverage. But, in general, he said cable news has to stop “obsessing over this trivial stuff.”

Fox News executives accused Mr. Klein of hypocrisy, saying the Holloway case had indeed been covered by CNN. They mentioned Nancy Grace, the prime-time host on CNN’s affiliated network, Headline News, who has done almost as many hours on Ms. Holloway as Ms. Van Susteren has. Mr. Klein said he did not supervise that program.

Nor, apparently, does Mr. Klein directly influence the content of Mr. King’s program, which has also frequently dived into the Holloway case. Mr. Klein said that Mr. King’s producers have wide autonomy.

“Larry is sui generis,” Mr. Klein said. “Larry does what Larry does. He has earned the right to pick his own topics.”

Mr. Costas, who agreed to fill in for Mr. King on 20 occasions, said that no bridges were burned by his decision to steer clear of the Holloway case. It was “completely amicable,” Mr. Costas said. He is expected to continue filling in for Mr. King when his schedule allows.