This happens over and over again. The NCMEC, (National Center for Missing and Exploited Children) has a public relations machine to make sure they continue to receive their 40 million dollars per year funding from the US government and other sources.
They claim they have found thousands of missing children when all they do is put the child’s picture on their website and in many cases they mail out small pictures of the missing child. If that child is found by law enforcement and not from their website or mailings, they still claim it as one more missing child found by them.
This is misleading to say the very least. Now take a look at this story;
ALPHARETTA, Ga., Jan. 29 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ — ChoicePoint’s ADAM program, in partnership with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC), continues to assist in the recovery of missing children nationwide. Four missing children were recovered during the last quarter of 2007, increasing the total number of children found through the assistance of this program to 99.
Here are the stories of the latest ADAM-related recoveries:
— In May 2007, a 15-year-old girl was reported last seen at her home in
Canyon Lake, Texas. A poster was created and distributed via the ADAM
program to the Canyon Lake area. In November, a shelter employee in
New Braunfels, Texas, recognized the child from the faxed poster when
the child came in to the shelter seeking assistance.
— In August 2007, a 16-year-old girl was reported last seen at her home
in Columbus, Ohio. A poster was created and distributed via the ADAM
program to the Dayton area. A medical facility received and displayed
the child’s poster. The child visited the medical facility and upon
seeing her poster turned herself in.
— In February 2005, a 14-year-old girl was reported last seen in
Lancaster, Ohio. In June 2007, the NCMEC-assigned case manager
requested that the child’s poster be distributed to the Columbus, Ohio,
area via the ADAM program. As a result, local law enforcement received
an anonymous tip that the child may be working at a local pizza
restaurant. Officers went to the restaurant and located the child.
— In September 2007, a 15-year-old girl went missing from her home in
Garden Grove, California. In October, the NCMEC case manager requested
that the child’s poster be distributed through the ADAM program. As a
result employees at a nail salon in Garden Grove recognized the child
from the poster the salon had received and contacted the local law
enforcement. Officers responded to the nail salon and picked up the
child
I am very happy that these RUNAWAY TEENS were found and returned home. We help find missing children and runaway teens as well. However, here is the part where the NCMEC purposely distorts their news to mislead the public.
When someone thinks of a missing child, they think of a child who might have been abducted or a child that is lost due to some other circumstance. When they think of a teenager who has run away from home, they think just that. But they are two separate issues altogether.
We have this blog where we post Missing Children. We have this blog where we post pictures of Runaway Teens.
We show them as separate issues, therefore it is not misleading. But notice in the press release above that not once did they mention that these were runaway teens that were found. They call them missing children.
Now to a parent with a runaway teen, they are a missing child and I realize this. We take every case seriously because the runaway teen could be in danger. However, by definition they are a runaway teen and not a missing child.
The NCMEC knows that the public usually will not notice this so they spin their stories to make the public think they actively search for missing children, which they do not. We have done so. Direct participation in the searches alongside police is the way to find missing children.
We have proved this over and over again, yet the NCMEC won’t put any of that 40 million dollars per year into the program that we proved works by helping to find more than 80 missing children.
22 of those children were found by our search team. The rest were recovered by law enforcement and we assisted in the search. It doesn’t hurt to give real statistics, but I guess if you are scared of losing your 40 million dollars in funding, the truth can be spun any way you want.
source
