A Facebook friend posted a note giving tips for parents to keep their small children safe in public places. She begins by saying it was safer when she was a child but times have changed and abductions have increased. To prove her point, she cited an example of a stranger who attempted to abduct a child in her area.
But are children really at a greater risk of abduction than in the past? How great is this threat relative to other risks children face?
The vast majority of children that are reported missing are returned unharmed. The abductor is usually a family member. Kidnappings by acquaintances are much less common and stranger kidnappings are extremely rare. The US Department of Justice conducted detailed studies estimating the number of missing children. In 1988, they estimated between 200 and 300 abductions by strangers occurred. For 1999, they estimated 115 such abductions. Due to differing study methodology, these studies do not conclusively prove a decline, but there is certainly no evidence of an increase.[1]
A review of the Center for Disease Control’s charts on leading causes of death reports reveals that children are much more likely to be killed in an accident than be abducted by a stranger. This means automobiles and bathtubs are more likely to hurt children than people they don’t know. [2]
But where did this persistent idea that child abductions are increasing originate? Why do parents fear their children being abducted by strangers more than, say, falling down stairs? When my friend was a child, there were fewer national media outlets and news was not available 24/7. Today the media is capable of distributing news from anywhere in the world to everywhere in the world. A child stolen by a stranger is more likely to receive national or international coverage than a child poisoned by household cleaners. The greater variety of media outlets means more time can be devoted to repeated tellings of the story and exhaustive commentary. As useful as media coverage can be to positive outcomes in child abductions, you could hypothesize that the wide distribution and selected coverage of child abductions also makes these events seem more frequent and a greater threat than they really are.
Another possible reason that parents tend to think of the world as increasingly dangerous is simply that, when they were children, they viewed the world through the eyes of a child.
Parents should certainly take prudent measures to protect their children from all manner of risks. But we pay a price in our personal lives and as a society when we allow fear out of proportion to those risks to guide our actions.
[1] National Incident Studies of Missing Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) Questions and Answers, http://www.ncjrs.gov/html/ojjdp/nismart/qa/
[2] CDC Leading Causes Charts http://www.cdc.gov/ncipc/osp/charts.htm
Are you trying to say it is as safe now as it was twenty years ago, or that there are just less abductions? I don't believe at least in my area of residence that it is as safe for my children as it was 20 years ago. I would like to see some statistics showing the effectiveness of such awareness programs as the Amber Alert and its rate of successfulness. People's awareness and accessibility to cell phones and mass media surely has helped to bring the numbers down. I am not speaking of abduction alone being the root of all my concern but one of many issues.
ReplyDeleteIn 80% of abductions by strangers, the first contact occurs within a quarter mile of the child's home. In many cases, the abduction does, too.
- 1990 U.S. Justice Dept.
This is why my children cannot play in my yard; they must stay at least 2 miles from the house.
You're joking about your kids having to play 2 miles from your house, right?
DeleteYou must be joking, right? Crime rates all over have dropped markedly in the last twenty years. So yeah, your child is safe. "I'd like to see some statistics" - translation: "I'm too lazy to look up the statistics (which are readily available on the web) so someone do it for me."
DeleteAlso to your question of why parents fear abduction more than falling down stairs. Simple, control. Someone else stealing your child is the ultimate in parental fear. Even if my child falls down the stairs I am there to comfort heal and protect. Abduction is a total loss of control with no ability to save the child. Abduction is being at someone else's mercy with your most precious possession.
ReplyDeleteI said nothing about whether it is safer today, I asked if there was any evidence to support the notion that child abductions are increasing. To my knowledge there is not. Rather, there is inconclusive evidence that it is decreasing.
ReplyDeleteI should have said "Why do parents fear stranger abductions (which is usually to facilitate another crime like sexual abuse often followed by murder) more than DEATH by accidents- like automobile accidents, drowning in bathtubs and falling down stairs. On one hand the former is more horrible to imagine, but on the other hand, the second is much more likely. Its seems rational to me to devote more energy to preventing the most likely causes of death, although, as I said, children should be protected from all manner of risks.
Amber Alerts are issued AFTER a child has been confirmed abducted by law enforcement. When you say "bring the numbers down" I presume you mean result in recovery of the child. But the numbers I quote are incidents of child abduction regardless of the outcome. Unless you think Amber Alerts serve as a deterrent, I do not see how Amber alerts would result in a drop in the incidence of child abduction.
I think fear has consequences that are difficult to appreciate. A mother fears her child will be abducted by strangers. She teaches her child to avoid and be suspicious of all strangers. She teaches them that the world out of her sight is dangerous. How does that child view the world as an adult? Maybe the mother doesn't care so long as her child is safe, but the mother's peace of mind came at a cost. That cost, as difficult as it is to measure, should be weighed against the risk it mitigates.
Homicides reported by the Birmingham PD in 1985: 97, in 2005:104.
ReplyDeleteThis represents a higher volume of murders because during this period B'hams population actually declined more than 8%. Birmingham currently has a murder rate about 5 times the rest of the nation. As for trends, murders spiked in 1991 (133) had a steady decline to a low of 65 in 2002.
Check it out:http://bjsdata.ojp.usdoj.gov/dataonline/Search/Homicide/Local/RunHomTrendsInOneVar.cfm
The homicide rate is,of course, only one measure of crime or safety but it seems to suggest you are indeed less safe in Birmingham proper than the US average. You are only slightly less safe than you were twenty years ago but significantly less safe than you were just a few years ago.
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ReplyDelete