In 2023, nearly 30,000 children were reported missing to Florida law enforcement.
Child abduction is every parent’s worst nightmare and is something no parent should ever have to go through.
When I was a child, a kidnapping in Florida garnered national attention and is something no one alive can ever forget.
Adam Walsh disappeared in 1981 at the age of six and was murdered by his kidnappers. That summer, Adam was abducted from a Sears department store in Hollywood, Florida.
After the kidnapping, her father, John Walsh, went on a mission to stop kidnappings and crime in general.
Thus, the show “America’s Most Wanted” was born.
The show, hosted by John Walsh, ran for 24 seasons and led to the arrest of more than 1,190 criminals through the show and tips provided to law enforcement.
Also in 1984, after Adam’s high-profile kidnapping case, Congress passed the Missing Children Act, which subsequently created the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
Shortly thereafter, “Code Adam” alerts became the standard for department stores to quickly locate missing children.
And in 2006, President George W. Bush signed the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act.
There was also a made-for-TV movie called “Adam” that aired for several years in the 80’s.
During each broadcast, photos of missing children were shared on a hotline for viewers. Fifty missing children were filmed, and 13 of them were found as a result of the call. The involvement of these media will provide an early look into the future of the huge impact technology and digital media will have on the search for missing children.
These days, there are a variety of tools available to help find missing children as quickly as possible. One of those tools is named after Adam Walsh. The ADAM program is an “automatic distribution of missing child alerts.”
The program began in 2000 and continues to this day, using technology to geographically target missing child areas and send photos as quickly as possible to media, schools, and medical centers to help law enforcement. We support children’s discoveries. NCMEC led the effort and LexisNexis built the software.
Some statistics about the ADAM program show that 1,145 of the 1,672 missing child cases processed have been resolved. That’s amazing. Technology is helping parents and police keep children safe.
Another huge weapon in this battle is the Amber Alert System. We all know that loud noises can affect finding a lost child. The system is named after another abducted child, Amber Renee Hagerman. Amber was kidnapped in Texas on January 17, 1996. she was 9 years old.
The alert system, developed by media and local police in Dallas, Texas, was put in place in response to her abduction. By 2012, AMBER alerts were being sent directly to mobile phones through the Wireless Emergency Alert Program (WEA), which they are well known for today.
The impact has been surprisingly positive.
Last year’s figures show that more than 1,200 children were saved or found thanks to the system. Other technological tools that allow us all to do our part to find missing children. You can now scan a QR code to see missing children within 80 miles of your location. This program and technology is a separate product of NCMEC.
I scanned it to keep an eye on the five missing children listed in Tallahassee.
Facial recognition tools and artificial intelligence are also being used in the fight to find missing children. During the pandemic, this technology helped reunite a Chinese man with his family 32 years after his abduction.
GPS tracking can also be used. If you have kids, make sure they have one of these GPS devices and track their location on your phone. This redundancy can make a difference.
Here you can choose from several.
Angel Sense is expressly designed for children with special needs. A two-way talk feature is also included, which can be an added plus in a variety of situations.
Using these technologies and programs, government agencies and people can help parents and law enforcement fight back. The goal is to never have anyone go through what the Walsh and Hagerman families went through.
Unfortunately, criminals will always exist, but by working together (along with modern technology) we can do our best to stop the monsters of our society from committing crimes and getting away with it. You can do your best.
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