According to a study done on racial and gender bias in the coverage of missing children, African American missing children cases were underrepresented in television news when compared to their actual rates of incidence between the years of 2005-2006. 21.2% of cases were covered in the news compared with the actual reported incidents in the FBI data of 32.9%.
During 2008, 778,161 persons were entered into the NCIC (National Crime Information Center) Missing Person File. Missing blacks accounted for 255,275 (33%) of these cases compared with 479,697 (62%) of Whites (Hispanics included).
Missing persons under the age of 18 accounted for 614,925 cases. Black children made up of 211,921 (34%) compared with just 25,333 (4%) of whites (including Hispanics).
Where is your source material and references? I think you will find the answers if you pull the FBI Crime data down state by state and look at it! First, LOOK AT THE AMBER LAWS for each state. You used 2005- 2006. Did you realize a few states didn’t even have AMBER LAWS at that time? And some states, like Illinois, have some remarkable requirements that actually tie Law Enforcement’s hands and hurt the efforts to try and find the missing. They require that in order for AMBER to be activated POLICE HAVE TO KNOW THERE HAS BEEN AN ABDUCTION. And some media outlets have adopted a policy to ONLY REPORT a MISSING CHILD IF AMBER IS ACTIVATED? So if the parents/guardians of children refuse to approach the media independently then no missing person information will reach the public at large.
You also need to closely examine MISSING PERSON REPORT requirements- and this is even more complicated than STATE AMBER LAWS, because the way a report is handled could different jurisdictionally WITHIN A STATE. Take Mitrice Richardson – a beautiful young black woman who are released into the night from a police substation in CA THIS YEAR! Her last known whereabouts were NOT in her city of residence. Her family’s efforts to get the report in the system showcased a SERIOUS FLAW. While they believe it was racially motivated, there are thousands of cases in and outside of CA for nonblacks where family members of adults faced the same sort of problem. The WHO (can report a person missing) and WHEN (how long the person’s wherabouts are unknown) and WHERE (the last known location or the person’s residence) are determined by our laws. The inconsistencies cause confusion and great delays and have even prevented some reports from being made at all. I believe this may help to explain in part what happened in Cleveland.
This is NOT RACIAL. This is a series of badly written laws. YOu are concerned about children. Even now there are BAD AMBER ALERT LAWS combined with NO NATIONAL Missing Person Report Regulations throughout our country. It is shameful. Sure we have passed SUZANNE’s Law that forces college aged “students” to be included in the Amber Notification System BUT that was just plugging one hole. There is a current rise in women between 35 – 60 missing right now, did you know? The real solution is a FEDERAL LAW REQUIRING POLICE TO TAKE A MISSING PERSON REPORT IMMEDIATELY and REQUIRING THE POLICE TO IMMEDIATELY RELEASE A MISSING PERSON PRESS RELEASE TO THE MEDIA so we all can help find anyone who is missing as quickly as possible. It should not matter the age of the missing or the mental capacity of the missing or the custodial arrangement for the missing. If a person is not where they are expected to be be, we need to find them. It is a matter of public safety.
Should ask, I don’t see where you noted whether the missing person data you pulled included UNKNOWN REMAINS. The FBI information you see is fed from some state agencies and also from some local agencies, it varies from state to state. Some states and local jurisdictions include UNKNOWN REMAINS THEY HAVE FOUND as MISSING CASES. So did you actually verify your numbers are cases for people who were living at the time they were reported to the FBI crime data center?
Finally, not all missing cases are reported and not all cases reported are fed to the FBI. And even if they are fed to the FBI it all hinges on the quality of the data, doesn’t it? Remember the young woman who showed up in NYC and couldn’t be ID’d by NY LE THIS SEPTEMBER? She had amnesia. Good thing it happened in NY where LE could use the media! And it was a CNN feed that allowed a Maryland person who knew this young woman to solve the mystery. The reason why LE could not ID her was the sloppy missing person report that the Washington State Local Police input into their state database. They had her height, weight wrong. THey also had no picture. WASHINGTON is only one of a handful of states that require all missing person reports to go into a STATE WIDE data base. Yet no one seems to be making sure, at least we now know in Washington, that complete data is fed into the system and uploaded to the FBI. Privacy and property laws continue to interfere with LE’s efforts to work a missing person case. And I believe privacy laws have interfered with the FBI getting complete data.
HR 3695 is a law currently in CONGRESS. It is in a HOMELAND SECURITY subcommitte right now, the chairman is Bobby Scott. This law needs to be passed. It will help police (and even some families) try to identify remains. It has the ability, if your stats include unknown remains, to lessen the number of missing and help you advance your cause. It is my earnest hope you will do all you can to help get HR 3695 passed.
Veracity… you’re missing the point. If you don’t think there’s a clear difference in who gets national media attention then you’re delusional and I’m a white women and I see it. Other than the recent kilings in Ohio and the Richardson case, I have never heard of any of the other cases mentioned on this site. But I bet you, just like me, can name a list of missing white women and children from across this country. Unfortunately, as much as I am so tired of the race card, when it comes to missing women in children the younger, the prettier, the more pregnant, white, the more dashing the husband is the more attention they get nationally. If I’m wrong, name a list of black missing women and children that have received national attention BESIDES the one you mentioned above. And Richardson garnered attention because the media had been recently called out about the the lack of reports on missing blacks. Name just 5-10 black women and children. I can think of atleast 10-15 nationally reported white women instantly.
This is sickening…..
God bless you for all that you do! As far as our society has come, these statistics let me know there is still much progress to be made.
All of the people on your site and their families are in my prayers tonight!