The AMBER Alert System originated in 1996 when Dallas-Fort Worth journalists collaborated with the authorities and created an alerting system to aid in the recovery of kidnapped children. AMBER (America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response) was founded as a memorial to Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old girl abducted while cycling on her in Arlington, Texas, and brutally killed (Karmen, 2020). As the idea quickly spread across the country, other US states and localities established AMBER schemes.
When law enforcement establishes that a juvenile has been taken and the abduction fits AMBER Alert conditions, a notification is sent to broadcasters and state transportation officials. The AMBER Alerts are aired on radio and television, and road signs disrupt regular programming. Amber Alerts can sometimes be issued on lottery tickets, mobile smartphones, or the Internet. The Department of Justice aims to create a seamless national network by coordinating local states. Regional strategies (Karmen, 2020), with a primary objective of the AMBER Alert system, quickly and promptly distribute abduction data to law enforcement agencies and the general public via technical infrastructure that enables communication and mobilizes everybody searching for the kid.
The AMBER Alert system is utilized in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the United States Virgin Islands, Indian Country, and internationally in 27 nations (Brandt et al., 2021). The Office of Justice Programs of the United States Department of Justice has assigned the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to handle the AMBER Alert Secondary Distribution Program. NCMEC is alerted when law enforcement issues an AMBER Notice and re-distributes the alert to the proper secondary distributors. As of December 31, 2021, 1,111 children had been found due to AMBER Alerts (United States government, Department of Justice, 2021). The average recovery time for all AMBER Alarm instances was 15 hours from when the initial alert was issued. In 70% of cases, when a child is kidnapped and then murdered, the suspect kills the youngster within three hours. The majority of cases for which AMBER Alerts are issued fall into the 30% of instances where the child is not brutally murdered during the first 3 hours (United States government, Department of Justice, 2021). Instances whereby an AMBER Alert has been counted to be successful in blocking the killing of a child entail occasions where a child is never at risk of physical harm or loss of human life.
References
Brandt, T. W., Lind, T., Schreier, A., Sievers, C. M., & Kramer, T. L. (2021). Identifying youth at risk for commercial sexual exploitation within child advocacy centers: A statewide pilot study. Journal of interpersonal violence, 36(5-6), NP2368-NP2390.
Karme, A. (2020). Crime victims: An introduction to victimology. (10th ed., chapter. 8) Cengage Learning.
United States government, Department of Justice. (2021) 2020 AMBER Alert Report: Analysis of AMBER Alert Cases in 2020. National Centre for Missing & Exploited Children, Office of justice programs. Web.