Successes due to 'Amber Alert' soar

WASHINGTON -- The number of missing children recovered alive after their names and photographs were sent to police and transportation agencies under the "Amber Alert" system has soared during the past two years, as the system has become established across the country, the Justice Department said Wednesday.

A review of the system by the department found that from early 2002 through Oct. 1 of this year, 143 children were recovered through the alert system, which is designed to notify authorities when missing children are believed to be in immediate danger. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says that since Oct. 1, 15 more children have been recovered through Amber Alerts.

The figures reflect how the alert system -- which was named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old Texas girl who was kidnapped and killed in 1996 -- has dramatically improved law enforcement's ability to find missing children. Robert Hoever, deputy director of special operations for the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, estimates that 90 percent of Amber Alerts issued across the nation have resulted in authorities finding a child alive. His figures could not be immediately confirmed; the Justice Department does not track instances in which children are not found alive.

The recoveries represent a fraction of the tens of thousands of children who are reported missing each year. Many are runaways, or are taken by a parent involved in a dispute with the child's other parent. Amber Alerts -- Amber also is an acronym for America's Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response -- often are not issued in such cases. Such alerts generally are used when police can confirm an abduction, when there appears to be a risk of serious injury or death to the child, and when there is sufficient detail about the abductor or victim.

The alerts are aimed at flooding information in the area near the abduction, and beyond that if necessary, to enlist residents and local law enforcement in the search for a child.

As the program has evolved, Amber Alerts have been posted on electronic road signs and broadcast on radio and TV.

Assistant Attorney General Deborah Daniels, the national coordinator for the alert system, said there is evidence that abductors have released children after learning that the children were the focus of aggressive searches. "What we hope for is that as the Amber Alert becomes more (established), more people would be dissuaded from abducting children."

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