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911 calls reporting the mysterious disappearance of a child may contain information critical to law enforcement. If this information is untruthful, valuable resources can be misdirected and precious time may be lost. Therefore, the current study examined verbal cues of veracity and deception in 911 calls placed by caregivers of missing children. Specifically, the current study compared differences between a sample of caregivers who falsely reported a child missing to conceal their role in the child's homicide and truthful caregivers who reported a child missing and had no knowledge of the child's whereabouts at the time of the call. Results show promise and consistency with previously proposed indicators of veracity and deception. Specifically, a greater number of self‐handicapping statements were made by deceptive individuals, whereas truthtellers were more likely to spontaneously self‐correct. Practical implications are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the past 40 years, a large number of children have been abandoned or abducted in China. We argue that the implementation of the one-child policy can help to explain changes in the patterns of both child abandonment and child abduction. We also contend that the cultural preference for sons in China has shaped unique gender-based patterns, as attested to by the fact that the majority of the children who are abandoned are girls and the majority of the children who are abducted are boys. We provide empirical evidence for the following findings: (1) Stricter implementation of the one-child policy leads to more child abandonment locally and more child abduction in neighboring regions; (2) A stronger son-preference bias intensifies both the local effects and spatial spillover effects of the region's one-child policy on child abandonment and abduction; and, (3) With the gradual relaxation of the one-child policy after 2002, the frequency of both child abandonment and child abduction has decreased significantly. This paper is the first to provide empirical evidence regarding the unintended consequences of the one-child policy in relation to missing children in China. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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According to the news published by different media, from the 1950s to the 1990s in Spain, there was a criminal network in different hospitals all over the country devoted to stealing new-borns to give them away through illegal adoptions while informing the biological family that the baby had passed away. It was an allegedly highly profitable business, deeply rooted in Francoist and post-Francoist society. Although more than a thousand claims have been brought before Spanish tribunals, not a single case has yet been proved, and the first judgement delivered will need to be revised since new evidence has shown that it was not a child abduction but an irregular, though consented, adoption. Nevertheless, Parliament recently started discussions on an ambitious law to address these cases. In this article, the different measures adopted by the judiciary, legislative and executive branches to confront these accusations are examined, presenting the unexpected results that have been obtained thus far. In a second part, the considerable legal challenges in prosecuting the illegal conduct are addressed, namely, the conflictive characterization of such conduct according to Spanish law and the applicability of statutory limitations. The paper finishes with a critical analysis of the first judgement delivered on the matter. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: In the United States, 840,000 children are reported missing annually. While no concise data is available on the incidence from healthcare facilities, infant and child abductions and elopement events pose a high risk to infants and hospital staff. Following an update on the missing child and missing infant policy at a tertiary care hospital in New York, the hospital's emergency preparedness team conducted a full-scale hospital drill. The drill included input and participation from administration, nursing, hospital police, and the pediatric department. Method: New updates in the policy which had not been tested before were evaluated during this drill, including plain language verbiage to activate a code, the process of alerting hospital police of the missing pediatric patient, hospital police response, and the response of hospital staff in their work areas. Inpatient pediatric wards, the emergency department, and outpatient clinics were given teaching about the new policy and their responsibilities in the event of a missing child or infant. Evaluators were pre-selected and placed throughout the hospital. Afterward, controllers de-briefed with each of the evaluators as well as with hospital personnel in areas that did not receive teaching on the policy. Results: The areas that did not receive in-person training on the policy update wanted to assist but did not know how to respond and did not follow protocol for securing their areas. Furthermore, areas of the hospital were identified where the overhead paging system did not work as well as gaps in hospital police staffing to cover key hospital exit points. Conclusion: This drill revealed that all hospital personnel need dedicated and personalized training on policy updates highlighting their roles in response, communication lines need to be tested, and plans to address concurrent clinical emergencies need to be formulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In every 8 minutes, one child goes missing in India which is a matter of grave concern. They are subjected to exploitation, sold into slavery, prostitution and have very little hope for their lives. Every day, around 150 children go missing in India -- kidnapping and abduction are the biggest crimes in our country (National Crime Record Bureau, 2016). Among those missing children, 55% are girls and 45% of all missing children remain untraceable as yet raising fears of them having been killed or pushed into beggary or prostitution rackets. There are several factors which account for the disappearance of the children in our country. Poverty, society's intolerance and insufficient law enforcement are the root causes and reasons behind this growing problem of missing children in India. This problem needs to be addressed seriously as it concerns the children who are young, innocent, inexperienced and helpless. The present paper is an attempt to highlight the problem of missing children in Chandigarh. The major reasons for children going missing in Chandigarh are not the kidnapping or abduction, whereas 97% of children reported missing are the cases of runaway where children discreetly leave homes due to reasons like love affairs, elopement, family fights, financial crisis at home, deprivation of parental love and care, etc. The study also reflects on the problems faced by the families of missing children and the key role played by police during the investigation of the registered cases.. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Child abduction is every parent and community's worst nightmare. Specifically, a child abducted from inside a residence can be a source of great panic and give the perception that the four walls of one's home offer little or no protection from offenders who kidnap children. This emotionally charged crime can quickly overwhelm law enforcement agencies, particularly those with limited resources. The study, conducted by the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit III-Crimes Against Children, analyzed the characteristics of 32 cases in which a child was abducted from inside a residence. The findings are particularly salient to law enforcement officers who are confronted with a report of a child missing from a residence and initially must consider the possibility that an intruder kidnapped the child. The research was conducted for the purpose of identifying common characteristics of this unique type of child abduction in order to assist law enforcement agencies in narrowing the focus and scope of their investigation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In family abductions, authorities sometimes release pictures of both missing children and associated adults. The effectiveness of this approach was tested in a prospective person memory experiment. Participants studied mock missing child posters including a picture of a child, a picture of a child alongside a picture of the correct adult, or a picture of a child alongside a picture of the incorrect adult. Participants then saw pictures of child/adult pairs with instructions to make a response to 'alert authorities' if the target individuals were seen. Including the picture of the correct adult on the poster, significantly improved recognition relative to the other two conditions. There was no significant effect of including the picture of the incorrect associated adult. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article examines research on high-profile child murder cases considering parents as suspects in the U.S. The investigation puts emphasis on the factors of filicide, false allegations of child abduction and motive. It highlights the cases of three-year-old Riley Fox reported missing on June 6, 2004 and eight-year-old Laura Hobbs reported missing in May 2005. INSETS: FILICIDE;CASE 1: Riley Fox;SOLVING THE CASE;CASE 2: Laura Hobbs

Previous research has suggested that the print media over-report on certain demographics of abducted children. Specifically, cases where the abduction victim is younger or the abduction victim is female are most often covered. The purpose of the current study was to systematically examine, through the research technique of content analysis, whether a lack of congruency exists between newspaper articles detailing child abduction victims and empirical data of the same. Newspaper articles were collected from LexisNexis Academic, and empirical data were drawn from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children. The results revealed that gender and age play only a minor role in deciding which abduction incidents are covered by newspapers, as well as the extent to which they are reported on. Specifically, newspapers dedicated more words to female victims than male victims and reported more on younger children (aged 11 and under) than older children (aged 12 and over) when they were the victim of a nonfamily abduction. It appears, however, that in all other types of abduction cases, newspapers are reporting a rather factual depiction of the demographics of victims. The implications of these findings are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

The AMBER Alert system was designed to recover endangered missing children through the solicitation of citizen assistance via swift public announcements. Rigorous empirical support for AMBER Alert's effectiveness has been lacking, but since its inception program advocates and public safety officials have lauded the system's ability to “save lives”, often basing their optimism on AMBER Alert “success” stories. However, in this paper quantitative and qualitative analyses of 333 publicized and celebrated AMBER Alert “successes” suggest AMBER Alerts rarely result in the retrieval of abducted children from clearly “life-threatening” situations, and that most of the publicized successes involved relatively benign abductors and unthreatening circumstances. The routine conflation of such apparently mundane cases with rare dramatic successes by AMBER Alert advocates suggests popular portrayals of AMBER Alert are overly sanguine. The potentially negative effects of this and policy implications are discussed. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Empirical studies of child abduction murder investigations are lacking. Accordingly, an empirical analysis of the effect of time and distance relationships on case solvability in child abduction murders ( N=735) was conducted. The murders occurred across the United States from 1968 to 2002. Murder incident components examined were: victim last seen site, initial contact site, murder site, and body recovery site. Time and distance intervals between component pairings were also examined. Descriptive, bivariate, and multivariate analyses were performed to determine if information relating to time and distance intervals between components were critical solvability factors. Results show that information about time and distance increases case solvability. Results also demonstrate that time and distance relationships contribute uniquely to case solvability in murders of abducted children. Findings also indicate that additional factors such as type of forensic evidence, investigative resources, or actions by first responders, may be critical to case solvability. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents information on the American Academy of Pediatric Dentistry's (AAPD) policy on child identification programs. It states that the AAPD recognizes the role that dental records have with forensic identification and mentions that the AAPD recommends the establishing of a dental home by parents so clinical data can be gathered and routinely updated to assist with the identification of missing or abducted children. It comments that dental records can contain thorough information on the child's oral cavity along with a record of restorative care, photographs, and bite registration.