Missing And The NCMEC
A closer look at the state and national clearinghouses, the systems meant to protect us.
I am continuing the series I started when I wrote the Forest of Missing Children. This is intended to be a resource in order to find where our system is failing us. We need to do better for our society and our children.
Make no mistake. This is just a small part of a larger problem — the Human Trafficking Industrial Complex.
If you haven’t read the other part of the series here are the articles:
Let’s begin..
If The Police Won't Search, Who Will?
From a 1980 article in Police Magazine called Missing Persons: If the Police Won't Search, Who Will?:
For decades, the Chicago Police Department handled missing persons cases in the same way. When a person was reported missing, a patrol officer took a report. The information was passed on to the missing persons bureau, where the names and descriptions of the missing were written down in huge log books piled up on the wooden desks. The rest of the police report, along with whatever other information was available, was put into file folders that were stuffed, alphabetically, in row upon row of file cabinets. Most of the files were never looked at again.
The Chicago police, like police everywhere knew that 95 percent of those reported missing would eventually turn up unharmed. Unless foul play was suspected, little effort was made to find them; even then, the investigation would likely be handled by a different division. Little attempt was made to compare the circumstances of different missing persons cases to see if there was a pattern, or to compare the files on the missing person themselves to see if there was some relationship among them.
Missing persons in Chicago, as in most cities, was a low-priority operation. It was the place few detectives with ambition wanted to end up.
But then something happened that stood the Chicago missing persons bureau on its head. Four days before Christmas Day 1978, a group of Des Plaines, Illinois and Cook County Sheriff's Department investigators appeared at the home of John Wayne Gacy, a popular, affable building contractor who lived just outside the city of Chicago. They had a search warrant, obtained after they told a judge that Gacy might have had something to do with the disappearance of a local boy. Gacy denied knowing the boy; but, searching the house, detectives found a trap door in the floor of a closet. Beneath it, they found the bodies of three boys and the bones of several more.
By the time the police had finished digging under Gacy's house and dragging a nearby river, the bodies of 33 young men had been uncovered. Half of them had been reported missing to the Chicago Police Department, some as much as three years before.
Examining The Numbers
“….. A child goes missing every 40 seconds in the U.S., over 2,100 per day. In excess of 800,000 children are reported missing each year; another 500,000 go missing without ever being reported.” - Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP).
If one child goes missing every 40 seconds, then the total of missing children per day are 2,160. This means the number is at least 788,400 missing children per year.
According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, their "call center received 110,153 calls" in 2022.
If each one of these calls were an entry into the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children resulted in an entry and/or action to assist in the recovery of that missing child, this means that they addressed only 13.97% of the missing children cases in the United States in 2022.
The FBI's National Crime Information Center did a little better.
When a child is reported missing to law enforcement, federal law requires that child be entered into the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC). According to the FBI, in 2022 there were 359,094 NCIC entries for missing children.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Our 2022 Impact
Assuming every missing child gets reported to law enforcement (which we know does not happen), law enforcement correctly reported 45.54% of the total children who went missing in 2022 in the United States.
Federal legislation enacted in 2014 requires state agencies to report a missing child to both law enforcement and NCMEC within 24 hours of receiving information about a missing child under their care.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Our 2022 Impact
Does 13.97% missing children reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and 45.54% missing children reported to the FBI seem reasonable in combating the issue of missing children in the United States to you? Or do those percentages seem a bit low?
Perhaps people related to missing children realize something that I do not. Perhaps they know the kind of reception from law enforcement they will receive. Perhaps I am too much of an idealist. Maybe this is why missing children do not get reported to law enforcement.
In no other area of police work do the needs of the community seem more at odds with the priorities of the police. What could be more immediate, more alarming, more terrifying for a family than to have one of its members disappear?
While police executives express their sympathy for the distraught families and friends of those who disappear, many of them continue to maintain that it is not their job to search for missing persons, that long experience has shown most disappearances involve no crime, and that crime is their sole concern. They repeat an old refrain: to be missing is not a crime.
Internet Archive: Police Magazine: Missing Persons: If the Police Won't Search, Who Will? (Published in 1980)
Or maybe it is because no crime has been committed yet? Maybe the police step in after the fact?
Of the more than 25,000 cases of children reported missing to NCMEC in 2022 who had run away, 1 in 6 were likely victims of child sex trafficking.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Our 2022 Impact
But this is 2023, 43 years after that article was written. It is a totally different era now with new tools, policies, and procedures. Times have most certainly changed since then.
"It is just another damn runaway."
Alleged statement made by Crawford County Sheriff's Department law enforcement officer when questioned regarding Ethan who went missing on July 3, 2023 in Van Buren, Arkansas
Even mass murder is sometimes not enough to make a police department reexamine its approach to missing persons cases. In 1973, Texas police stumbled on a case in which it was discovered that Dean Coril, a Houston candy manufacturer, and two teenaged accomplices had kidnapped, raped, and murdered 27 boys. The case caused a national furor, and a lot of criticism was heaped on the Houston Police Department for not searching the 27 who had been reported missing.
But police officials in Houston say that they have not changed their procedures for handling missing persons cases. When the Dean Coril case was being investigated, say Detective K. D. Porter of Houston's homicide division, "our primary function was to identify the victims."
Criticism aimed at the police for not searching for the missing boys was unfair, Porter said. "When a kid leaves home, or an adult, there's no law actually broken. There's not much we can do." Besides, Porter added, most of Coril's victims "were using narcotics, glue sniffing, paint sniffing, smoking marijuana. They were known as runaways. Coril picked them for that reason."
Internet Archive: Police Magazine: Missing Persons: If the Police Won't Search, Who Will? (Published in 1980)
Even though federal legislation requires state agencies to report a missing child to both law enforcement and NCMEC within 24 hours, it does not require the same timely response from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as was the case when Ethan went missing in Arkansas.
The first 48 hours following the disappearance of a child are the most critical in terms of finding and returning that child safely home.
Ethan went missing in Van Buren, Arkansas on July 3, 2023 at approximately 5:30 pm. Law enforcement was called about an hour later when his parents realized he was missing. He was recovered on July 9, 2023 shortly after 11:00 PM. He was missing for 6 days. The National Chapter for Missing and Exploited Children contacted Ethan's parents on July 13, 2023. This was 10 days after he initially went missing and 4 days after he was recovered.
In 2022, NCMEC assisted law enforcement, families and child welfare with 27,644 cases of missing children. The overall recovery of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children cases was 88% in 2022.
National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Our 2022 Impact
Does 27,644 cases seem a bit low? If one child goes missing every 40 seconds, then the total of missing children at least 788,400 per year. Do those numbers suggest that we aren’t even touching the core issues or the problems?
If this was a war, I would say we are losing.
Most missing persons are not even officially listed as missing for at least 24 hours. Most police departments assume that a teenager who disappears is a runaway, and that he will soon return home or reveal his whereabouts.
Internet Archive: Police Magazine: Missing Persons: If the Police Won't Search, Who Will? (Published in 1980)
Breaking this down, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children assisted in:
3.50% of the total missing children in the United States
25.10% of the total missing children they calls for
7.70% of the total missing children cases entered into the FBI's National Crime Information Center (NCIC)
And of those 27,644 cases, only 24,326 missing children were recovered with the help of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. Per their own statistics, the majority of these cases (21,494) were from children missing from social service's care. (Source: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children: Our 2022 Impact.)
Keep in mind that the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children is the national clearinghouse for missing children. It is the United States sole resource of which every other agency which helps missing children must work with by federal law.
States Missing Persons Clearinghouses
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children lists the clearinghouses for each state on its website.
The following is a list of state clearinghouses whose links work, along with some additional notes and observations:
California
California lists in-depth information regarding statistics which are broken down by annual reports by status, by county, and status by county.Florida
They are partnered with Florida Missing Children's Day Foundation.Minnesota
Their database only lists one missing person from 2023. But at least it is somethingMissouri
Missouri definitely has one of the best websites regarding missing persons. There is a state map that shows where the missing persons were last seen.North Dakota
North Dakota's resources for missing persons is excellent. Probably the best I have seen. However, there is no state database for missing persons.Vermont
Vermont has no database on its website. However, it does have multiple social media accounts where it shares this information through.Wisconsin
Wisconsin has no database on its website. However, it does have multiple social media accounts where it shares this information through.
Notice that is half of the states of our United States plus the District of Columbia and the Navajo Nation. What about the other half?
The following is a list of state clearinghouses whose links work as listed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, but whose websites don't:
Arkansas
The child ID Kit, the Missing Adult Resource Guide, and the U.S. General Services Administration’s Missing Child Notice Program links are broken. They are partnered with the Morgan Nick Foundation.Colorado's list of missing persons was last published in 2021, if the file name "2021 Colorado Missing Person Name List" is any indicator. And it is exactly what it says it is. A PDF with a list of names from 2021. There is no other information available. Just names.
When you click on the Amber Alter - How It Works link, it takes you to another page full of resources. On that page, the links to the Connecticut Lottery, CT Broadcasters Association, CT Police Chiefs Association, the Polly Klaas Foundation, and NCMEC system works. However, their Code AMBER, Free Child ID Kits, and Wireless AMBER Alters links are all broken. Glad to know where their priorities lie. At least you can play the lottery even after your child goes missing. There is also no database for missing persons. They are partnered with the Polly Klaas Foundation.
This website is totally devoid of any information regarding missing persons when you click on it. If you do manage to eventually find a link for missing persons, it redirects you back to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.
The last entry for their database was on March 2, 2022. This was over a year ago.
Indiana
The website for Indiana actually works as intended. It takes you to a page which lists an online form and the email address for missing persons. There are no other links, resources, or databases for missing persons in Indiana.Kentucky
Kentucky's website looks well designed. Too bad there are no resources for missing persons and the link appears to be broken. But at least it looks pretty.Maine does have a database for missing persons. Their last entry was on 2017, which was 6 years ago.
Maryland
Maryland has no database for missing persons. Their website only has one link regarding this. It is for Amber Alerts.Massachusetts has a single link on its website, which is for the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs).
Mississippi
This link takes you to Mississippi's Department of Public Safety, where there is no mention of missing persons. There are links for driver's licenses, firearm permits, changes of address, background checks, and mobile ID though.This link takes you to the Navajo Nation's Division of Public Safety. There is no mention of missing persons.
Navada's News/Resources tab is broken. Their database links back to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. They are partnered with Nevada Child Seekers.
Oklahoma
Oklahoma has some broken and confusing links on its page. The Operation Lady Justice link is broken, as well as the Remembering Francine Frost link. The name Oklahoma Information Fusion Center (OIFC) is not descriptive and the link (correctly and bewilderingly) takes you to the Oklahoma Counter Terrorism Intelligence Center. Your child is missing. It may be terrorist related. The state doesn't have its own database.Pennsylvania
The link takes you to Pennsylvania's State Police website. I see no mention of missing persons.Rhode Island
Rhode Island's page has a phone number and link to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. No other information or resources are available.West Virginia
West Virginia hasn't had a missing person since 2019 apparently. There are no resources listed at all.
Keep in mind that these are the listed links for these state’s clearinghouses for missing children. They are supposed to have missing children information there.
And yet we are still missing a few states…
Your child is missing. You are panicked. So you go to the resources you know that exist that will help you bring your child back safely — the list of state missing persons clearinghouses listed by the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. You click on the link for your state and get the following message:
Here is a list of state missing clearinghouse websites where the above is exactly what happened when I clicked on their link:
North Carolina
When I clicked on North Carolina's link, I got a message which said "Access denied". I am sure that will reassure parents when their children go missing. No reason to make it easier on them.Virginia
This definitely does not look like an official government website.
Aren’t taxpayers paying for these services?
In FY 2022, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention awarded the National Center for Exploited and Missing Children $38.7 million to fund its activities. The center received an additional $6 million through an interagency service agreement between OJJDP and the U.S. Secret Service.
FY 2022 – $44,700,000
FY 2021 – $36,922,517
FY 2020 – $35,429,092
What exactly are our federal tax dollars funding when a teenager with some computer skills can update a link on a website? Does it feel like a serious effort is being made to combat this issue? Or are we just setting up a system, which makes us feel better so we can sleep at night, that will ultimately fail?
Sources and Further Research:
Internet Archive: Police Magazine: Missing Persons: If the Police Won't Search, Who Will?
Published in 1980
USA Today: How Hard Will The Police Look For Your Missing Child? It Depends On How Old They Are
Published March 2, 2023
USA Today: Police Don't Always Rush To Find Missing Children. In Some Cities, Anyone Over 10 Is On Their Own
Published March 2, 2023
ABC News: Why The First 72 Hours In A Missing Persons Investigation Are The Most Critical, According To Criminology Experts
Published October 8, 2018
Where are the punisher files?
Great job exposing this horrible problem. Our children are precious. We all need to get involved to get this catastrophe of a system cleaned up. Its actually a large part of taking our country back. We need good common sense laws and complete resources to combat this problem.
Another great article. I love your writing and professionalism.