More missing youth being found thanks to training, awareness

More children and teenagers who are reported missing nationwide and in Utah are being found quicker due in part to better training of police.

"How police investigate a reported missing or abducted child today versus several years ago is as different as night and day," said Paul Murphy, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General's Office.

In the 1980s and 1990s, law enforcement approached a call about a missing child with the "best-case scenario," said Phil Keith, Amber Alert program director for Fox Valley Technical College, based in Washington, D.C.

The retired police chief said, historically, law enforcement gave missing children reports a low priority because "statistics speak for themselves. Most of the time, the children would return home safely."

But it was the number of children who never returned home or were found dead that caused law enforcement to change its collective mind, Keith said.

Farmington Police Lt. Shane Whitaker, a member of the Davis Area Child Abduction Response Team, said in the past when his office received a call about juvenile runaways, officers did not do much to follow up.

"Now we follow up," he said. "Kids mainly run away because of problems in the home that we are not aware of, and we want to find them before they get caught up in other things or picked up by a group trafficking girls or drugs."

But it's not just police who have become aware of the dangers a missing child can encounter. The public learned as well, officials said.

The Amber Alert Program also has helped bring children home.

Keith said the Department of Justice has reached a milestone by having the program in all U.S. states and territories, as well as in 24 tribal communities. It is now helping implement it in Canada and Mexico.

"It's had a huge impact on recovering endangered and abducted children," he said.

Those who are prone to abduct children also have been deterred by Amber Alert.

"What we're seeing is, the bad guys realize that, when you take a child, it's not just law enforcement and a few volunteers looking for you, but you have the eyes and ears of the public looking for you," Keith said.

In the past three years, 50 abducted children nationwide were later abandoned by the perpetrators once they heard the Amber Alert message on news programs or saw messages on billboards, he said.

Parents also have responsibility of keeping their children safe and many are talking to their children about what to do if an abduction takes place, said Nancy McBride, national safety director with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Nationally, 36 percent of children who are reported missing are abducted by strangers, Murphy said.

In the past three years, 50 abducted children nationwide were later abandoned by the perpetrators once they heard the Amber Alert message on news programs or saw messages on billboards, he said.

Parents also have responsibility of keeping their children safe and many are talking to their children about what to do if an abduction takes place, said Nancy McBride, national safety director with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children.

Nationally, 36 percent of children who are reported missing are abducted by strangers, Murphy said.

Of those children who are abducted, the majority are taken between 2 p.m. and 7 p.m. on weekdays, when they are walking home from school, McBride said.

She is working on a study that investigates how children manage to get away from abductors. The study is scheduled to be released in February.

Of those who are abducted and get away, 83 percent did something to help them escape, she said. They either walked, ran, kicked, screamed or beat on the perpetrator.

"They do everything they can to get away," McBride said.

But for the majority of children who are missing, abducted or endangered by an adult, it is usually an adult they know who has them, she said.

"Parents must be aware of who has access to their children," she said.

McBride said it's important to get to know the volunteers or the after-school program staff.

"Don't assume because they're a volunteer they're a good person," she said. "Chances are they are good."

Also parents should question why a coach, teacher or other adult wants to spend time alone with a child or teen.

"And if your child doesn't want to go somewhere with someone," McBride said, "it could be more than a personality issue."