Crime / Punishment

How Many Kids a Year Are Abducted?

Question: How Many Kids a Year Are Abducted?

Answer: Missing children overview:

Of the 837,055 missing persons reported in 2001, an estimated 80 percent were children.
About 99 percent were found within hours or days by usual law enforcement response.
More than 7,000 children nationwide were missing for prolonged periods.
(Sources: FBI, National Center for Missing and Exploited Children)

In 1999, more than 50,000 children and adolescents were taken by nonfamily members by physical force or coercion for at least one hour.
Ninety-one percent of nonfamily abductions lasted less than a day, with 29 percent lasting two hours or less.
Classic nonfamily kidnappings pose the greatest risk of death or serious harm. About 100 children were kidnapped by nonfamily members in 1999.
(Source: U.S. Department of Justice National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, 2002) Family abductions

203,900 children each year are victims of family abductions, where the child is taken by a noncustodial parent.

24 percent of these abductions lasted one week to one month. Police were contacted in 60 percent of the cases.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children, 2002