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Authors: Peter Vronsky
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in public places.
The incredible stranger child abduction figures of 30,000 to 45,000 so often cited became more frequently challenged in the late 1980s. People began to wonder: Where were these abductions occurring? Why were they not being reported in the papers? Where were the anecdotal accounts? Who were the serial killers committing these abductions? Finally Congress sponsored a program to determine exact statistical data on missing and abducted children called the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART).
The study determined that there were two definitions of “abduction”: a legal one and a stereotypical one held by the public. In public perception a child abduction occurs when a victim is taken away by a stranger a great distance, held for ransom, kept overnight or longer, or killed. Crimes such as the 1993 abduction-murder of Polly Klaas or the recently resolved kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart fit the public perception of the threat posed by strangers to children. But the law is broader than the public’s perception. For example, California courts define abduction as when a victim is lured or forcibly moved farther than twenty feet or held longer than half an hour if no movement occurs. 38 So when the FBI reported an annual average of 90,000 forcible rapes in the 1980s, in which teenage girls comprised commonly a third to a half of the victims, still defined as children, the circumstances of many of these crimes easily fit the legal definition of child abduction. Thus the figure of 30,000 to 45,000 “abducted children” emerged under those kinds of definitions. But this was not what the public was thinking in their definition of the type of child abduction they feared.
The NISMART study reevaluated child abduction statistics in the context of the public perception of abduction. The study determined that in a twelve-year period between 1976 and 1988, an average of 43 to 147 children were victimized yearly in the United States in the stereotypical public perception of abduction. That brings the statistic more in line with the highly rare anecdotal and press reports of stranger abductions of children that we hear about. The reality is that the abduction and murder of children by strangers is a very rare crime. The degree of fear and concern generated by exaggerated and misrepresented statistics during the early 1980s far exceeded the reality of the danger. This fear persists to this day, despite the extremely low probability of such threats to children. Of course, this fact is of little consolation to the parents of the 43 to 147 children who on average every year are abducted by strangers.
Back in 1981–1983, as the committee hearings unfolded in Washington, the press darted like schools of fish to the Senate hearings and the various press conferences. Articles in large-circulation magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Life, Omni, Psychology Today, Playboy, and Penthouse, painted a picture of the United States plagued by an “epidemic” of senseless random homicides committed by roaming anonymous monsters who often victimized our children.
All those fearful and perhaps exaggerated cries came to some fruition. In 1982 Congress passed the Missing Children’s Act and in 1984 the Missing Children’s Assistance Act. President Ronald Reagan personally announced the establishment of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), to be housed at the FBI Quantico Behavioral Sciences Unit. The data collected by the BSU sexual killer study is applied today in a program known as VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). When police suspect that a serial offender is loose in their jurisdiction, they can fill out a standard VICAP questionnaire consisting of 188 questions about their homicide case and submit it to the Investigative Support Unit requesting a profile of the unknown offender. (See Chapter 9 for a more detailed account of profiling and
The incredible stranger child abduction figures of 30,000 to 45,000 so often cited became more frequently challenged in the late 1980s. People began to wonder: Where were these abductions occurring? Why were they not being reported in the papers? Where were the anecdotal accounts? Who were the serial killers committing these abductions? Finally Congress sponsored a program to determine exact statistical data on missing and abducted children called the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART).
The study determined that there were two definitions of “abduction”: a legal one and a stereotypical one held by the public. In public perception a child abduction occurs when a victim is taken away by a stranger a great distance, held for ransom, kept overnight or longer, or killed. Crimes such as the 1993 abduction-murder of Polly Klaas or the recently resolved kidnapping of Elizabeth Smart fit the public perception of the threat posed by strangers to children. But the law is broader than the public’s perception. For example, California courts define abduction as when a victim is lured or forcibly moved farther than twenty feet or held longer than half an hour if no movement occurs. 38 So when the FBI reported an annual average of 90,000 forcible rapes in the 1980s, in which teenage girls comprised commonly a third to a half of the victims, still defined as children, the circumstances of many of these crimes easily fit the legal definition of child abduction. Thus the figure of 30,000 to 45,000 “abducted children” emerged under those kinds of definitions. But this was not what the public was thinking in their definition of the type of child abduction they feared.
The NISMART study reevaluated child abduction statistics in the context of the public perception of abduction. The study determined that in a twelve-year period between 1976 and 1988, an average of 43 to 147 children were victimized yearly in the United States in the stereotypical public perception of abduction. That brings the statistic more in line with the highly rare anecdotal and press reports of stranger abductions of children that we hear about. The reality is that the abduction and murder of children by strangers is a very rare crime. The degree of fear and concern generated by exaggerated and misrepresented statistics during the early 1980s far exceeded the reality of the danger. This fear persists to this day, despite the extremely low probability of such threats to children. Of course, this fact is of little consolation to the parents of the 43 to 147 children who on average every year are abducted by strangers.
Back in 1981–1983, as the committee hearings unfolded in Washington, the press darted like schools of fish to the Senate hearings and the various press conferences. Articles in large-circulation magazines such as Time, Newsweek, Life, Omni, Psychology Today, Playboy, and Penthouse, painted a picture of the United States plagued by an “epidemic” of senseless random homicides committed by roaming anonymous monsters who often victimized our children.
All those fearful and perhaps exaggerated cries came to some fruition. In 1982 Congress passed the Missing Children’s Act and in 1984 the Missing Children’s Assistance Act. President Ronald Reagan personally announced the establishment of the National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime (NCAVC), to be housed at the FBI Quantico Behavioral Sciences Unit. The data collected by the BSU sexual killer study is applied today in a program known as VICAP (Violent Criminal Apprehension Program). When police suspect that a serial offender is loose in their jurisdiction, they can fill out a standard VICAP questionnaire consisting of 188 questions about their homicide case and submit it to the Investigative Support Unit requesting a profile of the unknown offender. (See Chapter 9 for a more detailed account of profiling and
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