Today I learned that in 2018 there were 424,066 Reports of Missing Children Made to US Law Enforcement.

submitted by Robin from (missingkids.org)

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[–]sodasplash 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (2 children)

The VAST majority are “kidnappings” by spouses who do not have custody or hoax/falsely reported kidnappings to make the spouse without custody look bad in court. 99% of these children are recovered within 24 hours. This is why Amber Alerts are bullshit and I hate them. Don’t make me involved in your custody dispute.

[–]sodasplash 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

Also, TONS are teenage runaways from abusive families. If they’re under 18 and their parents want them back they get put down as a missing child even if the teenager themself would rather do anything than return home.

[–]magnora7 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I looked up these numbers once from the reports themselves, and what you're saying is true, 98% of those were found or were falsely reported. The actual number of missing children per year was something like 8,000 per year. Which is still a lot, but makes a lot more sense out of a 330M population.

[–]FormosaOolong 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (2 children)

Interesting that they do not make note of how many of those 424,066 were recovered.

ETA: That's almost 1/8th of the entire population, if I'm doing the math right? How is that even possible unless there indeed are deeply entrenched, organized, protected child trafficking rings.

[–]Robin[S] 1 insightful - 2 fun1 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 2 fun -  (0 children)

Also interesting that they don't say how many kids those reports concerned. I not up to speed on US society, but it did strike me as an awful lot, so I have two possible alternative explanations:

(i) 66 kids reported once + a few hyper worried parents who put in 424,000 reports about the same handful of kids

(ii) "Fake news"

[–]sodasplash 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

There are 75 million people under 18 in the US so your math is off by about 20x.

1/7th of all children between 10 and 18 will run away from home at some point, though.