NCMEC - BY THE NUMBERS

September 20, 2009

The National Center For Missing and Exploited Children states that 800,000 children (or about 2,000 every day) are reported missing every year in the United States. According to their 2007 Annual Report which can be viewed here, they also state that in the 24 years that they have been in business they have assisted in the recovery of 121,000 children.

800,000 children “missing” every year?

In the 24 years they’ve been around that amounts to 19.2 MILLION missing children.

19.2 MILLION missing children.

While anyone would applaud the NCMEC’s assisting in the recovery of 121,000 children, when compared to over 19 million quoted as missing, their recovery rate appears alarmingly low.

Let’s compare these numbers to the Vietnam War where a total of approximately 2,594,000 (or 2.6 Million) U.S. troops were sent to and/or served in Vietnam. Most everyone either knows a Vietnam veteran or knows someone who knows a Vietnam veteran. Can the same be said for a missing child?

Given these numbers and the analogies above, how many people actually have a missing child or know someone that does?

When looking for missing children – the majority of which are runaways and/or non- custodial parental abductions (again according to the NCMEC), one would assume a state with a major city, say, Phoenix as being the 5^th largest city, would have a large volume of missing children. Surprisingly they don’t!

According to the NCMEC’s missingkids.com website there are only a mere 29 missing children listed in Phoenix and a total of  just 73 missing for the entire state of Arizona.

What’s more peculiar is that there are missing “adults” listed on the NCMEC's ("missingkids.com" website) as well – who went missing as adults – not children! One woman who went missing at the age of 36 missing since 1973 – and well before the establishment of the NCMEC.

There are other anomalies as well. For example, in Maine the NCMEC reports only 3 missing children. The most recent missing since 1986 and the other two since 1971 – again, well before The NCMEC was even  formed - so the last child to have gone missing  in the State of Maine was in 1986 - Thirteen years ago.

2,482?

Some of the missing children cases posted on their website go back as far as 1949 (WI), and Texas (TX) has at least 5 missing children listed with “No Name”. Also absent is a photograph of these “No Names” – all that is provided is a sketch.

The NCMEC statistics so often publicly quoted by its President and CEO - Ernie Allen,  that 2,000 children go missing every day equaling about 800,000 each year cannot possibly be correct. The figures clearly don’t add up. If their statistics are "somehow" correct and/or we are to beleive their oft quoted statistics, why are there only 2,482 children listed as currently missing in the U.S.?

 The NCMEC is "THE" National Clearinghouse for Missing Children and gets well over $30 million every year in Federal taxpayer funding. Why are there only 2,482 children listed on their website going back as far as 1949 when there have been (according to their quoted statistics) over 19.2 million children missing since the inception of the NCMEC?

Additionally, according to their 2007 Annual Report the organization had a surplus of over $29 million at the end of the year. If they aren't using it then why isn't it being returned to the taxpayers or at least distributed to cold case file law enforcement agencies?

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NCMEC By The Numbers - Part I - 9/20/2009

The OA Team~