MICHIGAN, USA — In less than 48 hours, law enforcement were able to safely locate and recover 7-year-old Elena Joyce Johnson after she was taken from her father's home at gunpoint by her non-custodial mother. She was found in St. Louis, MO, but even though she crossed state lines, no AMBER alert was sent out to assist in the investigation.
The AMBER Alert System has been around since 1996, but in that time it has been used sparingly.
The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children says as of May 1, 2022 1,114 children have been recovered due to AMBER Alerts. 254 were issued in 2021, but there were more than 30,000 missing children reported in the year.
"It is a sacred tool that we have," said Jolene Hardesty with Michigan State Police's Missing Children's Clearinghouse. Law enforcement agencies work with the clearinghouse in cases of missing children, and will often together decide what the best resources are to use. Last year, only 1 AMBER alert went out in Michigan.
When an AMBER alert goes out, everybody's devices are alerted without discrimination. Part of the reason AMBER might not be used is to protect the child who's been abducted, since a widespread alert could show a suspect law enforcement are after them, further endangering a child.
In order for an AMBER alert to go out, the federal criteria and the state's criteria are the same:
- There is reasonable belief by law enforcement an abduction has occurred.
- The abduction is of a child age 17 or younger.
- The law enforcement agency believes the child is in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death.
- There is enough descriptive information about the victim and abduction for law enforcement to issue an AMBER Alert to assist in the recovery of the child.
- The child’s name and other critical data elements, including the Child Abduction flag, have been entered into the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) database.
"It doesn't mean if a case didn't reach the level of the criteria for an AMBER Alert that that case is any less important," said John Bischoff with the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. "There's a lot of resources out there for law enforcement. As we saw yesterday, they utilize the right ones and they were able to find the young child quickly. "
Hardesty and Bischoff also talked about the "car alarm theory", which means when a car alarm goes off, people don't call police, they simply ignore it. Part of the sparse use of the AMBER alert system surrounds that—since the public's help is needed, oversaturation could make this powerful tool less effective.
"If 10,000 cases per year met the criteria per what the state had decided upon, then it'll be used 10,000 times a year," Bischoff said. "A driving force is not oversaturation of the public, although yes, it is a concern."
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