The Odds of Your Kid Getting Kidnapped
Anyway, the DOJ report used police data as well as results from a national survey that asked parents: Did your kids ever go missing? Yes, said some parents. For instance:
-- An 8-year-old got off at the wrong bus stop and his frantic parents called the cops.
-- A 10-year-old came home from the beach and went to bed -- but her parents thought she was still outside.
-- A divorced mom violated a court order by taking her 9-year-old out of state.
-- A 17-year-old girl, pregnant, ran away.
So, of the 460,000 missing children, the report concluded (in a footnote), about 105 were "stereotypical kidnappings" -- police-speak for abductions like you see on "Law & Order." Most of those victims were teens. And 92% of them made it home safe.
Another more recent DOJ study concluded that "The data do not demonstrate any change in rates" from the earlier study.
So: The odds of a minor getting abducted by a stranger?
There are about 72 million kids 0-17 in America. And the number kidnapped by strangers is about 100. So the odds of being kidnapped are about 1 in 720,000.
Putting the Risk of Child Kidnapping in Perspective
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