Amber alert
An Amber alert (alternatively styled AMBER alert) or a child abduction emergency alert (SAME code: CAE) is a message distributed by a child abduction alert system to ask the public for help in finding abducted children.[1][2] The system originated in the United States of America.[1]
For other uses, see Amber alert (disambiguation).
The Amber alert was created in reference to Amber Rene Hagerman, who was abducted and later found murdered in 1996. Alternative regional alert names were once used; in Georgia, "Levi's Call"[3] (in memory of Levi Frady); in Hawaii, "Maile Amber Alert"[4] (in memory of Maile Gilbert); in Arkansas, "Morgan Nick Amber Alert"[5] (in memory of Morgan Nick); in Utah, it is called "Rachael Alert" (in memory of Rachael Runyan), and "Monkey's Law" in Idaho (in memory of Michael Joseph Vaughan.)
In the United States, the alerts are distributed via commercial and public radio stations, Internet radio, satellite radio, television stations, text messages, and cable TV by the Emergency Alert System and NOAA Weather Radio[6][7] (where they are termed "Amber Alerts"). The alerts are also issued via e-mail, electronic traffic-condition signs, commercial electronic billboards,[8][9] or through wireless device SMS text messages.
AMBER Alert has also teamed up with Google[10][11] and Facebook[12] to relay information regarding an AMBER Alert to an ever-growing demographic: AMBER Alerts are automatically displayed if citizens search or use map features on Google, Yahoo, Bing, and other search engines. With Google public alert (also called Google AMBER Alert in some countries), citizens see an AMBER Alert if they search for related information in a particular location where a minor has recently been abducted and an alert was issued. This is a component of the AMBER Alert system that is already active in the US (there are also developments in Europe). Those interested in subscribing to receive AMBER Alerts in their area via SMS messages can visit Wireless Amber Alerts, which are offered by law as free messages.[13] In some states, the display scrollboards in front of lottery terminals are also used.
The decision to declare an AMBER Alert is made by each police organization (in many cases, the state police or highway patrol) investigating the abduction. Public information in an AMBER Alert usually includes the name and description of the abductee, a description of the suspected abductor, and a description and license plate number of the abductor's vehicle if available.
Amber Hagerman
January 13, 1996
January 15, 1996 (aged 9)
Multiple knife wounds to throat[20]
January 17, 1996
Donna Williams, Richard Hagerman
Namesake[edit]
Amber Rene Hagerman (November 25, 1986 – January 15, 1996) was a nine-year-old girl abducted while riding her bike in Arlington, Texas.[21] Her younger brother, Ricky, had gone home without her because Amber had wanted to stay in the parking lot for a while. When he returned with his grandfather, they only found her bicycle. A neighbor who had witnessed the abduction called 911.
On hearing the news, Hagerman's father, Richard, called Marc Klaas, whose daughter, Polly, had been kidnapped and murdered in Petaluma, California, in 1993 and Amber's mother, Donna Whitson (now Donna Williams), called the news media and the FBI. They and their neighbors began searching for Amber.[22]
Four days after her abduction, near midnight, a man walking his dog discovered Amber's naked body in a creek behind an apartment complex with severe laceration wounds to her neck. The site of the discovery was less than five miles (8 km) from where she was abducted. Her murder remains unsolved.[23]
Texas program development[edit]
Within days of Amber's death, Donna Williams was "calling for tougher laws governing kidnappers and sex offenders".[24] Amber's parents soon established People Against Sex Offenders (PASO). They collected signatures hoping to force the Texas Legislature into passing more stringent laws to protect children.[25]
God's Place International Church donated the first office space for the organization, and as the search for Amber's killer continued, PASO received almost-daily coverage in local media. Companies donated various office supplies, including computer and Internet service. Congressman Martin Frost, with the help of Marc Klaas, drafted the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act. Both of Hagerman's parents were present when President Bill Clinton signed the bill into law, creating the national sex offender registry. Williams and Richard Hagerman then began collecting signatures in Texas, which they planned to present to then-Governor George W. Bush as a sign that people wanted more stringent laws for sex offenders.[26]
In July 1996, Bruce Seybert (whose own daughter was a close friend of Amber)[27] and Richard Hagerman attended a media symposium in Arlington. Although Hagerman had remarks prepared, on the day of the event the organizers asked Seybert to speak instead. In his 20-minute speech, he spoke about efforts that local police could take quickly to help find missing children and how the media could facilitate those efforts. C.J. Wheeler, a reporter from radio station KRLD, approached the Dallas police chief shortly afterward with Seybert's ideas and launched the first ever Amber Alert.[28]
Williams testified in front of the U.S. Congress in June 1996, asking legislators to create a nationwide registry of sex offenders. Representative Martin Frost, the Congressman who represents Whitson's district, proposed an "Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act." Among the sections of the bill was one that would create a national sex offender registry.[29]
Diana Simone, a Texas resident who had been following the news, contacted the KDMX radio station and proposed broadcasts to engage passers-by in helping locate missing children.[30] Her idea was picked up and for the next two years, alerts were made manually to participating radio stations. In 1998, the Child Alert Foundation created the first fully automated Alert Notification System (ANS) to notify surrounding communities when a child was reported missing or abducted. Alerts were sent to radio stations as originally requested but included television stations, surrounding law enforcement agencies, newspapers and local support organizations. These alerts were sent all at once via pagers, faxes, emails, and cell phones with the information immediately posted on the Internet for the general public to view.[31]
Following the automation of the AMBER Alert with ANS technology created by the Child Alert Foundation, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) expanded its role in 2002 to promote the AMBER Alert.[32]
International adoption[edit]
United States[edit]
In October 2000, the United States House of Representatives adopted H.Res. 605 which encouraged communities nationwide to implement the AMBER Plan. In October 2001, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children that had declined to be a part of the Amber Alert in February 1996, launched a campaign to have AMBER Alert systems established nationwide. In February 2002, the Federal Communications Commission officially endorsed the system. In 2002, several children were abducted in cases that drew national attention. One such case, the kidnapping and murder of Samantha Runnion, prompted California to establish an AMBER Alert system on July 24, 2002.[14] According to Senator Dianne Feinstein, in its first month California issued 13 AMBER alerts; 12 of the children were recovered safely and the remaining alert was found to be a misunderstanding.[33]
By September 2002, 26 states had established AMBER Alert systems that covered all or parts of the state. A bipartisan group of US Senators, led by Kay Bailey Hutchison and Dianne Feinstein, proposed legislation to name an AMBER Alert coordinator in the U.S. Justice Department who could help coordinate state efforts. The bill also provided $25 million in federal matching grants for states to establish AMBER Alert programs and necessary equipment purchases, such as electronic highway signs. A similar bill was sponsored in the U.S. House of Representatives by Jennifer Dunn and Martin Frost.[33] The bill passed the Senate unanimously within a week of its proposal.[34] At an October 2002 conference on missing, exploited, and runaway children, President George W. Bush announced changes to the AMBER Alert system, including the development of a national standard for issuing AMBER Alerts.[35] A similar bill passed the House several weeks later on a 390–24 vote.[36] A related bill finally became law in April 2003.[37]
The alerts were offered digitally beginning in November 2002, when America Online began a service allowing people to sign up to receive notification via computer, pager, or cell phone. Users of the service enter their ZIP Code, thus allowing the alerts to be targeted to specific geographic regions.[38]
By 2005, all fifty states had operational programs and today the program operates across state and jurisdictional boundaries.[39] As of January 1, 2013, AMBER Alerts are automatically sent through the Wireless Emergency Alerts (WEA) program.[40]
In 2023, California enacted a law to create the "Ebony Alert" system to focus particularly on missing Black children and young women. Supporters of the law say that this will dedicate resources to missing Black youths that may not be given sufficient attention through AMBER alerts.[41]
Canada[edit]
Canada's system began in December 2002, when Alberta launched the first province-wide system. At the time, Alberta Solicitor-General Heather Forsyth said "We anticipate an Amber Alert will only be issued once a year in Alberta. We hope we never have to use it, but if a child is abducted Amber Alert is another tool police can use to find them and help them bring the child home safely."[42] The Alberta government committed to spending more than CA$1 million to expanding the province's emergency warning system so that it could be used effectively for Amber Alerts.[42] Other Canadian provinces soon adopted the system, and by May 2004, Saskatchewan was the only province that had not established an Amber Alert system.[43] Within the next year, the program was in use throughout the country.
Amber Alerts may also be distributed via the Alert Ready emergency alert system, which disrupts programming on all radio, television stations, and television providers in the relevant region to display and play audio of Amber Alert information. In 2018, Alert Ready introduced alerts on supported mobile devices. When an alert is broadcast, a distinct sound is played and a link to find more information is displayed onscreen. Currently, there is no way to deactivate Amber Alerts on mobile devices in Canada, even if the device is in silent and/or Do Not Disturb modes, which has provoked controversy.[44][45] These series of multiple blaring alarms going off in the middle of the night have caused residents to complain, often by calling 911.[46] However, there are concerns that hearing repeated alarms may cause Canadians to ignore the alarm when the system is used to warn of life-threatening emergencies.
Retrieval rates[edit]
According to the U.S. Department of Justice, of the children abducted and murdered by strangers, 75% are killed within the first three hours of their abduction.[14] Amber Alerts are designed to inform the general public quickly when a child has been kidnapped and is in danger so "the public [would be] additional eyes and ears of law enforcement".[14] As of December 2023, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children said 1,186 children were recovered because of the AMBER Alert program.[70]
A Scripps Howard study of the 233 AMBER Alerts in the United States in 2004 found that most issued alerts did not meet the Department of Justice's criteria. That is, 50% (117 alerts) were categorized as family abductions", e.g., a parent involved in a custody dispute. There were 48 alerts for children who had not been abducted at all, but were lost, ran away, involved in family misunderstandings (for example, two instances where the child was with grandparents), or as the result of hoaxes. Another 23 alerts were issued in cases where police did not know the name of the allegedly abducted child, often as the result of misunderstandings by witnesses who reported an abduction. Seventy of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully travelling with adults other than their legal guardians.[71]
According to the 2014 Amber Alert Report, 186 Amber Alerts were issued in the US, involving 239 children – 60 who were taken by strangers or people other than their legal guardians.[72]
Controversies[edit]
Crime control theater[edit]
Some outside scholars examining the system in depth disagree with the "official" results.[73][74][75] A research team led by criminologist Timothy Griffin reviewed hundreds of abduction cases that occurred between 2003 and 2006 and found that AMBER Alerts actually had little apparent role in the eventual return of abducted children. The AMBER Alerts tended to be "successful" in relatively mundane abductions, such as when the child was taken by a noncustodial parent or other family member. There was little evidence that AMBER Alerts routinely "saved lives", although a crucial research constraint was the impossibility of knowing with certainty what would have happened if no alert had been issued in a particular case.[75]
Griffin and coauthor Monica Miller articulated the limits to AMBER Alert in a subsequent research article. They stated that alerts are inherently constrained, because to be successful in the most menacing cases there needs to be a rapid synchronization of several events (rapid discovery that the child is missing and subsequent alert, the fortuitous discovery of the child or abductor by a citizen, and so forth). Furthermore, there is a contradiction between the need for rapid recovery and the prerogative to maintain the strict issuance criteria to reduce the number of frivolous alerts, creating a dilemma for law enforcement officials and public backlash when alerts are not issued in cases ending as tragedies. Finally, the implied causal model of alert (rapid recovery can save lives) is in a sense the opposite of reality: in the worst abduction scenarios, the intentions of the perpetrator usually guarantee that anything public officials do will be "too slow".
Because the system is publicly praised for saving lives despite these limitations, Griffin and Miller argue that AMBER Alert acts as "crime control theater" in that it "creates the appearance but not the fact of crime control".[76] AMBER Alert is thus a socially constructed "solution" to the rare but intractable crime of child-abduction murder. Griffin and Miller have subsequently applied the concept to other emotional but ineffective legislation such as safe-haven laws and polygamy raids. Griffin considers his findings preliminary, reporting his team examined only a portion of the Amber Alerts issued over the three-year period they focused on, so he recommends taking a closer look at the evaluation of the program and its intended purpose, instead of simply promoting the program.
Overuse and desensitization[edit]
Advocates for missing children have expressed concerns that the public is gradually becoming desensitized to AMBER Alerts because of a large number of false or overly broad alarms, where police issue an AMBER Alert without strictly adhering to the U.S. Department of Justice's activation guidelines.[77]
The timing of a July 2013 New York child abduction alert sent through the Wireless Emergency Alerts system at 4 a.m. raised concerns that many cellphone users would disable WEA alerts.[78]
Health effects[edit]
A family in Texas, USA, claimed their child suffered a ruptured eardrum and inner ear damage, resulting in permanent hearing loss and tinnitus, when an AMBER Alert was pushed through his earphones at an "ear-shattering volume".[79]
Influence[edit]
The United States Postal Service issued a postage stamp commemorating AMBER Alerts in May 2006. The 39-cent stamp features a chalk pastel drawing by artist Vivienne Flesher of a reunited mother and child, with the text "AMBER ALERT saves missing children" across the pane. The stamp was released as part of the observance of National Missing Children's Day.[83][84]
In 2006, a TV movie, Amber's Story, was broadcast on Lifetime. It starred Elisabeth Röhm and Sophie Hough.
A comic book entitled Amber Hagerman Deserves Justice: A Night Owl Story was published by Wham Bang Comics in 2009. Geared toward a young audience by teen author Jake Tinsley and Manga artist Jason Dube, it tells Amber's story, recounts the investigation into her murder, and touches on the effect her death has had on young children and parents everywhere. It was created to promote what was then a reopened investigation into her murder.[85]