In January of 1996, 9-year-old Amber Hagerman was riding her bike in a grocery store parking lot when suddenly she was pulled off the bike by a man driving a pickup truck. A neighbor in a nearby house heard her scream and saw the man drive away at a high speed. Four days later, Amber’s body was found in a drainage ditch four miles away from her grandma’s house. Her kidnapping and murder still remains a mystery. During the time of her immediate disappearance, a concerned citizen contacted a Dallas radio station suggesting that they should repeat news bulletins about abducted children just like they do severe weather warnings. Thus became the concept of AMBER Alerts. The AMBER Alert is also considered to be an acronym for ‘America’s Missing: Broadcast Emergency Response’. 

In 2002, Colorado’s governor signed into law the AMBER Alert program. The bill defined that an abducted child allows local law enforcement agencies to utilize the emergency alert system for broadcasting specific information to the public so that citizens can aid in the recovery of the missing child. Currently this system is being used in all 50 states, the District of Columbia, Indian Country, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, and 27 other countries. 

As of July 5th 2021, 1074 children have been recovered due to AMBER Alerts. The International Centre For Missing and Exploited Children has released the data for the amount of missing children per year, stating that “In the United States, an estimated 460,000 children are reported missing every year”. This piece of information puts into perspective how few children the AMBER Alert system truly saves. Therefore, with this data in mind, does the AMBER Alert system cause more harm than good? 

It is safe to say that the intentions behind this recovery system come from the mind of someone truly desperate to help. Unfortunately, there is no possible way that AMBER Alerts can save every single missing child, and when these alerts are sounded to every person in the general area, it may trigger the kidnapper to act on certain instincts such as harming the child or fleeing into hiding. 

Damon Penn, who oversees the FEMA emergency alerts system, stated that “There’s a very delicate balance between how much is enough and how much (alerting) is too much. The big concern is over-alerting, and that is what we’re focused on.” Like Penn was saying, the main issue in terms of over-alerting is that it may cause the kidnapper to panic. An example of this would be if the whole community surrounding the missing child and kidnapper were to be informed of this situation, then the kidnapper may be worried that more people could find him, thus leading them to act on instincts as previously listed.

The official AMBER Alert website believes that “For an AMBER Alert to be effective in recovering a missing child, the law enforcement agency must have enough information to believe that an immediate broadcast to the public will enhance the efforts of law enforcement to locate the child and apprehend the suspect.” But to what point is that considered to be over-alerting?

 There are many benefits, yet at the same time drawbacks, to releasing detailed information of a suspect. The benefits include obtaining more media attention towards the case, involving the public in the recovery of a missing child, and informing the public of a potential threat in their area. 

However, an important negative effect to think about when releasing detailed information of the suspect is that it may cause the kidnapper to panic, potentially harming the child in order to escape or further bringing the child with them into hiding.  

According to Timothy Griffin, “False AMBER Alerts can siphon off important police resources. Also, at times an AMBER Alert could make a bad situation worse. We looked at a parental abduction where the dad was located thanks to a citizen tip prompted by an AMBER Alert. Law enforcement swooped in there. There was a big standoff and ultimately the guy killed himself. We coded that case as ‘AMBER Alert saved a kid from a dangerous situation’. But for all we know, the AMBER Alert made it a dangerous situation.” 

Mark Soriano, New Mexico Police Lieutenant, states the process of AMBER Alerts as “After receiving the 911 call and confirming an abduction, local police agencies reach out to NMSP (a New Mexico based news station), requesting assistance from the Statewide AMBER Alert system. It’s been sounded 11 times so far in 2021. That’s more than double the time it was issued in 2020.” 

According to KRQE, a local New Mexico reporting agency, “Digging into the details behind 2021’s AMBER Alerts, the majority have one thing in common. The accused kidnappers have all been parents or relatives. Police say in 9 out of the 11 cases, the children were kidnapped by a parent. Seven of those moms or dads did not have custody of the child.”

In cases such as these, AMBER Alerts are important in recovering missing children from family members because it gains the attention of the media and puts all focus into finding the child, we also could be somewhat certain that the missing child’s (if taken by a family member) will not be harmed during the recovery. But when the child is abducted by a stranger, studies have proven the AMBER Alert to be less successful. 

So there are pros and cons to AMBER Alerts, what should we do about it? The important thing to note is the intention behind the emergency broadcast system- to gain media and public attention towards child kidnapping cases. There are differences in every situation, different ways that would work best in the recovery of missing children. One important thing to note is that despite how we proceed with these abductions, everything that must be done will be done in order to fight the assailant.