No Evidence 800K Children Go Missing Each Year
The Claim
Around 800,000 children go missing every year in the United States.
News posted on
Emerging story
There’s a lot of misinformation about missing children. Writers and social media users alike cite that 797,500 children are reported missing every year.
Misbar’s Analysis
Misbar’s investigation found that seldom do people mention where the 800K number is from, but it is generally acknowledged that it comes from the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC).
This study is about over 20 years old, having been released in 2000 using data from 1999. The NCMEC’s website acknowledges that it’s impossible to know just how many children are missing. They say that there are 365,348 entries in the FBI’s database. That number includes all missing children’s reports, even if it’s the same child.
Furthermore, relatively few children are abducted. 91 percent of these entries are runaways – children who ran away from home but later returned. 5 percent are family abductions, such as someone who lost custody of their child. Less than one percent of missing children are abductions from non-family members, which includes friends. This is not to say that there are no incidences of kidnapping nor sexual abuse. The NCMEC has many troubling statistics on their website.
