Social Media Helping Find Missing Kids

In 1996, following the abduction and brutal murder of Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old Arlington, TX resident, the AMBER alert system was set up as a collaboration between local law enforcement and broadcasters as an early warning system for locating missing children. AMBER is an acronym for America's Missing Broadcast Emergency Alert and stands as a legacy to Hagerman.

Facebook is doing its part to continue that legacy by helping to extend the already broad reach of the AMBER alert system. On Jan. 12, 2011 – the day before the 15th anniversary of Hagerman's abduction and murder – Facebook announced that the widely-used social media site will now be able to receive missing children alerts. Fifty-three opt-in, geographically focused pages were set up exclusively for the program. 

Georgia has its own system that works in much the same way. Levi's Call (Georgia's AMBER alert) was put into place following the 1997 abduction and murder of 11-year-old Levi Frady of Forsyth County.

Currently, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children lists 76 individuals missing from the state of Georgia – five of which are from Dekalb County.

Support is gearing up for the partnership between Facebook and the AMBER alert system. The following is from a Jan. 12 press release issued by NCMEC. 

“ 'Everyone at Facebook feels a responsibility to help protect children and, as a former federal prosecutor and a father of two, I am particularly proud that we are now part of the AMBER Alert program,' ” said Chris Sonderby, Facebook Lead Security and Investigations Counsel.

“ 'I would like to thank NCMEC and Facebook for working together to develop another way the public can join with us to bring home missing and abducted children. We each can play our part by being aware and responsive to AMBER Alert postings that we will now see on Facebook,' ” said Laurie O. Robinson, Assistant Attorney General, Office of Justice Programs.”

Facebook users, however, don't have to fear a flood of feeds, notices and alerts. “We are very sensitive to people considering this as spam, and our message to the public has been...you are not going to be inundated,” said CEO and president of NCMEC, Ernie Allen.

Baltimore Sun's Gus Sentementes had this to say about the new program: “...police departments across the land...are aggressively using Facebook to post updates about crime and public safety issues for their communities. The platform could become a very powerful tool for tracking down missing children, though, considering how quickly news, information and photographs can spread virally on the site.”

Tucker residents can turn to the Georgia Missing Children Center – an extension of the Georgia Bureau of Investigation – to report an abduction at 404-244-2554 or 800-282-6564. Also, the Georgia Center for Child Advocacy is an excellent resource aimed toward “champion[ing] the needs of sexually and severely physically abused children through prevention, intervention, therapy, and collaboration,” notes their website; and of course, if you have information about a missing child, you're encouraged to contact the Dekalb County Police immediately. 

Annually, around 800,000 children are reported missing. Since the AMBER alert's inception in 1996, “525 children have been recovered,” cites the U.S Department of Justice's AMBER alert website. By teaming with NCMEC and Facebook to expand the reach of the program, officials, parents and communities throughout the country hope to see that number increase in the future.