Suffer the missing children? Taxpayer dollars continue to disappear while children don't.

• Author: Wilson, Tadd

Taxpayer dollars continue to disappear while children don't.

On April 18, 1993, Attorney General Janet Reno approved the ill-fated federal raid in Waco, Texas, apparently because an unidentified FBI agent told her that "the Branch Davidians were beating babies," Reno said. More than 80 people, including 22 children, were killed during the raid.

Two years later, Reno wants to help the children again, this time by forming a new federal task force to "coordinate the delivery of federal services to missing children and their families." Those services include a national hotline, FBI investigations, searches conducted by U.S. Marshals and Customs officers, and parcel inspection by the U.S. Postal Service. The task force is composed of administrators from the FBI, the DEA, the Secret Service, the Customs Service, Health and Human Services, and the Defense Department, as well as several Justice Department offices. The vice president of National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), co-host of the attorney general's announcement, will also sit on the task force.

While any effort on the part of government to improve performance and allocate resources more efficiently must be applauded, the figures used to justify the extension of the federal government's reach in law enforcement are questionable at best. The Department of Justice estimates that "440,000 children are lost or otherwise missing each year, including children abducted by a stranger or acquaintance; children abducted by a parent or family member...; and children who are abandoned--thrown away--or told to leave home." It also says that "450,000 children and young people run away from home every year." However, the attorney general's figures describe an epidemic that doesn't exist.

The history of missing children as a public issue is marked by inflated figures, often promulgated by organizations with an interest in scaring the public. Ten years ago, at the height of the missing children scare, The Denver Post ran an article detailing how "the inflated numbers themselves are damaging the lives of millions of parents, affecting how they feel about their children's safety and what they should teach their children about the society they live in." The Post also quoted family relations psychologist John McInvoy explaining how artificially inflated numbers are "making children paranoid, too." McInvoy continued, "[T]here's a difference between healthy respect and caution and what's going on now. It's not healthy anymore." In the decade since the Post article, healthy respect and reasonable caution have still not emerged.

The Justice Department's quotation of questionable numbers is not an isolated incident. Every day, agencies and advocacy groups seeking political leverage or financial rewards present exaggerated evidence in stating their cases. The organizations concerned with locating and returning missing children to their families are no exception, and provide an excellent microcosmic view of the phenomenon.

A Justice Department study conducted by David Finkelhor of the University of New Hampshire shows that the attorney general's tally of 440,000 missing includes children missing for a "few minutes to overnight."...