Missing Children in DC: Chief Says Public Awareness is Helping

WASHINGTON, DC — A change in how D.C. police report missing kids has resulted in an outpouring of support from the public in tracking them down that is having a real positive impact, D.C. Police Chief Peter Newsham said according to a report.

WTOP reported that Commander Chanel Dickerson decided to publicize the names and photos of children reported missing much more frequently than had been done in the past, and although that resulted in the misconception that children were going missing in D.C. more often, it also resulted in allowing police to "find our kids quicker than we had in the past," Newsham said.

Mayor Muriel Bowser recently decided to launch a task force to tackle the problem of missing children. Generally, about 200 juveniles are reported missing per month, with the majority of those cases being resolved without incident. That figure has actually declined recently by a little bit, and Newsham once again reiterated that there has not been a sudden surge of missing children.

The situation has certainly been a hot topic of conversation lately. The Congressional Black Caucus fired off a letter in March demanding that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and FBI Director James Comey look into the matter after alarming reports surfaced that there had already been 501 reports of missing juveniles in D.C. less than three months into 2017.

While it's true that there were more than 500 reports of missing children in the first three months of the year, only 22 of them were still missing, and 13 were considered "critical," indicating concern for their well-being. All of the others were accounted for and in good health.

And 501 reports in a little less than three months is not unusual — in fact, it's somewhat low for the District, which had 2,242 such reports in all of last year, an average of 560.5 reports per quarter. In addition, that number was nearly 200 cases lower than 2015, indicating that missing child cases are actually on the decline in D.C.

There's also no reason to believe that more than 2,000 children go missing in D.C. every year. Teenagers frequently wander off somewhere without telling their parents, prompting worry that sometimes leads to multiple reports for teens who were never in danger. A small fraction of missing child reports turn out to be substantiated — 22 cases out of 501 is a little more than 4 percent.

Image via D.C. Police