MISSING CHILDREN DATA NOT REPORTED AS LAW REQUIRED
MISSING CHILDREN DATA NOT REPORTED AS LAW REQUIRED By: KENNETH DEAN, Staff Writer 12/27/2005 The FBI, along with scores of police departments, has been violating a 15-year-old law by not reporting missing and runaway children immediately. The National Child Search Assistance Act was signed into law in 1990 and requires the U.S. Justice Department and all police agencies to enter missing children information into the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. However, the Justice Department recently acknowledged it has violated the law by not posting the information. "We realize now that we haven't always followed the proper channels," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko said. "This has been corrected. Our goal is to get the 2005 numbers out before the end of January. They will not only be reported to Congress but we will also post them on our Web site." Police across the country reported in October that there were 65,006 active cases of missing or runaway children. Kolko said the FBI will report the number, race, sex and age of missing children in cases it has received, but not where the children disappeared. He said the FBI does not want to embarrass police departments that are failing to report missing children. However, Jeff Millslagle, Tyler FBI supervisory senior resident agent in charge, said he had not been notified of the change in policy or the new required statistics. "This is the first I have seen of this, but we are going to look into it immediately," Millslagle said when given the information by the Tyler Morning Telegraph. "We need to find out if we are supposed to break down the numbers by counties, cities or if we just need the numbers for the entire area we cover." Millslagle said the law enforcement agencies in the 30-county area the Tyler bureau covers work well with his agency on missing children. "They all do an incredible job and they all work closely with us. If anything is suspicious we get a call immediately," he said. The Tyler Police Department indicates it has been following the law even though officials did not know a law existed. "Anytime there is a report of a runaway missing or endangered child it is immediately put into the national and state data bases. We do not wait to get that information out there, we do it as soon as possible," Tyler Police Sgt. Darin Grissom, Youth Crimes division, said. Grissom said the Tyler Police Department has always reported missing and runaway children, because it has always been the policy of the department. "We like to stay ahead of the curve on these situations," he said. "There are instances when we come upon a legitimate, dangerous situation. When that is triggered then all stops are out and we beat the pavement and search door to door to find the child," he said. Grissom said even runaway cases are handled by detectives and that when a particular child continues to run away from home, the child is turned over to the juvenile system. Grissom said that in 2004 his department handled 420 missing or runaway children and for 2005 through Dec. 27 that number had increased to 441. He could not say why the number grew by 21 or a .5 percent increase, but stated those were reports taken during the year and not the number of active missing or runaway children in Tyler. "This year, since the Thanksgiving holiday, it seems we have had more kids run away. I don't really have an answer as to why unless they are just depressed," he said. Lt. Larry Wiginton, Smith County Sheriff's Department, said his agency also enters the information as soon as the responding deputy calls back a report to the dispatch. "Dispatch is supposed to enter that information as soon as the deputy gives it to them and we do a pretty good job of getting it done," he said. All the agencies said there was certain criteria to be met before an Amber Alert could be issued and each case was subject to review by detectives. "The officer taking the report has to give the information to a supervisor and that person determines if the criteria is met to put out an Amber Alert. We don't have many of those cases here in this area," Grissom said. The Scripps Howard News Service contributed to this report. ©Tyler Morning Telegraph 2005 http://www.tylerpaper.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=15825524&BRD=1994&PAG=461&dept_id=226369&rfi=6