Virginia ranked # 4 in unsolved missing children cases. As of May 23 , 2018 (329) children were reported missing in Virginia alone. With Texas being #3, Florida # 2 & California # 1. Rhode island was the lowest with just 1 missing child. In 2019 (277) children were reported missing but only 18 amber alerts were issued. **(84% of the children on the Center for missing & exploited children registry go missing from high density areas,  Northern Virginia, Richmond & Hampton Roads who make up 1/3 of them on their own )

Even though amber alerts statistics show that in 2017 out of the 195 cases that issued amber alerts, 193 were recovered. 39 of those resulted directly from the amber alert.  

Amber alerts can only be issued for children 17 and under whom law enforcement have determined "in their opinion"to have been abducted or believed to be in imminent danger. Once that's established they have to turn everything over to State police who then deduce the same opinions to make the final decision. In order to issue an amber alert they must have description of child, who they are presumed to be with and possible transportation or destination details. 

So what happens for the parents of the other 259 parents that weren't eligible for amber alerts. The information gets communicated to the NCMEC where it's computed into a database & assigned to a case manager. A photo is generated within 4-8 hours using last known photo and sometimes blood from relatives in order to generate a "what they may look like now" photo.  Once all that is completed nothing else happens other then a generated photo will be released every 2 years until they are 18 & then every 5 years after that.  But a case is NEVER removed until the child is located physically. So if it's on there they are still missing.  The NCMEC offers various support for families of sexually exploited children & missing children. In 2018 they recieved requests for support from over 7000 families. 

In today's booming world of technology it's hard to imagine these children are able to vanish into thin air without a trace.  There are 100 different cameras at all times on just about every street block.  All children who go missing even runaways should be considered to be in imminent danger or the possibility of abduction because they are simply not old enough to responsibly make adult decisions and the probability of them becoming a statistic is very high. 

This has to end our children are our future and instead of looking into how to deal with aftermath of the abuse & injustice that occurs start finding ways to prevent it.