AMBER Alerts
AMBER alert is an acronym for America’s Missing Broadcast Emergency Response mainly used in the United States of America to help retrieve kidnapped or abducted children below 17 years. If a child is kidnapped, the witnesses should call 911 and they will pass on this information to the AMBER committee who after verifying that a child has been kidnapped, will send messages to the mobile phones, electronic billboards on roads, and televisions of the residents who live in the nearby areas.
History of AMBER
The project was named AMBER in remembrance of Amber Rene Hagerman who was kidnapped and killed in Arlington, Texas. Amber and her younger brother Ricky had gone cycling and Ricky cycled back home alone because Amber told him that she wanted to spend a little more time at the parking lot. When Ricky reached home, his mother asked him to go get Amber right away. When Ricky reached the parking lot, only her cycle was found.
Her father and all the neighbors started searching the whole area and after four days, her body was found in a creek near an apartment complex nearly 8 km from where she was abducted. After much persuasion, President Bill Clinton signed the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act into law, thereby creating the national sex offender registry.
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What does AMBER Alert do
If a child is kidnapped and someone sees the abduction or kidnapping, that person should alert the police by calling 911. The emergency response team will direct that information to AMBER committee who will send out a message to the nearby residents of the area and display the information on public electronic billboards.
Hence, the public is helping to catch the kidnappers by providing information and alerting the police. The residents of the area will be on the lookout for the possible suspects and many more people may follow up if they see the said vehicle around.
Is the AMBER Alert Effective
AMBER Alert has saved the lives of many children. As of December 2020, AMBER Alert has been the reason why 1029 children were returned home safely. This may not be a tremendous number but if AMBER Alert had not been implemented, these 1029 children would not have been saved. It is not too late for India to adopt a similar technique to save children who are kidnapped as well as to prevent or atleast restrict future kidnappings.
There should be a similar system for controlling and reporting crimes in India also. India has a bright future because of digitalisation and the Digital India programme by the government. The punishment for kidnapping in India is imprisonment for seven years and fine. In 2005, the number of kidnappings was roughly 23000 and that number increased to 1,05,037 reported cases of kidnapping in 2019. The main motive is ransom and money but there are sexual predators, paedophiles and child serial killers among the lot too.
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