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Criminal Justice Policy Review
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A Preliminary Examination of AMBER Alert's Effects

Timothy Griffin

University of Nevada, Reno

Monica K. Miller

University of Nevada, Reno

Jeffrey Hoppe

University of Nevada, Reno

Amy Rebideaux

University of Nevada, Reno

Rachel Hammack

University of Nevada, Reno

AMBER Alerts are public announcements designed to elicit citizen tips that could help rapidly recover abducted children before they can be harmed by their kidnappers. Using various media accounts as a data source to garner a convenience sample of 275 alerts, the authors gathered basic information, including victim–offender relationship, recovery time, and the direct effects of the alert. AMBER Alert does appear to provide some positive benefits in recovering abducted children, although the evidence suggests that the alerts are not often used in "stereotypical" stranger abduction cases, and rarely do they appear to have the effect of possibly saving lives. The alerts appear most likely to be "successful" in familial abduction situations instead of the more menacing stranger abduction cases for which they were intended. Policy implications are discussed.

Key Words: AMBER alert • child abduction • crime prevention

Criminal Justice Policy Review, Vol. 18, No. 4, 378-394 (2007)
DOI: 10.1177/0887403407302332
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