Public Policy: The Amber Alert

Public Policy: The Amber Alert

The Amber Alert began as a grassroots movement when nine-year-old Amber Hagerman was kidnapped while she was riding a bicycle in 1996 in Arlington, Texas. Her body was found four days after she was abducted, by someone who was walking his dog. The killer had dumped her body in a drainage ditch, and he was never found. The news media were notified, as was the FBI. People Against Sex Offenders (PASO) was started by Amber's parents, and continued to make headlines and garner news coverage as the authorities searched for who had killed the little girl (Lawmakers, 2002). Signatures were collected, because Amber's parents wanted to convince the Texas Legislature that better laws were needed to make sure that children were being protected in that state. Martin Front, a local congressman, drafted the law, which was officially titled the Amber Hagerman Child Protection Act. It was officially signed by then-president Bill Clinton in October of 1996 (Senate, 2002).

According to information about the issue, there was more to the story than just getting something signed into law to help protect children. In July of 1996, Amber's father and another man from the PASO organization attended a symposium for the media. In the speech made to the assembled crowd, there was mention of how the media could become instrumental in helping the authorities locate missing children - hopefully before it was too late. A reporter soon approached the Chief of the Dallas police with some ideas of what could be done to help, and the Amber Alert system was born. For two years, the alerts went out manually and were broadcast by radio stations that had agreed to participate in the alert system (Guidance, 2004). Then, the Child Alert Foundation created an automated service in 1998. That allowed the alert to go out to radio stations as well as TV stations and law enforcement agencies. Local support organizations and newspapers in the area were also notified (Guidance, 2004).

Any Amber Alert information that went out to those entities also went out over the internet right away, so that anyone could get the information and help the authorities locate a missing child. The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which had originally declined to help further the cause in 1996, expanded in 2002 and started helping to promote the Amber Alert (Lawmakers, 2002). That was a huge leap forward for the Amber Alert system, because the NCMEC was such a large organization with so much to offer when it came to getting the public's attention and getting the word out about children who needed help because they had been abducted or had otherwise disappeared from their home or another location. Thanks to the Amber Alert and the efforts of agencies with which that alert is associated, more children are found before they can be harmed.