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Timewarp to 2047.

I have a better idea. It's called not leaving your three-year-old home alone.

Right. But doesn't the child deserve to be searched for aggressively, even if her parents were negligent? Doesn't every child? Maybe an alert system like the Amber Alert would have worked. Maybe it wouldn't have. It's still not a bad idea and I'm not offended they mentioned it. They do express regret that they left their children alone and they do admit if they were there with them the abduction wouldn't have happened.

And maybe because I am not in England, and being bombarded with the story, I am more sympathetic.

Amber alerts on television are a truly stunning piece of dumbfuckery from planet "We have to do something... hey! This is something!"

Thanks for telling me that a red Ford pickup might have abducted a kid. If I see a red Ford pickup in my fucking backyard, which is the single solitary place that I can see while I'm watching the television that you interrupted, I will be sure to let the authorities know. If not for the alert, I would have just cheered and perhaps shown the driver my tits, were I a lady.

The ones saying that a kid is just missing are even better. Okay! If I see any children of some normal height and weight with no distinguishing characteristics and dressed normally in the next day or two, I'll call the cops on all of them!

What's the deal with [some UK family]? They killed their daughter and are covering it up? They went for a drink and a feed and something horrible happened but then everything got all media? Something else? I've been fed the "we're looking for the real killers" line here, but it seems more complicated.

Back on topic, this should very much be prohibited, as should any idea dreamt up by a civil servant with an eye to the telly.

Even more (or as) fucked up as the McCann story is the Shannon Matthews case.

Nine-year-old girl goes missing on her way home from the local swimming pool.

Huge search goes on, distraught mother (who is classic UK chav underclass, complete with lots of kids fathered by different men, and dough-faced much younger boyfriend) appears on TV.

There's criticism in some quarters because this isn't given as high a profile as Madeleine McCann. Trendy lefties say it's because it's a chav kid, not the daughter of a pair of doctors.

Over three weeks later, when everyone thinks the kid is dead, she's found concealed in the base of a bed at the house of the mother's boyfriend's uncle (are you keeping up with me here?).

This seems odd. Questions are asked. Then the boyfriend is arrested after police find child porn on his computer, and now the mother has been charged.

Turns out the whole thing was a fit up for the family to try to make money, having read about the vast donations to the 'Find Madeleine ' fund. Someone approached the McCann fundholders asking for money.

Meanwhile, Shannon remains with foster parents.

Amber Alert isn't a bad idea; it works well in America and I'm glad we have it. That said, not leaving your three year old alone is also a good idea.

They also left their baby twins alone. That I can't get my head around at all. Or "alone" as in they were at the restaurant X feet from the room and went to check every thirty minutes. I wouldn't do that simply because I'd fear the twins (babies) would wake up and scream, thus waking the three year old and not being able to hear them. Or fall out of bed. Or anything like that.

Does it, TPS? I'd really like to see some stats on how many children have been recovered after Amber Alerts. After some brief searching today, I couldn't find any.

In 2001, only two children were recovered due to AMBER Alert. In 2006, 69 children were recovered because of an AMBER Alert. Expansion of the AMBER Alert program is making a difference in saving children's lives. Source: http://www.amberalert.gov/faqs.htm#faq6

100th Child Recovered from Amber Alerts

Sorry, I should clarify that I didn't find any stats. I did find at least one person that those running the program was found due to the program... but they would say that.

How does the Amber Alert system hurt? Even if it results in one child being found, why is that a bad thing? Of course, there is a cost for this program. I understand that, but other than interrupting TV programs, why it detrimental? What should we be doing instead, besides keeping a vigilant eye on our children?

Thanks, LoriFLA. Elsewhere that page says 350 children over the span of the program (12 years). That doesn't seem like very many, and neither does 69 per year.

I very much like knowing about possible abductions in the area, the same way I always take a minute to review any "Lost Dog" signs I see. I'm probably not going to have the chance to help, but I'll file the facts in my mind, so if I were to run across something, something would PING! and hopefully I could help out.

grouse, you do realize that 350 isn't just a number- that each number represents a child whose abduction was thwarted? Sounds good to me.

It is just a number. If the money spent on the Amber Alert system could have saved 700 children from abduction if spent elsewhere, then it was a bad idea. Or maybe they could have saved 1400 children from childhood diseases.

Unfortunately I have no idea how much the system costs. Certainly it's not something the organizations involved are trumpeting.

Are you just complaining for the sake of complaining? I'm failing to see what point you're trying to make, beyond HURF DURF SPENDING MONEY SUCKS.

Well, originally my point (not really well-stated) was something about how the McCains seem to continue to distract people from their own criminal culpability with yet another press conference. It's unseemly somehow.

Now, I'm not complaining about anything, I am wondering whether the Amber Alert system is the most efficacious way of spending money. I don't know, and the Amber Alert people don't seem to be in a big hurry to let us know.

I have never been convinced by the argument that something should be done because it might save even one child. If something else would save two children, then you should be doing that instead.

If something else would save two children, then you should be doing that instead.

Ok, have any ideas? If we shouldn't do anything that could be done better, cheaper, faster, then we shouldn't ever do anything at all. I'm a firm believer in the old saying, done is better than perfect.

Criminal culpability, grouse? Is it illegal to leave children alone in Spain? I suppose it could be considered negligence, but I do know it happens quite a bit more than people will admit to. Yes, the McCann's made a mistake, and they are suffering for it. I don't know why that should lessen the fact that their child is missing, and that children of people who aren't well-connected are also missing, and that we can easily provide support structures for the less well-connected parents to get the word out quickly and efficiently.

OK, let's talk about costs: The US Federal bill that funded the Amber alert system provides up to $25 million dollars in matching funds to states who set up an Amber Alert system. It also funded a position for an abduction information coordination officer within the justice department, tasked with coordinating and disseminating information about abduction cases between states (which is a necessary position with or without the rest of the Amber Alert program, IMO).

The article linked also mentions that Delaware's Amber Alert system "cost the State about $64,000 to install". By contrast, the annual operating budget for the state of Delaware is approximately 3 billion dollars.

Well, I think there are a few factors here

First, the US is one nation with a high degree of labour mobility and not that many language and other barriers to moving within it.

Even if this Amber Alert system is effective in stopping inter-state abductions in the US, there aren't necessarily enough inter-state abductions in the EU to justify it.

If a child disappears in Norway, is it really worth alerting the whole of Italy?

There's no evidence that Madeline McCann was ever transported across national borders, and a Europe-wide manhunt failed to find her. The body may well have either been disposed of at sea or buried close by.

Second, I'm not sure how useful those amber alert statistics are. They say they have helped save the lives of over 350 children nationwide. But I suspect some would have been saved even without the program. And I'm not sure how much of the benefit is from having a boring old database for the professionals, and how much is from notifying the general public.

Third, the vast majority of child abuse comes from abusers who are known to the victims and their family. But particularly in the UK, children practically live their lives under house arrest for fear of being abducted by strangers. There's a kind of paedophile panic going on, sometimes leading to ludicrous extremes. Having TV shows constantly interrupted by abduction warnings is going to escalate the panic even further.

I understand that, but other than interrupting TV programs, why it detrimental?

Most obviously, the frequent interruptions using the EAS teach people to tune out the EAS like they learned to tune out car alarms. Over the long haul, this will cause people to die in the plains.

Second most obviously, the descriptions are so vague that they must inevitably cause very large numbers of false reports. If you don't mind being pulled over and/or arrested on suspicion of abducting a child because some anonymous nobody noticed that you were driving a red car too or that you were a little too near a kid who met the description of a white eight year old of normal height and weight wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt, good on you. Me, I keep my interactions with law enforcement to an absolute minimum to avoid the possibility of going to jail for contempt of cop because the cop got pissed at me for some inexplicable reason.

Third, the tv ads are nigh on pointless. What are they going to do? You're not going to see the kid or the car out your window. If the information isn't of literally immediate use to the people who receive it, then it can wait for the 10 or 11 o' clock news. If there are people waiting around writing down descriptions, then they can wait for the news. The only way this makes any sense is if there are substantial numbers of people who see the ad, write down the description, and immediately begin driving around looking for the child or the supposed abductor.

NB: this is the tv spots. The highway signs and radio spots, if any, are a lot less troublesome to me because they reach people who are in a position to actually see something where they are.

Fourth, it encourages a culture of useless fearmongering. It encourages the kinds of parents who drive their kids halfway across a metro area to keep them safe from indistinct fears of being abducted by strangers, but don't put the kids seat belts on when they do it. It encourages the essentially baseless fears of parents about stranger-abduction so that they don't let their kids have what for hundreds or thousands of years were normal freedoms and experiences of growing up.

What should we be doing instead, besides keeping a vigilant eye on our children?

Working in the market. Making delicious meals. Volunteering. Having sex. Enjoying a walk. Talking to friends. Drinking beer. Living your life.

I'm a firm believer in the old saying, done is better than perfect.

Of course, the families of the children who weren't saved by the imperfect system might disagree with this.

I never said that the system should be stopped, only that I would like to know whether it could be done better. The minimal information for this would be the cost. For example, the money might be better spent hiring extra FBI agents dedicated to kidnapping cases. For $25 million, you could hire a special agent devoted full-time to each "stereotypical kidnapping" for several years. Of course, that's not anyway near the total cost of the system, but thanks anyway muddgirl, it gives me an idea of the order of magnitude we're talking about.

And of course all the excellent points of ROU Xenophobe and TheophileEscargot.

Madly favoriting this.

I'm always so horrified that most kids simply do not have the basic freedoms most of us had a generation ago -- the freedom to run around the neighborhood (I used to bike into the woods by myself for hours on end, just to chill), the freedom to take public transportation at a normal age (my sister and I were navigating the London Underground alone at ages 12 and 8, respectively), the freedom to interact with the world without constantly being behind glass.

It's my understanding that, statistically, kids are no less safe from being abducted now than they were when any of us were growing up. The only thing that's ratcheted up has been the media attention and, of course, the state of fear.

I'm a firm believer in the old saying, done is better than perfect.

I feel rather shocked that I've never heard this saying, ever. All over google, though. Huh.

I think TPS is paraphrasing Voltaire, who said that "The best is the enemy of the good."

Of course, he also said "A witty saying proves nothing."

i believe it's "perfect is the enemy"
and he also said it's better to be entertaining than exact.

Wikiquote says it was "Le mieux est l'ennemi du bien."

i find Perfect and Better and Best is the enemy of good and a lot of

"Doubt is uncomfortable, certainty is ridiculous...."

"We are all full of weakness and errors;
let us mutually pardon each other our follies
it is the first law of nature."

Of this i mean our ability to quote.
"Done is better than perfect" is an old saying, esp. on the web world of deadlines and codes.