Still Missing: An 80-year history of United States’ missing children
2022
This poster examines United States’ database of missing children (dataset from March 2017 National Center for Missing and Exploited Children). Data visualization tools used include RAWgraphs and Observable.
Key insights:
The FBI reports the lifetime recovery rate for missing children between 95% – 98%. Most reported children are runaways that quickly return home without much authority intervention.
Missing children cases were significantly reduced within the first five years of the implementation of the AMBER Alert system in 2003.
Children are at highest risk for disappearance during their teen years in the endangered runaway category – which is particularly true for female teens. 3 out of 5 missing children are female.