NCJ Number
206922
Journal
Law and Order Volume: 52 Issue: 8 Dated: August 2004 Pages: 58,60,62
Date Published
August 2004
Length
3 pages
Annotation
This article describes Fort Lauderdale's (Florida) A Child Is Missing (ACIM) project, which can mobilize an entire community to aid in the search for a missing person in under a half hour.
Abstract
Once the officers called to a scene verify that a child is missing, they immediately contact operators working for ACIM, a not-for-profit organization financed through donations from corporations, grants, forfeiture funds, and some State and Federal funding. The calling officer gives basic descriptive information to the ACIM technician, along with the address where the child was last seen. This is the information that ACIM transmits to the public. A technician at ACIM's offices in Florida enters the information into a database and discusses with the officer the radius surrounding the child's last known location to determine the size of the geographical area that should be alerted. While the officer continues to work the case at the scene, ACIM's technician records a message for the public on the missing person's identification information and last known location. Using a unique telephony system, ACIM's recorded message can be delivered to a thousand homes in 60 seconds. The homes selected for calls with the information on the missing child are selected on the basis of the information provided by the officer as to the missing person's last known location. ACIM's message targets residences and businesses within a specific radius of that location. The listener also is given the telephone number for the agency that is handling the case. The ACIM technician checks back with the reporting officer at the scene to determine whether any calls have been received as a result of the ACIM messages and to ask the office whether any additional calls should go out. The ACIM has assisted in locating more than 58 missing persons since its inception in 1997. The system is operating in the entire States of Florida, Rhode Island, Alaska, Georgia, Oklahoma, Nevada, Indiana, Michigan, and Ohio.