Are child abductions as prevelant in the UK as in the USA?

Question

Seems we hear of child abductions almost daily and the Amber Alert system works overtime. Today I heard a story of a missing child from the UK, but it was a fun story and the boy was found sleeping in a cabinet in his house. Just curious if there is something amiss in our culture that allows for kids to be abducted.

Answer 1

In 2002 a report was released detailing a study of kidnapping in 1999. In that year 58,200 children were abducted by non-family members, translating to .08% of all children in the US. The UK does not seem to have data separating out child abduction by family members and by non-family members, so comparing all of them will have to do. In 1999-2000 they had 577 child abductions .004%, meaning that the US has a 2,000% higher child abduction rate.

Answer 2

Actually, stereotypical stranger abductions are extremely rare. Of the 797,500 children reported missing in 1999, only 115 were abducted by strangers. Of the over 61 million children in the US, 0.00018% are kidnapped by strangers. The chance of your child being kidnapped by a stranger in the US is less than 1 in 530,435. That's a pretty low chance. Chances are you do not know and have never met an individual whose child was abducted by a stranger.

So, I think our culture has really done a great job of combatting this problem. We've made it an exceptionally rare event.

Answer 3

there are child abductions all the time..everywhere you go in this world....the USA compared to the UK has more child abductions...but that is still no excuse.. cuz there are predators all over waiting to pray on children..the public needs to be aware of these statistics an not try an ignore them....if people ignore what is going on in our worls an look the other way then it will never end all they will be doing is causing to b the problem...parents need to talk to their children an warn them of the dangers an of predators