Finding your child after a parental kidnapping

There must be something in the water. I handled two parental kidnapping cases in March. This makes five cases for me in the past year. In all of these cases the children were successfully located and returned to the custodial parents within 24 to 48 hours. Other parents express fear that their child may, too, be at risk.

Prevention of parental kidnapping is not always fool-proof. About 800,000 children were abducted in 2003 alone, the last year for which statistics are available. Fewer than 1% of these abductions were  by strangers. So parents want to know: What can I do to make sure that I can find my child or children if the non-custodial parent takes off with them?

Several products are available for parents who fear a parental abduction. These products look like bracelets or fancy "swatch watches."

These devices use a combination of satellite and cellular telephone technology. They provide not only GPS tracking information that will enable law enforcement agencies to locate your child, they also transmit GPS tracking coordinates to 1 to 5 cellular telephones. They can be tracked in real time online. The devices have a "panic button" that a child can use to send out an emergency call to the parent so that an alert can be sent out immediately.

These products are not inexpensive. They can cost $400 or more. Additionally, there is a monthly service charge -- $25 or more.

Family abductions are most common—800,000 last year alone. Fewer than 1% of child abductions are by a stranger.

SUPERVISION AS AN ALTERNATIVE TO TECHNOLOGY

Ernie Allen, president and chief executive of the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, doesn’t knock the new high-tech devices, but said none that he has seen can totally replace good old-fashioned parental supervision.

Allen's warning sparked an angry rebuke from Marc Klaas, whose daughter, Polly Klaas, was kidnapped from her Petaluma home and murdered in 1993. Although he has no financial stake in the company, Klaas passionately endorsed the Wherify tracker as an important tool in what he called a war against predators.

MARKETING FEAR OR PEACE OF MIND?

The companies marketing child tracking devices say they aren't selling fear, but some peace of mind for parents.

The GPS Personal Locator is a thick, rubberized wristwatch that locks on a child's wrist. It sends an emergency signal to 911 operators if someone attempts to remove or cut the band without authorization and can be programmed to send an alert if the child ventures outside of a predetermined area. The locator also has a "panic button" the child can push to call 911. The locator, marketed for children ages 4 to 11, has a built-in numeric pager and is made of water- and cut-resistant material.

Parents lock the bracelet onto their children's wrists and can unlock it by key or remotely. Cutting or forcibly removing the band would activate an alarm for the company's emergency operators. Because the product relies on satellite technology, there may be some spots, such as underground or inside concrete buildings, where the monitoring service will fail to get a bearing.

The device taps the Global Positioning System, a constellation of 24 satellites originally sent into orbit as a navigational tool by the U. S. Department of Defense in the late 1970s. By triangulating the radio signals from three of the satellites, a GPS receiver can plot its exact location on the ground to within a few feet.

Many of the GPS locator devices available for children send the GPS coordinates to up to 5 cell phones, making early warning of an abduction and thus early tracking a possibility.

Parents can also track their kids by logging on to a Web site that displays their location either on a regular street map or an aerial photograph. Parents can even program the device to give "breadcrumbs," recording the GPS signal at set intervals to monitor their child's progress from school to home.

Cellular phone signals keep the receiver in touch with Wherify data centers in Florida, Colorado and Sunnyvale and compensate for areas that a GPS signal cannot work, such as inside buildings.

You can see these devices and buy them at the following Internet web sites:

Wherify Wireless Inc.  See here on the Polly Klaas Kids Foundation.

ChildSafetyTech.com

Other devices may be compared and evaluated here:

NEXT STEP IS IMPLANTS

And in a sign of future tracking technologies, Digital Angel's majority owner, Applied Digital Solutions Inc. of Palm Beach, Fla., has developed the VeriChip, a microchip the size of a grain of rice that can be implanted in a person's body. One Florida family this year had chips embedded with their individual medical records implanted in their bodies.

The chip, which in the future could incorporate a GPS receiver, has already generated criticism from privacy advocates who say the technology opens a new high-tech Pandora's box.

Verichip costs around $300, plus a $10 monthly service fee.  See Verichip here.

A future article in this Blog will help parents evaluate whether their child is at risk for parental abduction and set out some safety plans to put into place. You will find more information, in particular about laws that can help you recover your child on my Parental Kidnapping Web Site

Comments

[Doug Dante]

FYI, Michigan's Law (MCL 750.350a) statute applies to all parents, regardless of custody.

(1) An adoptive or natural parent of a child shall not take that child, or retain that child for more than 24 hours, with the intent to detain or conceal the child from any other parent or legal guardian of the child who has custody or parenting time rights pursuant to a lawful court order at the time of the taking or retention, or from the person or persons who have adopted the child, or from any other person having lawful charge of the child at the time of the taking or retention.

(2) A parent who violates subsection (1) is guilty of a felony, punishable by imprisonment for not more than 1 year and 1 day, or a fine of not more than $2,000.00, or both.

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-750-350a

[Jeanne M Hannah]

Doug:

Of course Michigan's parental kidnapping statute applies across the board. If a custodial parent keeps the non-custodial parent from having court-ordered parenting time with a child or children for more than 24 hours, that is also parental kidnapping.

Jeanne M Hannah

[D Hughes]

When my sister dropped the kids off to her ex-husband, he told her that he was going out of state and would not have the kids back to her for over a week, which cuts into her visitation time by a few days. She lives in Michigan, is not the custodial parent, but does have joint custody. She did not give him permission to take them out of the state, nor did she give him permission to change the visitation agreement. He won't tell her where they are staying, what airline they are taking and won't answer his cell phone. She's not too worried that he won't return with them, but that's always a possibility. What are her options?

[Jeanne M Hannah]

Hello D. Hughes,

In Michigan, when a parent keeps the children more than 24 hours after they are due to the other parent for custody or parenting time, that is a felony punishable by 1 year and 1 day in prison.

From the facts that you recite, it sounds as though the children will already be overdue. I'd recommend, if your sister is comfortable with this, waiting to the date the father said he'd bring them back -- since it's only a day or two. He is allowed to take them out of state for a vacation.

However, children are more readily recovered in a parental kidnapping situation if prompt action is taken. Therefore, I highly recommend that your sister take action promptly if the children are not returned as promised.

You and your sister will find more specific information about parental abduction on my website:
http://parental-kidnapping.com