Introduction

The words “missing child” call to mind tragic and frightening kidnappings reported in the national news. But a child can be missing for many reasons, and the problem of missing children is far more complex than the headlines suggest. Getting a clear picture of how many children become missing—and why—is an important step in addressing the problem. This series of Bulletins provides that clear picture by summarizing findings from the Second National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2). The series offers national estimates of missing children based on surveys of households, juvenile residential facilities, and law enforcement agencies. It also presents statistical profiles of these children, including their demographic characteristics and the circumstances of their disappearance.

The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) were undertaken in response to the mandate of the 1984 Missing Children’s Assistance Act (Pub. L. 98–473) that requires the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to conduct periodic national incidence studies to determine the actual number of children reported missing and the number of missing children who are recovered for a given year.

The first such study, NISMART–1 ( Finkelhor, Hotaling, and Sedlak, 1990), conducted almost 15 years ago, addressed this mandate by defining major types of missing child episodes and estimating the number of children who experienced episodes of each type in 1988. At that time, the lack of a standardized definition of a “missing child” made it impossible to provide a single estimate of missing children. This Bulletin describes the NISMART–2 efforts to fill this gap and presents the results: unified estimates of the number of missing children in the United States.