That’s right, I said. The national Amber Alert System should simply disappear or at least be revised. It’s a drain of public money, the giant billboards are distracting and ineffective, and they are a total eyesore.
To begin this conversation let me state that I do not have any children of my own. However, I firmly believe that if two adults cannot be responsible enough to raise a child without “stealing” it from one another, then chances are they have no business procreating in the first place. I actually think we all need to step back and consider this act, anyways. America’s children are fucked up and there is no denying it. The situation seems to be getting worse as the world becomes a more harsh place to survive. That’s another conversation. I bring up responsible parenting with this issue because this system is largely used and abused by familial abductions conducted via irresponsible parenting and arguments/threats from one parent to the other. Disgusting.
The Amber Alert system is categorized as follows; FA = familial abduction, NFA = non-familial abduction, LIM = Lost, Injured, or Missing, and ERU = Endangered Runaway. The National Budget for this system in 2008 was 15 million dollars and increases yearly as people “use” the system. In the 2008 reports, 100 Amber Alert (AA) cases were FA (meaning stolen by a family member), 70 were NFA (not family, but still known by the parent(s)), 21 were LIM, and 3 were ERU. It was later discovered that 11 of these cases were fraud and 14 were unfounded. Of these 194 cases, 40 children were successfully recovered as a direct result of the Amber Alert system…although I am not sure how they are proving this statistic. So basically, this means that the AA system sucesfully recovers less than 25% of its reported cases. If Obama successfully performed his job at a rate of less than 25%, he would get even less approval from the right than he already does. What I am saying is that a 25% success rate is a waste of time, money and support.
I arrived at this topic today because on my way into the office I was driving down the highway and realized that no billboard, especially an electric flashing one attempting to alert drivers, is a good idea. I would like to see the statistic on how many drivers nation-wide have been in accidents as a direct result of the AA billboards. I doubt that number exists anywhere.
I dont know about most drivers, but I know that I dont ever pay enough attention to those signs to make a difference. And if I did happen to see that trailer park Terry stole his little precious Ginger Mae from her mother Betty Sue, I am certainly not going to search for his beat up jallopy along my route. Please people…like I said, if you are not responsible enough to raise a child, don’t procreate. Perhaps I would not be so hard on this system if the only cases that were reported were legit and of actual kidnappings where the child is endangered. This is, afterall, how the Amber Alert was born.
Lastly, these signs are eyesores. Giant ones. Why cant the “concern” simply be braodcast over the radio? Seems a lot less expensive, far less distracting, potentially more effective because more people are forced to listen, and it certainly solves the eyesore problem.
I hate to offend, wait a second, no I dont.
Have a good day and enjoy that turkey!
GBJ