By Robert Anderson
Despite the numerous high-profile missing children cases receiving recent national attention, child abductions and disappearances are decreasing in Utah.
'Our statistics on runaways have had a slight decrease and so have parental abductions,' said Jina McMahon, the Utah representative for Missing Person''s Clearinghouse. 'Overall, child kidnappings in Utah have not increased over the last three years.'
Capt. Brad Leathan of the Provo Police Department said kidnappings are not a common occurrence in Utah.
'Most of what we see is runaway situations,' he said.
When a child is reported missing, he or she usually is found after a more thorough search of the house, Leathan said.
Although the total active missing children''s cases in Utah has increased, that number is not indicative of the true situation, said Nannette Rolfe, director of the Utah Criminal Identification Bureau.
'We''re showing a 3 percent decrease in the amount of recent runaway children, and we are down 2 percent in endangered child abductions, which would include the Elizabeth Smart case,' Rolfe said.
Rolfe attributed the overall increase in active cases to the fact that fewer runaway and endangered-child abduction cases are being solved.
One measure taken to increase the number of solved missing-child cases is the Rachel Alert, which was first used in the Elizabeth Smart case.
'It got the message out quicker and to more people than had ever been done before,' said Paul Murphy, spokesman for the Utah Attorney General''s office.
There is heavy pressure being placed on every state to implement a similar type of alert plan, Murphy said.
Currently, only 14 states, including Utah, have statewide missing-child alert plans. However, with recent media attention focusing on missing children, it is hoped that more states will quickly become involved in developing individual alert strategies.
'It is our hope that this program will become statewide in every state,' said Tina Schwartz, public affairs director for the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children. 'We''ve seen that it works and hope that all states will take advantage of it.'
McMahon attributes the heightened media and public awareness of missing children cases to the abduction of Elizabeth Smart.
'If it wasn''t for Elizabeth Smart, there would not be the media attention or awareness that there is today,' McMahon said.
She said the Rachel Alert, although not successful in the Smart case, will likely yield successful results in the future.