I tried to look up national numbers on missing persons in the U.S. and I couldn't find any data. I emailed the Rutherford Institute to see if they knew of anyone looking into such numbers and they weren't aware.
My interest came from seeing the government tout that murder rates are the lowest ever recorded. Meanwhile, all other violent crime is up substantially from when recordkeeping began (1960). David Simon, writer and producer of The Wire, said in an interview that cops nowadays have no idea how to do real detective work due to their strong focus on enforcing drug laws, which generally requires very little detective work. I suspect missing persons is an area hit hard by these policies since it requires a lot of manpower and detective skills yet yields very little fruit. While many missing persons are ultimately not criminally related (suicide, left old life behind, lost in the woods, etc), some of them are crimes such as kidnapping and murder, but will go unreported as such.
The Rutherford Institute suggested I get numbers from municipal police departments and try to piece the information together to see if there is a trend, but after going to many large city police websites, I have found that missing persons is something that is not published anywhere. They publish all kinds of other statistics about their jurisdictions, but not missing persons. Not a single one that I've looked at. They all have information request options, but this is getting a bit further than a novice such as myself would really know how to acquire and analyze the data.
I have a number of Mexican friends that live in Mexico and or know people that live in Mexico. According to them kidnapping is something to be wary of. They say that it if it is known that you have wealth you are a target. Of course that is true for most locations. Seems to be more so in Mexico.
On the other hand me and friends go down to Mexico with what is considered expensive toys by average Mexican citizen standards, and have very few problems.
You left out:
ReplyDeleteUSA - 250 million
[Kidnapped by a rogue government...]
I tried to look up national numbers on missing persons in the U.S. and I couldn't find any data. I emailed the Rutherford Institute to see if they knew of anyone looking into such numbers and they weren't aware.
ReplyDeleteMy interest came from seeing the government tout that murder rates are the lowest ever recorded. Meanwhile, all other violent crime is up substantially from when recordkeeping began (1960). David Simon, writer and producer of The Wire, said in an interview that cops nowadays have no idea how to do real detective work due to their strong focus on enforcing drug laws, which generally requires very little detective work. I suspect missing persons is an area hit hard by these policies since it requires a lot of manpower and detective skills yet yields very little fruit. While many missing persons are ultimately not criminally related (suicide, left old life behind, lost in the woods, etc), some of them are crimes such as kidnapping and murder, but will go unreported as such.
The Rutherford Institute suggested I get numbers from municipal police departments and try to piece the information together to see if there is a trend, but after going to many large city police websites, I have found that missing persons is something that is not published anywhere. They publish all kinds of other statistics about their jurisdictions, but not missing persons. Not a single one that I've looked at. They all have information request options, but this is getting a bit further than a novice such as myself would really know how to acquire and analyze the data.
I have a number of Mexican friends that live in Mexico and or know people that live in Mexico. According to them kidnapping is something to be wary of. They say that it if it is known that you have wealth you are a target. Of course that is true for most locations. Seems to be more so in Mexico.
ReplyDeleteOn the other hand me and friends go down to Mexico with what is considered expensive toys by average Mexican citizen standards, and have very few problems.
To be meaningful, shouldn't these numbers be a rate (e.g. number of kidnappings per 100,000 people)?
ReplyDelete