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this post was submitted on 25 Aug 2026
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Automated License Plate Readers (ALPRs) are AI-powered cameras that capture and analyze images of all passing vehicles, storing details like your car’s location, date, and time. They also capture your car’s make, model, color, and identifying features such as dents, roof racks, and bumper stickers, often turning these into searchable data points. These cameras collect data on millions of vehicles—regardless of whether the driver is suspected of a crime. While these systems can be useful for tracking stolen cars or wanted individuals, they are mostly used to track the movements of innocent people.
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Note how it says "This estimate includes episodes with a stranger or slight acquaintance perpetrator in which a child was moved at least 20 feet or held for at least 1 hour"
Obviously a case where a child was moved only 20 feet, or held for less than a day belong in the 99.8% of cases where the child is returned. Even if the child is held for 1 month, that's going to be part of the 99.8% of cases where the child is returned. And, a kid would have to be moved much more than 20 feet to be missed by a search party. So, presumably the majority of "stereotypical kidnappings" result in the child being returned.
What it has to do with what we were originally talking about is that the 0.2% that aren't returned aren't 100% "stereotypical kidnappings". The vast majority of that tiny minority are also a kid running away, or a kid with a non-custodial parent. Only a tiny fraction of that tiny fraction (so maybe in the single digits per year) are kids who are kidnapped by a stranger or slight acquaintance and who never return.
Okay. This is entirely irrelevant to my point that you originally were replying to that I wouldn't call any number of missing children "acceptable", and that I would be perfectly fine spending money to bring the number lower.
https://childfindofamerica.org/resources/facts-and-stats-missing-children/
I'm okay with spending money to reduce the number of permanently missing, killed, long term abducted, or just about any outcome listed.
Your assumption that different outcomes have the same composition as each other isn't founded.
The very fact that the outcome was different is evidence of different conditions. Contextual evidence made investigators put it in whatever category they did, and I defer to them. Your breakdown ignores that the statistics already account for assumed runaways that never came home.
This is all entirely distinct from the point, which was "there's no number of missing children that's 'okay', and it's okay to spend money to lower the number, and we can actually put together rational spending targets that make sense even for rare circumstances, and if our government isn't in the business of finding lost children then what's the point of any of it?"