ABSTRACT
In 1984, the federal government, concerned about missing and abducted children in the United States, passed the Missing Children’s Act. To comply with the mandate of this act, the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) was developed. Its stated objective was to collect data to estimate the incidence of five categories of children: those abducted by family members, those abducted by nonfamily members, runaways, thrownaways, and those missing because they had gotten lost or injured. After a five-year study, completed in 1990, the major conclusions reached were as follows:
Many of the children in at least four of the categories were not literally missing. Caretakers did know where they were. The problem was in recovering them. About one-fifth of the children who had been considered runaways should actually be considered thrownaways.21
