Official: National Network To Be Up By Next Year
A national network to help find missing children using radio and television broadcasts and electronic highway signs should go live by this time next year, announced Deborah Daniels, assistant U.S. attorney general in the Office of Justice Programs, during the first national training conference on the Amber Alert held earlier this year.
However, Daniels said communications between states still needs to improve, and added that the conference was also intended to allow teams from all 50 states and six U.S. territories to familiarize themselves with each other’s Amber Alert systems.
Other issues addressed at the conference included cost-effective technology to improve the system, and the dangers of overusing the system and desensitizing the public.
Another speaker extolling the virtues of the Amber Alert system was 17-year-old Tamara Brooks, who was kidnapped along with Jacqueline Marris last August in California.
Brooks and Marris were rescued by Kern County sheriff’s deputies partly thanks to Amber Alert, and co-chairman of Oregon’s emergency communication committee Chris Murray said the incident was the impetus many other states needed to get their own programs up and running.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center(NLECTC) from the Associated Press (08/03/03); Falkenberg, Lisa.