Norton to Introduce Legislation to Collect and Publish National Demographic Data on Missing Children

WASHINGTON, D.C.—Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton (D-DC) today said that she will introduce legislation to require the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to collect and publish broad demographic characteristics, including race, gender, sexual orientation and gender identity, of missing children. There is not a current, comprehensive count of missing children in the United States. Norton will introduce the bill with original cosponsors Congressional Black Caucus Chair Cedric Richmond (D-LA), House Judiciary Committee Ranking Member John Conyers (D-MI), and Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls Co-Chair Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ), and she will continue seeking original cosponsors next week.

"Congress has long recognized that missing children is a national problem," Norton said. "In 2013, Congress required the Department of Justice to conduct every three years national incidence studies of missing children. Such a study is now underway. However, my bill would require the Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to collect, break down, and publish demographic subsets of these missing children. It is critical that the public know if there is a disproportionate number of missing children of color, particularly missing girls of color, which we believe is an underreported national problem. Experts need to first measure the incidences, and then study whether children have been trafficked, abducted, are running away, or are missing for other reasons, and what they recommend we can do about it."

The last national comprehensive study of missing children by OJJDP was based on a survey conducted in 1999, known as the National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART-2). In 2013, Congress amended the Missing Children's Assistance Act of 1984 to require DOJ to triennially, instead of periodically, conduct national incidence studies of missing children. Currently, OJJDP is conducting a new study, known as NISMART-3. However, there is no statutory requirement that the triennial study collect or publish demographic characteristics of missing children nationally. For instance, while NISMART-2 presented data by race and gender, it did not present any subsets, such as the number of girls of color missing.

NISMART-2 found that Black, non-Hispanics represented 16 percent of missing children and 15 percent of the child population, and Hispanics represented 18 percent of missing children and 16 percent of the child population. The number of males represented 57 percent of missing children and 51 percent of the child population. The number of females represented 43 percent of missing children and 49 percent of the child population.

The study also looked at the subset of missing children reported to authorities. Black, non-Hispanics represented 19 percent of missing children and 15 percent of the child population, and Hispanics represented 21 percent of missing children and 16 percent of the child population. The number of missing males and females were proportional to the child population.

The Congressional Black Caucus (CBC) and the Congressional Caucus on Black Women and Girls are particularly concerned about the number of missing black children across the country. This week, the CBC sent a letter to the FBI requesting that it investigate reports of an increased number of missing children and provide federal help if necessary.