It's a bittersweet ending to a gut-wrenching story - Jaycee Lee Dugard, 29, is found alive after being kidnapped near her Meyers home in 1991 when she was just 11 years old.
It's also a story that rocks parents' sense of safety and can make us fearful and guarded against anyone who may look our child's way.
While it's always a good idea to keep careful watch of our children, it's also important to bear in mind the rarity of stranger abductions.
Kidnappings by strangers are among the most highly publicized crimes and tend to deeply shake the national consciousness, but they are among the rarest of crimes against children.
Kidnapping makes up less than 2 percent of all violent crimes against juveniles reported to police, with stranger kidnapping being the most uncommon form of reported kidnappings, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The department conducted a study in 2002 of non-family abducted children based on national data primarily from 1999.
Researchers found that of the 58,200 children abducted in the legal sense - meaning held against their will for a modest amount of time or moved even a short distance, often in commission of other crimes - an estimated 115 were stereotypical kidnappings. Stereotypical kidnappings were defined as abductions by strangers or slight acquaintances and involving a child transported 50 miles or more, detained overnight, held for ransom or with intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.
Of those children who were stereotypically kidnapped, 57 percent returned alive, 32 percent returned injured, 40 percent were killed and 4 percent never returned, the study reports.
Jaycee Lee Dugard, once thought to have fallen in that tiny percentage of children who never came home, thankfully will be counted among those who return alive.
Her heart-wrenching story, which includes bearing two children with her alleged captor, likely will captivate our attention for days and weeks to come, but hopefully it will also serve as a reminder to put our arms around our children and appreciate their safety.
For information on how to keep your kids safe and talk to them about their safety, check out this tip sheet from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 25_ways_to_make_kids_safer.pdf
It's also a story that rocks parents' sense of safety and can make us fearful and guarded against anyone who may look our child's way.
While it's always a good idea to keep careful watch of our children, it's also important to bear in mind the rarity of stranger abductions.
Kidnappings by strangers are among the most highly publicized crimes and tend to deeply shake the national consciousness, but they are among the rarest of crimes against children.
Kidnapping makes up less than 2 percent of all violent crimes against juveniles reported to police, with stranger kidnapping being the most uncommon form of reported kidnappings, according to the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
The department conducted a study in 2002 of non-family abducted children based on national data primarily from 1999.
Researchers found that of the 58,200 children abducted in the legal sense - meaning held against their will for a modest amount of time or moved even a short distance, often in commission of other crimes - an estimated 115 were stereotypical kidnappings. Stereotypical kidnappings were defined as abductions by strangers or slight acquaintances and involving a child transported 50 miles or more, detained overnight, held for ransom or with intent to keep the child permanently, or killed.
Of those children who were stereotypically kidnapped, 57 percent returned alive, 32 percent returned injured, 40 percent were killed and 4 percent never returned, the study reports.
Jaycee Lee Dugard, once thought to have fallen in that tiny percentage of children who never came home, thankfully will be counted among those who return alive.
Her heart-wrenching story, which includes bearing two children with her alleged captor, likely will captivate our attention for days and weeks to come, but hopefully it will also serve as a reminder to put our arms around our children and appreciate their safety.
For information on how to keep your kids safe and talk to them about their safety, check out this tip sheet from the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children. 25_ways_to_make_kids_safer.pdf
