U.S. Department of Justice

Office of Justice Programs

Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention

A Message From OJJDP

The kidnaping of a child is a crime

that tears at the fabric of society. Until

recently, the nature and scope of the

problem have been unclear because

existing crime data collection systems—

such as the FBI’s Uniform Crime

Reporting (UCR) system and OJJDP’s

National Incidence Studies of Missing,

Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway

Children—do not collect law enforcement data on kidnaping.

Fortunately, that is about to change.

In partnership with the Bureau of

Justice Statistics, the FBI is supplanting the UCR with the National

Incident-Based Reporting System

(NIBRS). This will enhance our

understanding of youth abduction

and create a comprehensive picture

of kidnaping offenses.

This Bulletin describes the offense

of kidnaping of juveniles, using 1997

NIBRS data. Among other significant

findings, the analysis reveals that such

abductions are relatively uncommon,

that there are three distinct kinds of

perpetrators, and that the rate of

juvenile kidnaping peaks in the

afternoon.

The better we understand this serious

crime, the more effective our efforts

will be to prevent and respond to it.

NIBRS promises to be an important

tool in that process.

June 2000

common to many sexual assaults and robberies. Kidnaping occurs whenever a person is

taken or detained against his or her will and

includes hostage situations, whether or not

the victim is moved. Moreover, kidnaping is

not limited to the acts of strangers but can

be committed by acquaintances, by romantic

partners, and, as has been increasingly true

in recent years, by parents who are involved

in acrimonious custody disputes.

Confusion about kidnaping has been exacerbated by the absence of reliable statistics

about the crime. Kidnaping is not one of

the crimes included in the Federal Bureau

of Investigation’s (FBI’s) national Uniform

Crime Reporting (UCR) system, and individual States or other jurisdictions have

rarely made any independent tally of kidnaping statistics. As a result, a national

picture of, or even a large data set about,

Kidnaping of

Juveniles: Patterns

From NIBRS

David Finkelhor and Richard Ormrod

The kidnaping of children has generated a

great deal of public concern, not to mention

confusion and controversy. These crimes,

from the kidnaping of the Lindbergh baby

to the abduction and murder of Adam

Walsh, have been some of the most notorious and highly publicized news stories of

recent history, occupying a central place in

the fears and anxieties of parents. Yet, an

ongoing debate has raged over how frequently such crimes occur, which children

are most at risk, and who the primary offenders are.

Part of the problem has been confusion

about the definition of kidnaping. While

lengthy ransom abductions and the tragic

recovery of bodies have molded the public’s

perception of the crime, in a strict legal

sense, kidnaping also involves both shortterm and short-distance displacements, acts

The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) is committed to

improving the justice system’s response to crimes against children. OJJDP recognizes

that children are at increased risk for crime victimization. Not only are children the victims of many of the same crimes that victimize adults, they are subject to other crimes,

like child abuse and neglect, that are specific to childhood. The impact of these crimes

on young victims can be devastating, and the violent or sexual victimization of children

can often lead to an intergenerational cycle of violence and abuse. The purpose of

OJJDP’s Crimes Against Children Series is to improve and expand the Nation’s efforts

to better serve child victims by presenting the latest information about child victimization,

including analyses of crime victimization statistics, studies of child victims and their special needs, and descriptions of programs and approaches that address these needs.
2

naping: kidnaping by a relative of the

victim or “family kidnaping” (49 percent), kidnaping by an acquaintance

of the victim or “acquaintance kidnaping” (27 percent), and kidnaping by a

stranger to the victim or “stranger kidnaping” (24 percent) (figure 1).

◆ Family kidnaping is committed primarily by parents, involves a larger percentage of female perpetrators (43 percent)

than other types of kidnaping offenses,

occurs more frequently to children under 6, equally victimizes juveniles of

both sexes, and most often originates in

the home.

◆ Acquaintance kidnaping has features

that suggest it should not be lumped

with stranger kidnaping into the single

category of nonfamily kidnaping, as has

been done in the past.

◆ Acquaintance kidnaping involves a comparatively high percentage of juvenile

perpetrators, has the largest percentage

of female and teenage victims, is more

often associated with other crimes (especially sexual and physical assault),

occurs at homes and residences, and has

the highest percentage of injured victims.

◆ Stranger kidnaping victimizes more females than males, occurs primarily at

outdoor locations, victimizes both teenagers and school-age children, is associated with sexual assaults in the case of

girl victims and robberies in the case of

boy victims (although not exclusively

so), and is the type of kidnaping most

likely to involve the use of a firearm.

◆ Relatively little kidnaping involves

weapons.

this crime from the law enforcement perspective has been unavailable. In the past,

several attempts were made to collect

abduction data, but they were limited in

scope or time. For example, OJJDP’s 1988

National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children

(NISMART) estimated the number of family

and nonfamily abductions for a single year

but contained no police data on family abductions (Finkelhor, Hotaling, and Sedlak,

1990, 1991). The Washington State Attorney General’s Office has compiled data on

abduction homicides known to police, and

the FBI has a database on the very serious

kidnaping cases that have been reported

to it (Hanfland, Keppel, and Weis, 1997;

Boudreaux, Lord, and Dutra, 1999).1

 However, despite these various data sources,

a broad picture covering the full spectrum

of kidnaping offenses that are reported to

and investigated by law enforcement has

not been available.

The National IncidentBased Reporting

System

Fortunately, a comprehensive national database on kidnaping and other crimes is beginning to emerge. The FBI, in partnership

with the Bureau of Justice Statistics, is supplanting the UCR with the more comprehensive National Incident-Based Reporting

System (NIBRS), which collects detailed

information on crimes known to the police.

One of the improvements introduced by

NIBRS is the inclusion of specific data on

kidnaping. NIBRS offers an outstanding opportunity to learn more about the nature

and extent of this crime, about which so

few data have been available in the past.

This Bulletin describes the crime of kidnaping of juveniles (youth ages 17 and younger)

as it appears in statistics reported by law

enforcement agencies using NIBRS for 1997,

the most recent reporting year for which

NIBRS data are currently available. An analysis of data on 1,214 juvenile kidnapings from

the jurisdictions in 12 States that participated in NIBRS in 1997 reveals the following:

◆ Kidnaping makes up less than 2 percent

of all violent crimes against juveniles

reported to police.

◆ Based on the identity of the perpetrator, there are three distinct types of kid-

◆ Only one death and a few major injuries

were associated with juvenile kidnaping

reported to NIBRS.

NIBRS data on kidnaping have some important limitations. Conclusions drawn from

these data must be used with caution.

Although the patterns and associations

discovered are real, they apply only to the

jurisdictions reporting and are not necessarily representative of national patterns

and dynamics of crime. Also, NIBRS relies

on local law enforcement agencies to collect data, and it is not clear how systematic

agencies are in their recording of kidnaping.

Because kidnaping is not included in UCR

data, agencies may not yet code for kidnaping as thoroughly as they might for other

crimes. Moreover, jurisdictions may vary in

how regularly they charge offenders with

the crime of kidnaping. The elements of

kidnaping exist in a wide range of criminal

incidents—sexual assaults, robberies, and

physical assaults—yet some jurisdictions,

for a variety of possible reasons such as

training, tradition, or local statutes, may

charge or record the crime of kidnaping

more or less frequently than other crimes.

Nonetheless, current NIBRS data provide

a picture of the types of incidents law enforcement agencies in participating jurisdictions across the country are recording

for statistical purposes as the crime of

kidnaping. This perspective of current law

enforcement practices is important in and

of itself because, unlike public perceptions and prevailing stereotypes, it represents the actual juvenile kidnaping that

police in these jurisdictions deal with on

a day-to-day basis.

1

 Several small-scale studies have also analyzed a

series of infant abductions and child molestation

abductions (Burgess and Lanning, 1995; Lanning

and Burgess, 1995; Prentky et al., 1991).

Figure 1: All Violent Crimes Against Juveniles and Juvenile Kidnaping,

by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

All Violent Crimes Against Juveniles Juvenile Kidnaping

Family Acquaintance Stranger

10%

25%

65%

24%

27%

49%
3

Juvenile Kidnaping—

A Rare Occurrence

Data indicate that kidnaping of juveniles is a

relatively rare crime in NIBRS jurisdictions.

It constitutes only one-tenth of 1 percent of

all the crimes against individuals, 1 percent

of all crimes against juveniles, and 1.5 percent of all violent crimes against juveniles

recorded in the database. Kidnaping is

dwarfed by the much more common crimes

of simple and aggravated assault, larceny,

and sex offenses, which make up most of

what higher percentage of female offenders

than stranger kidnaping (16 percent and

5 percent, respectively). Data from the

NIBRS jurisdictions provide limited information about the characteristics of some

offenders in the acquaintance category.

Eighteen percent are categorized as boyfriend, which suggests a quite distinct dynamic, whereas two other subdivisions—

friend (7 percent) and acquaintance

(73 percent)—although more ambiguous,

suggest different degrees of intimacy or

familiarity.

Family perpetrators kidnap males and

females in approximately equal proportions (figure 3). Acquaintance perpetrators kidnap substantially more females

than males (72 percent and 28 percent,

respectively). Stranger perpetrators also

kidnap more females than males but not

quite so disproportionately as acquaintances

(64 percent and 36 percent, respectively).

The National IncidentBased Reporting System

The U.S. Department of Justice is

supplanting its Uniform Crime Report

(UCR) system with a more comprehensive National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Although

NIBRS holds great promise, it is still

far from a national system. Its implementation by the FBI began in 1988,

and participation by States and local

agencies is voluntary and incremental. By 1995, jurisdictions in 9 States

had agencies contributing data; by

1997, the number was 12; and by

the end of 1999, jurisdictions in 17

States submitted reports, providing

coverage for 11 percent of the

Nation’s population and 9 percent

of its crime. Only 3 States (Idaho,

Iowa, South Carolina) have participation from all local jurisdictions, and

only 1 city with a population currently

greater than 500,000 (Austin, TX) is

reporting, leaving the crime experiences of large urban areas particularly underrepresented.

Nevertheless, the system is assembling large amounts of crime information and providing a richness of detail

about juvenile victimizations that was

previously unavailable. The patterns

and associations these data reveal

are real and represent the experiences of a large number of youth. The

1997 NIBRS data file contains information on 364,830 violent crimes

against individuals, with 79,028 of

these against juveniles.

A more detailed discussion of the

NIBRS data can be found in the

authors’ recently published OJJDP

Bulletin, Characteristics of Crimes

Against Juveniles (NCJ 179034).

the crimes against juveniles (Finkelhor and

Ormrod, 2000). Both the limited coverage

of NIBRS and the fact that kidnapings represent a very small percentage of all crimes

make it impossible to project a reliable

national estimate of kidnaping incidents.

Nonetheless, the 1,214 juvenile kidnaping

cases in the 1997 NIBRS data provide a

larger database than has been previously

available for examining the characteristics

of this crime.

Kidnaping is widely recognized to involve

very different dynamics and motives depending on the identity of the perpetrators and age of the victim (Boudreaux,

Lord, and Dutra, 1999; Finkelhor, Hotaling,

and Sedlack, 1990; Forst and Blomquist,

1991). Previous research and current public policy divide kidnaping into two categories: family abductions and nonfamily abductions. Family abductions are usually

committed by parents who, in the course

of custodial disputes, take or keep children in violation of custody orders (Plass,

1998). Nonfamily abductions are generally thought to involve efforts, primarily

by strangers, to isolate children in order

to commit another crime, such as sexual

assault or robbery.

Three Types of Perpetrators

In contrast, the criminal kidnaping of juveniles, as recorded by police in the NIBRS

jurisdictions, is divided into three relatively large categories: family kidnaping

(49 percent), acquaintance kidnaping (27

percent), and stranger kidnaping (24 percent) (figure 1). Compared with all violent

crimes against juveniles, kidnaping has

substantially higher percentages of both

family and stranger perpetrators, but the

high percentage of acquaintance kidnapings

is striking given previous characterizations

of this crime that have emphasized only

the family and stranger elements.

In the NIBRS jurisdictions, family kidnaping

perpetrators are usually parents (80 percent), almost always adults (98 percent),

and often female (43 percent) (figures 2

and 3). Although not a majority of family

kidnaping perpetrators, females commit

a substantially larger portion of the family

abductions than they do of acquaintance

abductions (16 percent), stranger abductions (5 percent), or violent crimes in

general (24 percent).

Stranger perpetrators are predominately

males (95 percent) and predominately adults

(90 percent) (figures 2 and 3). Acquaintance

kidnaping has the largest proportion of

juvenile offenders (30 percent) and a someNote: What may appear to be inconsistencies in the proportions of the three types

of juvenile kidnaping presented in figures 1

and 2 are the result of the different methods

of analyzing NIBRS data used in each figure. Figure 1 analyzes incidents of juvenile

kidnaping. Figure 2 analyzes juvenile kidnaping offenders. Thus, for example, in part

because one kidnaping incident may involve

more than one offender, figure 1 shows that

49 percent of all juvenile kidnapings are

committed by family members, while figure 2

shows that 44 percent of all kidnaping offenders are family members.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation,

1997.

Figure 2: Juvenile Kidnaping,

by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim and

Offender’s Gender

Male Offender Female Offender

0

5

10

15

20

25

30

Family

Kidnaping

35

40

45

Acquaintance

Kidnaping

Stranger

Kidnaping

Percentage of All Identified Offenders
4

Victim Age Patterns

The three categories of kidnaping also have

distinct patterns with respect to the age of

victims. In the NIBRS incident reports, family

kidnaping has its peak occurrence for children under age 6 (43 percent), while a large

majority of acquaintance kidnaping victimizes teenagers (youth ages 12 to 17) (71 percent). Stranger kidnaping is more equally

split between teenage and elementary

school-age victims (57 percent and 32 percent, respectively). However, the risks for

children of different ages appear to have a

complex interplay (figure 4). Children under

the age of 6 are primarily targets of family

kidnaping, which peaks at about age 2 and

declines thereafter. The risk of kidnaping

by a stranger is comparatively low for preschoolers but rises throughout the elementary school years and reaches its peak

around age 15. Acquaintance kidnaping is the

predominant problem for teenagers, displacing stranger kidnaping as their biggest threat.

Location

NIBRS provides only crude data about the

location of crimes, particularly a crime like

kidnaping that may have an originating, intermediate, and destination locale (for example, a child taken from a street, driven

in a car, brought into a residence, and then

raped). NIBRS allows multiple-location

coding for multiple-offense crimes, but

only 1 percent of incidents involving kidnaping have multiple locations recorded in

NIBRS data. The information on location

does, however, show clear-cut associations

between the offender’s relationship to the

victim and the location of the kidnaping.

In the NIBRS jurisdictions, family kidnaping, consistent with the stereotype, is

associated primarily with homes and residences (84 percent) (figure 5). Stranger

kidnaping, by contrast, is associated

primarily with outdoor locations (58

percent)—streets, highways, parks, waterways, and other public areas. Like family

kidnaping, most acquaintance kidnaping

takes place at homes and residences (63

percent), but unlike family kidnaping, a substantial percentage of acquaintance kidnaping also occurs in outside locations (22 percent). It is important to note that schools

are an unusual site for abduction, even family abduction (only 5 percent of family,

4 percent of acquaintance, and 3 percent

of stranger kidnaping occur at school).

Additional Offenses

In other studies, nonfamily kidnaping is generally associated with other offenses, such

as robbery or sexual assault, and is in fact a

means of facilitating those offenses. One advantage of NIBRS over UCR is its ability

to code multiple crimes associated with a

single incident. Overall, 19 percent of the

juvenile kidnaping reported in NIBRS jurisdictions is associated with another violent

crime. This makes it the most common crime

to be paired with an additional offense. These

additional offenses provide some perspective on the motives of kidnaping offenders.

Most additional offenses associated with

kidnaping occur in conjunction with

Figure 3: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim,

Victim’s Gender, and Offender’s Age Group

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping Stranger Kidnaping

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

Adult Offender Juvenile Offender

70

Percentage of Kidnapings of Each Type

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

80

*Three-year running average.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Figure 4: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Victim’s Age and Offender’s

Relationship to the Victim

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

Victim Age

Family Acquaintance Stranger

<1 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17

Percentage of Victimizations 

at Each Age*
5

acquaintance and stranger kidnaping,

but the types of offenses vary somewhat

according to the gender of the victim

(figure 6). For female victims, sex crimes

were the predominant adjunct to kidnaping, occurring in 23 percent of the kidnapings by acquaintances and 14 percent

of the kidnapings by strangers reported to

NIBRS in 1997. For male victims, robbery

and assault were the additional offenses

most likely to accompany kidnaping, although some sex offenses also occurred.

Family kidnaping tends not to be associated with any other crime. In this type of

kidnaping, none of the offenses against

boys and only 5 percent of the offenses

against girls were linked to an additional

violent crime.

Weapon Usage

For the most part in NIBRS jurisdictions,

kidnaping is a weaponless crime (figure 7).

Approximately 14 percent of acquaintance

kidnapings and about 23 percent of stranger

abductions involved weapons, mostly guns.

The use of weapons in family abductions

was quite rare (less than 2 percent).

Injuries and Deaths

Injuries occurred in only 12 percent of all

kidnapings recorded by police in participating jurisdictions. They were most frequent in

acquaintance abductions (24 percent) and

least frequent in family abductions (4 percent) (figure 8). Major injuries (for example,

severe lacerations, broken bones, unconsciousness) were extremely rare, occurring

in only 2 percent of all kidnapings. Only one

fatal outcome to a kidnaping was recorded in

the 1997 NIBRS data. When interpreting figure 8, however, it must be kept in mind that

these abductions were not necessarily crime

episodes of long duration or ones in which a

child was officially declared missing. They

could have involved episodes during which

a child was transported a short distance or

into a building or car in order to accomplish

a sexual assault or robbery. NIBRS has no

usable information about whether the child

victim was at any time in the episode reported missing or about the distance or

duration of the kidnaping.

Time of Day

Rates for all crimes against children peak

in the afternoon (Snyder and Sickmund,

1999), and kidnaping is no exception: 41

percent of all juvenile kidnapings in

NIBRS jurisdictions occur during afternoon hours (noon to 6 p.m.). The main

difference among the three types of kidnaping is that acquaintance and stranger

kidnaping are somewhat more likely than

family kidnaping to occur in the evening

(6 p.m. to midnight) or nighttime (midnight to 6 a.m.) hours (46 percent, 41

percent, and 30 percent, respectively)

(figure 9).

Implications

NIBRS data from the jurisdictions reporting

in 1997 suggest that the current practice

of differentiating the crime of kidnaping

into only two categories (family and nonfamily) needs to be changed. The two components of the conventional nonfamily

Figure 6: Juvenile Kidnaping With Additional Offenses, by Victim’s

Gender, Offender’s Relationship to the Victim, and Type

of Additional Offense

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

0

10

20

30

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping Stranger Kidnaping

Sex Offense Assault Robbery

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

Male

Victim

Female

Victim

40

Percentage of Kidnapings of Each Type

Additional Offenses:

Figure 5: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim

and Type of Location

Note: Percentages may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Residence/Home Other Building School

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping Stranger Kidnaping

Outside

84%

4% 5%

7%

4%

63%

12%

22%

58%

3%

17%

22%
6

category—acquaintance kidnaping and

stranger kidnaping—seem to be different

types of offenses, at least as they appear

in law enforcement data. The specific characteristics of acquaintance kidnaping, which

has not yet been separately profiled, need

to be better delineated and understood.

Acquaintance kidnaping in data from NIBRS

jurisdictions distinguishes itself from

stranger kidnaping in a variety of important

ways (table 1). First, it involves more juvenile offenders and somewhat more female

offenders. Second, it occurs more often

with teenage victims, while more stranger

kidnaping victimizes school-age children

(the complement of “teenage victim”).

Third, acquaintance kidnaping is much

more likely to occur at a home or residence,

while stranger kidnaping most often occurs

in outdoor locales. Finally, acquaintance

kidnaping victims suffer a higher rate of

injury. These substantial differences highlight that acquaintance kidnaping is both

a separate and serious form of kidnaping.

Unfortunately, because of the limited categories of information available in NIBRS, it

is impossible to draw confident conclusions

about the dynamics and motives that might

specially characterize acquaintance kidnaping. Nevertheless, NIBRS data are consistent with case material suggesting that

certain specific types of crimes are encompassed within the acquaintance kidnaping

category. For example, one specific type of

acquaintance kidnaping is the situation

where boyfriends or former boyfriends kidnap girlfriends (32 percent of the acquaintance kidnaping of teenage female victims)

to seek revenge for being spurned, force a

reconciliation, commit a sexual assault, or

perhaps evade parents who want to break

up the relationship. Another type of acquaintance kidnaping is related to gang activity: for example, the situation where

teenagers abduct other teenagers in order

to intimidate, recruit, or retaliate against

them. A third type of acquaintance kidnaping involves family friends or employees

(for example, babysitters) who remove children from their home for the purpose of

sexual assault or perhaps retaliation against

the family. Such variety of offenders and

motives may make acquaintance kidnaping

more difficult to typify than family or

stranger kidnaping, but it is nevertheless

instructive in that it highlights the importance of obtaining data on a larger number

of cases for the purposes of profiling.

There is no easy explanation for why

acquaintance kidnaping involves more injury than stranger kidnaping. It may be the

combination of more teenage victims who

would be inclined to resist and the fact that

intimidation is a more common motive for

these crimes, which results in the use of

more force and thus more injury. It may

also be that police are less likely to think of

kidnaping as an element in an acquaintance

crime (and thus less likely to record kidnaping as an additional offense in the NIBRS

database) unless the victim is injured.

It is also instructive to examine the discrepancies between the pictures of nonfamily

kidnaping presented in NIBRS data and

those found in the data collected by the earlier NISMART, which conducted an independent review of police files (abduction, missing persons, homicide, and sexual assault

files) in 1988 (Finkelhor, Hotaling, and

Sedlak, 1990). NISMART data record fewer

acquaintance and juvenile perpetrators but

substantially more weapon usage. Another

significant discrepancy is in the percentage

of kidnaping incidents associated explicitly

with sexual assault. In NISMART, sexual assault appeared to be a motive in two-thirds

of the nonfamily abductions known to police

(Asdigian, Finkelhor, and Hotaling, 1995),

whereas in NIBRS, only 15 percent of nonfamily kidnaping (of both male and female

victims) was coded with the additional

crime of sexual assault.

Figure 7: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim

and Presence of Firearm, Knife, or Blunt Object

Note: Percentages may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping Stranger Kidnaping

1%<1%

<1%

77%

10%

3%

1%

4%

2%

17%

Firearm None Present Knife Blunt Object

98% 86%

Figure 8: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Offender’s Relationship to the Victim

and Victim’s Injury

Note: Percentages may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping

Major Injury Minor Injury No Injury

Stranger Kidnaping

3%

75%

1%

20%

13%

3%

4%

96% 85%
7

There are several possible explanations for

these differences. The methodology used in

NISMART to look for abductions was to directly sample police departments’ sexual

assault files but not their general assault or

robbery files, which may have exaggerated

the portion of kidnaping that was associated

with sexual assault. At the same time,

NISMART’s direct access to police files may

have revealed sexual assault motives or

intentions that are not captured when officers apply NIBRS codes. It is certainly surprising that so much of the stranger and

acquaintance kidnaping recorded in NIBRS

has no other crime associated with it, because these types of kidnaping are generally considered as primarily a method to

facilitate other offenses. One problem might

be that law enforcement officials, continuing the UCR tradition with its single-code

limit, do not take advantage of the multiple

crime codes allowed under NIBRS and fail

to record adjunct or secondary offenses.

For whatever reason, NIBRS may underrepresent the motive of sexual assault and

the presence of other crimes in acquaintance and stranger kidnaping.

Another conspicuous discrepancy between

NIBRS and NISMART data concerns the

relative occurrence of family and nonfamily

abduction. The NISMART data suggest

that the overwhelming majority of abductions were committed by family members

(Finkelhor et al., 1990), whereas family abductions actually constitute only a slight

minority of all kidnapings recorded in

NIBRS. However, the NISMART family abduction estimates come from a national

household survey, not police records, and,

although 44 percent of the families surveyed

indicated they had contacted police, relatively little is known about how such reports

are recorded or tabulated in crime statistics. The discrepancy between the NISMART

and NIBRS data suggests that many, if not

most, calls to police about family abductions are not recorded as crimes.

Findings on kidnaping from the NIBRS jurisdictions also are inconsistent with other

kidnaping studies—for example, those

based on FBI data or national inquiries of

police investigators (Boudreaux, Lord, and

Dutra, 1999; Hanfland, Keppel, and Weis,

1997)—concerning characteristics such as

the identity of perpetrators or the incidence of serious injury and death. These

differences can almost all be traced to the

different samples selected in different

studies—for example, samples of kidnaping

homicides. What is really highlighted by

all of these comparisons is the absence of

a consensus about how segments of the

population of kidnaped children should be

aggregated or subdivided for most useful

policy analysis. NIBRS data provide yet

another, but by no means a complete or

conclusive, perspective on the problem.

The inconclusiveness of findings about

kidnaping point to the main policy needs

in this area. First, substantially more research about this crime—which has attracted a large amount of public attention

but rather little scientific study or profiling—

is needed. Second, research about the

problem would benefit if those studying

and collecting data about it would adopt a

common set of definitions and categories

within which to subdivide and analyze it.

This uniformity has been achieved in regard to other crimes (e.g., sexual assault)

in recent years as a result of national data

systems like the UCR, but kidnaping was

outside the purview of this system. The

inclusion of kidnaping in NIBRS offers the

opportunity to achieve that uniformity

now. Third, in the light of this and in order

to increase the usefulness of NIBRS for the

study of kidnaping, NIBRS may need to

make a special effort to help local agencies

report kidnaping in uniform and consistent ways, since it is a crime that may be

handled in disparate fashions from jurisdiction to jurisdiction.

Conclusion

NIBRS, as it grows, will increasingly facilitate new insights into the dynamics of

crime. This may be nowhere more apparent than in dealing with the crime of kidnaping, for which there have been few data

sources. Although the quality of NIBRS data

on kidnaping is unclear, this new national

database will allow a more systematic analysis of kidnaping across jurisdictions and

over time. The availability of such data may

even prompt efforts to better define and

categorize the crime of kidnaping and to

improve the reliability of its coding. These

Table 1: Key Differences Between Acquaintance and Stranger Abductions

Percentage of Victimizations With Characteristic

Characteristic Acquaintance (n=244) Stranger (n=221)

Any juvenile offender 27 8

Any female offender 17 5

Teenage victim 71 57

Home or residence location 63 22

Outside location 22 58

Injury to victim 25 15

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Figure 9: Juvenile Kidnaping, by Offender’s Relationship to the

Victim and Time of Day

Note: Percentages may not total 100 percent because of rounding.

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation, 1997.

Family Kidnaping Acquaintance Kidnaping

Morning (6–12) Afternoon (12–6) Evening (6–12)

Stranger Kidnaping

Night (12–6)

28%

41%

27%

3%

36%

35%

19%

11%

44%

35%

6%

15%
PRESORTED STANDARD

POSTAGE & FEES PAID

DOJ/OJJDP

PERMIT NO. G–91

Bulletin NCJ 181161

U.S. Department of Justice

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The Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention is a component of the Office of Justice Programs, which also includes

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are small but crucial steps on the path to

improving law enforcement’s understanding of and response to this crime.

References

Asdigian, N.L., Finkelhor, D., and Hotaling, G.T.

1995. Varieties of non-family abduction of children and adolescents. Criminal Justice and Behavior 22(3):215–232.

Boudreaux, M.C., Lord, W.D., and Dutra, R.L.

1999. Child abductions: Age-based analyses of

offender, victim, and offense characteristics in

550 cases of alleged child disappearance. Journal of Forensic Sciences 44(3):531–545.

Burgess, A.W., and Lanning, K.V. 1995. An Analysis of Infant Abductions. Alexandria, VA: National

Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Federal Bureau of Investigation. 1997. National

Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS). (12

States only). Computer file. Tabulations undertaken by Crimes Against Children Research

Center. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of

Justice, Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G.T., and Sedlak, A. 1990.

Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway

Children in America: First Report. Washington,

DC: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice

Programs, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

This Bulletin was prepared under grant

number 98–JN–FX–0012 from the Office of

Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,

U.S. Department of Justice.

Points of view or opinions expressed in this

document are those of the authors and do not

necessarily represent the official position or

policies of OJJDP or the U.S. Department of

Justice.

Finkelhor, D., Hotaling, G.T., and Sedlak, A. 1991.

Children abducted by family members: A national household survey of incidence and episode characteristics. Journal of Marriage and

the Family 53(2):805–817.

Finkelhor, D., and Ormrod, R. 2000. The Characteristics of Crimes Against Juveniles. Bulletin.

Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Justice,

Office of Justice Programs, Office of Juvenile

Justice and Delinquency Prevention.

Forst, M.L., and Blomquist, M. 1991. Missing

Children: Rhetoric and Reality. New York, NY:

Lexington Books.

Hanfland, K.A., Keppel, R.D., and Weis, J.G. 1997.

Case Management for Missing Children Homicide

Investigation. Washington State: Attorney General

of Washington.

Lanning, K.V., and Burgess, A.W. 1995. Child Molesters Who Abduct: Summary of the Case in Point

Series. Alexandria, VA: National Center for Missing and Exploited Children.

Plass, P.S. 1998. A typology of family abduction

events. Child Maltreatment 3(3):244–250.

Prentky, R.A., Knight, R.A., Burgess, A.W., Ressler,

R., Campbell, J., and Lanning, K.U. 1991. Child

molesters who abduct. Violence and Victims

6(3):213–224.

Snyder, H.N., and Sickmund, M. 1999. Juvenile

Offenders and Victims: 1999 National Report.

Acknowledgments

This Bulletin was prepared by David

Finkelhor, Ph.D., Professor of Sociology, and Director, Crimes Against

Children Research Center, University

of New Hampshire; and Richard

Ormrod, Ph.D., Research Scientist,

Crimes Against Children Research

Center, University of New Hampshire.