DOI: 10.3886/icpsr04566.v1
title: National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART), 1999
title: NISMART-2
title: Version 1

description: The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted,
Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) were undertaken in response
to the mandate of the 1984 Missing Children's Assistance Act
(Pub.L. 98-473) that requires the Office of Juvenile Justice and
Delinquency Prevention (OJJDP) to conduct periodic national incidence
studies to determine the actual number of children reported missing
and the number of missing children who are recovered for a given
year. The first such study, NISMART-1 (NATIONAL INCIDENCE STUDIES OF
MISSING, ABDUCTED, RUNAWAY, AND THROWNAWAY CHILDREN (NISMART), 1988
[ICPSR 9682]), was conducted from 1988 to 1989 and addressed this
mandate by defining major types of missing child episodes and
estimating the number of children who experienced missing child
episodes of each type in 1988. At that time, the lack of a
standardized definition of a "missing child" made it impossible to
provide a single estimate of missing children. As a result, one of the
primary goals of NISMART-2 was to develop a standardized definition
and provide unified estimates of the number of missing children in the
United States. Both NISMART-1 and NISMART-2 comprise several component
datasets designed to provide a comprehensive picture of the population
of children who experienced qualifying episodes, with each component
focusing on a different aspect of the missing child population. The
Household Survey -- Youth Data and the Household Survey -- Adult Data
(Parts 1-2) are similar but separate surveys, one administered to the
adult primary caretaker of the children in the sampled household and
the other to a randomly selected household youth aged 10 through 18 at
the time of interview. The Juvenile Facilities Data on Runaways (Part
3) sought to estimate the number of runaways from juvenile residential
facilities in order to supplement the household survey estimate of the
number of runaways from households. And the Law Enforcement Study
Data, by case perpetrator, and victim, (Parts 4-6) intended to
estimate the number of children who were victims of stereotypical
kidnappings and to obtain a sample of these cases for in-depth study.
description: ICPSR data undergo a confidentiality review and are altered when necessary to limit the risk of 
				disclosure. ICPSR also routinely creates ready-to-go data files along with setups in the major 
				statistical software formats as well as standard codebooks to accompany the data. In addition to 
				these procedures, ICPSR performed the following processing steps for this data collection:
			   		Performed recodes and/or calculated derived variables.; Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes..
description: Response Rates: 
					Part 1: 35 percent. Part 2: 61 percent. Part 3: The
JFS response rate for the institution-level interview was 100 percent.
A total of 74 facility-level interviews were completed from the 75
sampled facilities. Three of the sampled facilities were found to be
non-operational (hence ineligible), while a fourth sampled facility
actually consisted of three separate juvenile residential facilities,
all of which were included in the study. Thus, all in-scope facilities
participated in the facility-level interviews. The JFS response rate
for the episode-level interview was 93 percent. A total of 116
episode-level interviews were targeted. Episode-level interviews were
successfully completed for 108 of these targeted episodes, yielding a
93 percent completion rate. Parts 4-6: Phase 1 mail survey -- 91
percent, and Phase 2 followup telephone interview -- 99.3 percent.
Overall -- 90.6 percent.
description: Datasets: 
					
						DS0: Study-Level Files
						DS1: Household Survey - Youth
						DS2: Household Survey - Adult
						DS3: Juvenile Facilities Data on Runaways
						DS4: Law Enforcement Data - Case
						DS5: Law Enforcement Data - Perpetrator
						DS6: Law Enforcement Data - Victim
description: computer-assisted telephone interview (CATI)
description: telephone audio computer-assisted self interview (TACASI)
description: telephone interview
description: Parts 1-2: Households with at least one child aged 18 or
younger who had lived in the house for two consecutive weeks in the 12
months prior to screening. Part 3: All group homes, juvenile detention
centers, residential treatment centers, and runaway and homeless youth
shelters serving the selected counties. Parts 4-6: All law enforcement
agencies serving the selected counties.
description: Parts 1-2: A list-assisted RDD (Random Digit Dial)
methodology was used to select a nationally representative sample of
telephone households from the GENESYS Sampling System frame.
Typically, a list-assisted RDD design is a one-stage random
selection process resulting in equal probabilities of selection
(EPSEM) design and no clustering, with each household treated as a
Primary Sampling Unit (PSU). A detailed description of the sampling
design is in HOUSEHOLD SURVEY METHODS TECHNICAL REPORT which is
included in this data collection. Part 3: A stratified, two-stage
sample design was applied. In the first stage, 30 Primary Sampling
Units (PSUs) were sampled from a listing of the national universe of
counties and groups of small, adjacent counties. The PSUs were
selected with probability proportionate to the number of children
(aged 0 to 17) according to the 1990 Census. Within the 30 PSUs, a
total of 922 eligible facilities were identified. This frame was
stratified by type of facility, and 75 facilities were sampled with
probability proportionate to size (PPS), using weighted capacity as
the measure of size. Parts 4-6: Nationally representative sample of
400 counties. Counties were selected with probabilities proportional
to size.