When a child is abducted, the abductor needs two things: time and anonymity.
The Missing Children's Society of Canada (MCSC) is working with Canadian law enforcement agencies to take both of those advantages away.
It started with a question. In 2012, Amanda Pick, the organization's executive director, approached members of the Calgary Police Service (CPS) and asked how they could help bring more awareness to missing children's cases.
From that, came the Search Program, dubbed Milk Carton 2.0 by the media, a program to support law enforcement in reuniting missing children with their families.
"It touches people deeply when a child goes missing," says Pick. "I think the biggest part of our program is that we've built a technology that allows people to be involved and engages them before anything happens."
Leveraging technology
The Search Program is a rapid-response network that uses geographically specific social media and mobile applications through push notifications to share real-time information on missing or abducted children.
Individuals and companies can donate their social media feeds and become part of an online search party. Posts will appear on their feeds when a child goes missing near them, with details and descriptions from police, including what to look for and how to notify police if they have any pertinent information.
"The public has a role to play in missing persons investigations — they're the eyes on the road and we need to leverage that," says Insp. Carole Bird, with the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains. "We need to reach as wide an audience as possible."
Insp. Cliff O'Brien, with CPS, says when Pick approached him, he realized the potential of such a program for missing children investigations.'
"It's a relatively simple, but very powerful tool," says O'Brien. "Like most of us, people get a hundred emails a day but a push notification goes straight to your phone, people have the information right there in their hands right away."
During their pilot phase, CPS tested the technology on a case involving a 14-year-old girl who'd run away with a violent man in his 30s. They suspected the pair may have fled to British Columbia and so they activated CodeSearch, an app-based rapid response program, in the relevant areas.
"It went viral on social media, we were able to reach 1.3 million people," says O'Brien. "And what happened was the suspect was so paranoid because his photograph was everywhere and her photograph was everywhere that they ended up returning to Calgary and we were able to arrest him."
Advancing cases
This past May, Pick brought the program to the Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police (CACP). The Search Program received a unanimous vote of endorsement and the board then asked its members to look at how they could become involved and use it to support traditional investigative methods.
Insp. Gibson Glavin, with the RCMP in Alberta, has been working with Pick to bring the program to the province. He says, so far, it's been a great tool for cases that don't meet the criteria of an Amber Alert.
"We'd be getting calls from members demanding to have a missing child put on Amber Alert," says Glavin. "But they'd be missing one or two criteria and, understandably, they'd be frustrated. This fills that gap."
The RCMP in Alberta are currently working on making its members aware of the availability of the program. It's even been written into the provincial Amber Alert policy so members will know the alternative options available to them in a timely manner.
"The longer a child is missing, the odds of getting them back to their family safely go down and down," says Glavin. "This gives us a huge leap on the timeliness of getting information out to the public."
Pick says that while it might be a lofty goal, MCSC is hoping to see an end to child abduction in Canada. And a good start to that goal is ensuring abductors are recognized and caught immediately.
"When we first started talking about putting this program together, it seemed completely overwhelming," says Pick. "But then we thought, 'What if that child's picture was everywhere? What if that abductor couldn't drive down a street without being recognized?' When everyone in the community is on the lookout — I think that's when we're going to see real change."