Child Abduction Response Team (CART)

Why Have a Pre-planned Response? 58,200 children are victims of non-family abductions each year 100 – 200 of those victims are stereotypical kidnappings Approximately ½ of these victims are sexually assaulted during the commission of the crime Statistics from NISMART II

When a Child is Killed 49% are murdered in less than 1 hour 74% are murdered within 3 hours 91% are murdered within 24 days 99% are murdered within 7 days Statistics from the Washington State Attorney General’s Report on Missing Child Homicides

It is likely that the classic non-family abduction will require a multi-agency response Are We Ready?

Child Abduction Response Team A formalized multi-agency response to abducted, missing and endangered children

What is the Purpose of CART? To establish a multi-agency child abduction team that will respond to abducted, missing and endangered child cases in a dynamic, timely and efficient manner

Inter-Agency Approach Shared financial and personnel resources Provides expert resources to augment organized investigative efforts Assures the victim family and community that all resources are utilized for the successful recovery of the child

Policy Issues to Be Addressed Liability CART resources and use of equipment Mutual aid/concurrent jurisdiction Officer injury Use of force/litigation Pursuits

Policy Issues to Be Addressed (cont.) Overtime Command structure Briefing of agency heads/confidentiality Media releases CART deployment length of time resources are made available

Policy Issues Once policy issues are resolved then they need to be documented Tools for solidifying documentation include: Memorandums of Understanding Protocols SOPs/Department Directives or General Orders Letters of Agreement

Team Responsibilities Phase I Develop a response plan Response criteria Incident command structure Lead agency designation/CART Coordinator Assignments

Team Responsibilities Phase II Develop a best practice policy regarding missing/abducted children for recommendation to member agencies

Other Responsibilities Seek training for team members Develop exercises for team training and testing Respond to missing and abducted child cases as set forth by the response plan Develop an after-action report on full scale responses to be presented to the agency heads of the member agencies

Responsibilities (cont.) Develop and maintain a response manual for use by investigative members of the team Develop and maintain a resource manual to ensure immediate availability of resources

Proven Model Training programs from January 2006 through  December 2017 yielded the following: 279 active teams representing 48 states, District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Canada When deployed, CART has proven to be a successful investigative tool in the safe recovery of children CART training programs from January 2006 - December 2017, have reached 5232 team members representing 48 US states/territories, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, and Canada • As of January 2018, there are 279 active teams representing 48 US states and territories; and two international teams

How Do We Bring CART to Our Community? Leadership: Ensure Chief Executive Officer (CEO) commitment Establish a Steering/Oversight committee Meet regularly until the team is established Designate a team leader who will work diligently to see the process through Support the efforts of team members

Advice from Successful CART Programs Be flexible Choose motivated and committed people Do not give up working on your plan Do not reinvent the wheel Check your ego at the door Do not put all your eggs in one basket Educate

Lessons Learned Keep the focus on finding the child Have a plan and use the plan Realize it is a work in progress Do not delay in deploying your team

AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program Contact Information AMBER Alert Training and Technical Assistance Program A U.S. Department of Justice Initiative Administered through the National Criminal Justice Training Center of Fox Valley Technical College Phone: 877-71-AMBER (877-712-6237) Email: askamber@fvtc.edu Website: www.amberadvocate.org