Varieties of Nonfamily Abduction of Children and Adolescents

Abstract

A sample of 396 cases of nonfamily abduction was extracted from police records in a national survey of law enforcement agencies. Incidents that fit the public stereotype of a kidnapping (children who were taken by strangers and kept for an extended period of time or moved a long distance) were much less prevalent than incidents that simply met legal definitions for abduction. The former—stereotypical abductions—also tended to involve more Caucasian preteen victims who were taken but not sexually assaulted. The majority of legal-definition abductions, in contrast, was characterized by the forcible sexual assault of teenage girls. Legal-definition abductions that did not involve sexual assault occurred in the context of a diverse range of other crimes, including robbery attempts, hijackings, acts of revenge, intimidation and terrorizing, and dating violence. The findings support the idea of distinguishing between stereotypical and legal-definition abducations and highlight the need to orient efforts aimed at the prevention of nonfamily abduction toward those at risk for sexual assault.