The article is long but comprehensive, please see if for the full discussion.
Agencies tout very high success rates, but some experts compare it to “crime control theatre”
On Sunday, March 22 of this year, a large swath of the population in Quebec was woken up at 4:25 a.m. as cellphones lit up and screamed. An Amber alert had been broadcast. Less than four hours later, the two missing children were thankfully found, unharmed, and the alert was cancelled.
Amber alerts cast wide nets in an effort to find abducted children and teenagers, but each time one is transmitted in Canada, we go through a predictable cycle. Many complain that these alerts cannot be turned off or muted, even in sleep mode, and that waking people up in the middle of the night to help them find a specific car that was last spotted 200 kilometres away is unnecessarily disruptive—with some even calling 911 to complain. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials remind us through the media that these alerts are only used when necessary and that they save lives.
Any subject tied to the safety of children is bound to evoke the deepest emotions. In fact, the crime that led to the creation of Amber alerts—and to their name—was monstrous enough that it’s no wonder it rallied influential people into building a system that could potentially prevent this kind of crime.
But warranted emotions aside, do Amber alerts even work? What little data we do have point to a system that has likely been oversold to us.
The only members of the public who might reasonably be expected to offer some help finding a license plate are driving, and aren’t supposed to be messing around with phones.
This built-in contradiction has always bothered me.
These days there are ALPR cameras everywhere, and it’s very hard to imagine John Q. Public is going to have a hot tip before our dystopian AI panopticon does. It has seemed obvious to me that, whatever their intention, the Amber alerts primarily function as copaganda: Persuading us that we live in a dangerous, unpredictable world, and that only the police can save us. By asking us for help locating license plates, while we’re at home asleep at 3AM.
Don’t amber alerts predate license plate cameras getting popularized by a little bit? Like mid 1990s, so there would have been a decent window before ALPR cameras really took up enough real estate to be useful
While I mostly agree with you, it is worth noting that vehicles can (and often do) have passengers accompanying a driver. They would be free to mess around on their phones when the alert goes out.
Yes for other children, it didn’t for us (but wasn’t amber alert that failed though, it was failure of police investigation.)
Anywho if you get an Amber alert, see a child/person in severe distress. Reach out or at least take note of what’s going on. It’s important.
My main issue with Amber Alerts is that they’re not mutable. If my phone is screaming at me, I’m going to hit mute before reading what’s on the phone. When I hit mute, the alert is gone. It’s simply nowhere to be found. I can’t read it in my notifications panel. It’s gone.
It needs to show up as both an alert AND a notification. It’s crazy that this isn’t standard (in android, at least).
I live in New Hampshire and Maine was so terrible with their amber/safety alerts that I shut them off entirely on my phone. I remember getting woken up at 2 or 3am for an abducted child, they knew it was a parent. Later they sent out an ‘extreme’ (whatever the highest level is) threat to human life after a road rage incident where 1 guy shot another guy at an intersection. I was 150 miles away. That is a heck of a radius to set for one guy with a pistol. They ought to save extreme for when a meteor is headed for us or something.
Sounds like the system needs tweaking to be less disruptive. Maybe with some actual rules on usage and reach? Especially restrictions on alerts during sleeping hours
Nobody wants to be on the receiving end of “WELL WHY DIDN’T THEY ISSUE AN AMBER ALERT???” when a kid is found dead.
How’d you turn yours off? They use a protocol on the phones that are designed so the user is unable to turn them off. Do you use a custom OS? -Or do you mean that you shut your entire phone off?
On my Pixel, stock os:
- settings
- safety & emergency
- wireless emergency alerts
Y’all spend fucking hours gooning, doom scrolling and posting about what your damn cat did each day. What can’t handle a 10-second interruption to your t-girl jerk hour?
Amber alerts aren’t emergency warnings. If you chose to ignore a warning about a tornado or a possible flood, that’s your problem. But out there is a kid that might need help, and all you’re asked to do is to report if you see something suspicious that’s matches the description.
If it means one less kid is going to end up on kiddie diddly island or found in a ditch, then send those alerts all day.
I thank you for your sacrifice and devastating hardship you have to face each time you get an amber alert like once or twice a year.
Have you ever heard the story about the boy who cry wolf?
Seems a bit counter-productive when 1/7 peoples want the government to disable it entirely while tech-saavy peoples will disable the system in their phone to not be bothered.
I haven’t got an amber alert in a long time. Probably because the first woke everyone up at two AM. Next morning the child was found safe with the parent who had legal custody the whole time. Now they have so many checks in place that the alerts are almost never worth sending
Shut mine off the first time it warned me in the middle of the night about something happening 400 miles away.
Police gotta stop crying wolf.
Police gotta stop crying wolf.
Lol reminds me of when Texas had a blue alert.
Now i see why the uk got one about not lighting barbeques, they were copying all of you.
I turned it off
What? Was this about Gas leak or something?
Forest fires, so the government sent everyone an urgent warning to stop using disposable barbeques.
What’s a disposable barbecue? I’m kinda guessing through context that you mean charcoal rather than gas powered?
Something like that: https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/81Clok5FFSL.AC_SL1500.jpg
As per the article, in Canada, Amber Alerts are sent at the top level. Meaning even if your phone lets you set different sounds for different levels of government alert, Amber Alerts are sent at the “Your life is in imminent danger if you don’t take immediate action” level every time.
I “hacked” my phone to disable the system, then downloaded an app that sends me equivalent notifications with the sound effects of my choosing.
Could you tell us what that app is?
And yes, the fact that they blast out amber alerts at the same level as “imminent nuclear attack” is unbelievably stupid. There’s no justification for it whatsoever.
Í live in Fort Worth, why the hell do I get amber alerts for Houston!? That’s a 6 hour drive at least…
Howdy neighborino
“Here’s Jose Flanders!”
“Buenos ding dong diddly Diaz senor!”
Amber alerts may not come out immediately when a child disappears. It could be hours later. It’s better that people are aware of a beat up red Toyota Camry that is expected to be transporting and abducted child than not.
The article says if a child is harmed, it usually happens within the first three hours.
Okay, the kid is harmed, but then what? Still a good way to find the abductor, get closure, find the body. Or should we just let them get away with it after 3 hours? Is that all that it takes in your head? A 3 hour statue of limitations?
Ok? Does that mean we should stop searching after 3 hours?
By the time you can verify the child is in danger odds are more than 3 hours have passed.
Many claims of child endangerment are really a parent (or grand parent) trying to mess with their EX who currently has custody of the child. The child is not in danger at all. The system needs to spend time verifying that the report is real before bothering thousands (or likely millions) of people.
Yep, which is why I don’t think that 6 hours away is necessarily too far for an amber alert. I think that’s extra true in a place like texas that’s so large that it may take a driver about 6 hours to get to a larger metro area from their starting spot. Maybe not 6 hours, but not a 30 min jaunt.
Yea, because after 3 hours it’s just too hard to find them, they could be anywhere. Only if we could find a way to get the help of the public or something. Many eyes are better than one.
Luckily the alerts can be turned off in the US. I don’t want to be woken up for something hundreds of miles away.
Am in the US and that is not the case.
Well, it may depend on your phone and os version, it wasn’t always the case.
You guys get so many interesting alerts. They really use it for a missing kid? Its just tsunami warning, rain warning or smoke warning for us.
