Missing Child Statistics

Finding Missing Children - Professional Caseworkers with a 24/7 Hotline

Frantic parents and law enforcement officials call our hotline and talk with caseworkers 24 hours a day; 7 days a week; 365 days a year. Initial phone calls with parents average an hour, with numerous follow-up calls. We counsel parents on ways to search for their children. When appropriate, we create and send personalized missing child posters to each family, offer poster faxing services to parents and police, place missing child posters on our website, forward leads to law enforcement officials, and have our Rapid Response Team eVolunteer force distribute missing child posters across the nation.

We are the national leader in this field. Our caseworkers attend daily to the anguish felt by parents of missing children. We turn that anguish into action. Eighty-five percent of our missing children come home safely.

Missing Child Cases Per State As of 2017

Polly Klaas Foundation Case Management Statistics - 2016

Case TypeTotal # of CasesLocated SafeLocated DeceasedTotal LocatedClosed for Other ReasonsStill Actively LookingPercent Recovered
Endangered Runaway 266 230 1 231 6 29 87%
Family Abduction 29 21 0 21 3 5 72%
Non-Family (includes Stranger Abductions) 1 0 0 0 0 1 0%
Lost 0 0 0 0 0 0 N/A
Suspicious Circumstances 2 0 0 0 0 2   43%
Unknown Circumstances 0 0 0 0 0 0 N/A
Totals 298 251 1 267 9 37 90%
 
MISSING CHILD CASES - 1994 thru 2015 9,523
MISSING CHILD CASES - 2016 298
TOTAL # OF CASES HANDLED (1993-2012) 9,821
 

Additional child abduction facts: