There are two major types of child abduction by a parent and by other persons. Abduction of a child by a natural or legal parent or guardian is defined as a parent of the child under the age of sixteen, who kidnaps the child without the appropriate consent. Abduction of a child by other persons is defined as a person other than child's parents who, without lawful authority or reasonable excuse, kidnaps or detains a child under the age of sixteen.
The latter can be further broken down into two categories: abductions by someone not known to the child and abductions by someone with some previous connection to the child.
Four different motivational types of child abduction have been identified: sexual, custodial, maternal desire, and “other”. The majority of child abductions are sexually motivated, and most child abductions involved female victims.
So why are children abducted? Interpretation of offender motivations and behaviors is often complicated and difficult to discern particularly in abduction cases where children simply disappear. In such cases, the ensuing investigation involves searching for both, the victim and an offender who may be a parent, relative, friend, acquaintance, authority figure, or an absolute stranger.
Research has shown that family abductions, motivated by domestic discord and custody disputes, overwhelmingly represent the most frequent type of child abduction. Short-term, non-family incidents where abductors release or return missing children, often before anyone knows they are gone, constitute another type of child abduction. These short-term cases often involve sexual molestation and other deviant behavior related to the abducted child.
Long-term, non-family abductions are the least common, and those that eventually result in child homicide happen rarely. These cases frequently come to the attention of police first as missing child reports and rarely result in a quick resolution. Motivations for long-term, non-family abductions typically involve sexual gratification, vengeance, financial gain through a ransom or extortion, deep-seeded and aberrant desire to kill, and a twisted type of maternal desire whereby an offender desires to possess a child and abducts primarily newborns and infants.
Sexually motivated abductions represent the most common type of non-family abduction and classically pose the highest risk to victim mortality. Long-term, non-family child abduction cases shock the public conscience and are a threat to the very fabric of our cultural interaction because of their potentially lethal nature. Accordingly, law enforcement must conduct expeditious, informed, and well-managed investigations to combat its effects.
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