Where do these children go?

[Prometeo liberado]

OK, I understand that children go missing, run away or are kidnapped. It makes me sick to no end. The problem I have is that the numbers for some reason don't add up to me. This from The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children:
"An estimated 800,000 children are reported missing each year – more than 2,000 children every day."
800,000 every year? Do the math and what you have over the span of ten years is mind boggling. So if these numbers are cooked so to speak then maybe I could understand. Read:
"The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) was established in 1984 as a private, nonprofit 501(c)(3) organization working in partnership with the U.S. Department of Justice to find missing children, reduce the incidence of child sexual exploitation and prevent child victimization."
A government agency running up the numbers to justify it's own existence, maybe. I didn't do enough research to justify these numbers, probably.
Second, if these numbers are correct then where do all those little ones go? There would have to be millions of kids out there just roaming, I assume.
So this is a two parter.
1. Are the numbers correct?
2. Where do these children go?
Please do me a favor and keep the kiddie jokes clean, or if they aren't then somewhat funny.

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Reported missing: "Hello, my child is missing!" Police Officer the Next day: "We found him at this friend's place."

Many are found, many re-run away.

edit: also remember that once someone has reported their child missing that number goes into the national count for the year regardless of whether or not they are later found.

[Vyacheslav Brolotov]

NEW CONSPIRACY THEORY

Anyways, these numbers are obviously not exactly correct, but I do not think they are fabricated as a plot to give justification for the existance of the American government. I think that these are honest numbers and that the United States government's actions against the trend of missing children are not part a capitalist conspiracy, but instead sincere attempts at helping the families of America.

For your second question, these children either run away or are kidnapped (including other things). Where they go usually depends on where they want to go after they run away or where their kidnappers take them.

So, I would not attack this aspect of the United States government. Every nation should fight against child endangerment, exploitation, and kidnapping. Whether the United States' child protection program and its partnership with NCMEC is actually fixing the problem enough is up to debate.

[milkmiku]

I know for a FACT, that kids in boys homes that run away are immediately reported as "run away", sometimes when the return staff don't even bother to do a follow up.

I worked with a local boys home as a night staff for about 3 years and every night we'd do a roster check and report those we could not find to the police as "run away".

Fudge numbers make getting support easier.

It is the exact same reason the FBI goes after people who download child porn but expends little effort in catching the producers.

Dem numbers get the money.

[Prometeo liberado]

Wow. Thanks for all of that. Even if a small fraction of say 700,000 are abducted, say 50,000 kids, where are they? How could we literally lose 50,000 kids every year and not notice?

[TheGodlessUtopian]

Wow. Thanks for all of that. Even if a small fraction of say 700,000 are abducted, say 50,000 kids, where are they? How could we literally lose 50,000 kids every year and not notice?

Such kids remain underground/ change their identities, move out of the country, and are killed or die. Some live off the grid or with people whom teh state doesn't reconize as their legitimate parents so they are still classified as "missing."

[Prometeo liberado]

I don't know. So many bodies and nothing to show that they lived other than a few memories.:(