Missing child law an
issue for HPD

Police review their policy on
reporting runaway children
after a study alleges lapses

Dozens of police departments nationwide, including the Honolulu Police Department, failed to report thousands of runaway, lost and abducted children in apparent violation of federal law, according to a first-of-its-kind study by the Scripps Howard News Service.

Honolulu police dispute the claim, saying it is in compliance with the National Child Search Assistance Act passed by Congress in 1990.

But HPD says it is reviewing its procedures with regards to runaways and missing children.

Steps to take if your child is missing Think your child might be missing? Here are some guidelines that may help: » If you think your child is missing from home, first make a rapid, but thorough search of your house, checking closets, laundry piles, under the beds, inside old refrigerators -- anywhere a child might crawl or hide. » If you don't find your child, immediately call local police. Be ready to provide a recent photograph, all necessary biographical information and a description of what your child was wearing. » Tell police you want them to immediately report your child to the National Crime Information Center Missing Persons File. Federal law requires that police accept your report without a waiting period. The Polly Klaas Foundation further recommends that you ask for a case number with local police and the nine-digit NCIC number, which will be preceded by the letter M. Police may refuse to provide the NCIC number, citing security measures protecting NCIC methods and records. » If your child is missing in a store, contact the manager or security officer, then immediately call local police. Some stores have a "Code Adam" plan so that employees mobilize to look for a child. » After reporting to local police, contact the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children using its toll-free telephone number 800-THE-LOST (800-843-5678). National Center case managers will track your case and help you produce a poster to help locate your child. » If you are the parent or guardian of a missing child and want to be certain NCIC has been alerted, contact your case manager at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and ask for confirmation that there is an NCIC record. Sources: The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children; the Polly Klaas Foundation.

The National Child Search Assistance Act requires police to immediately accept any report of a missing child and file that report with the FBI's National Crime Information Center and the state's missing-child clearinghouse.

The study -- based on 37,665 missing children reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children from Jan. 1, 2000, through Dec. 31, 2004 -- found that 12 percent of those children were not reported to the FBI.

The study found that the rate at which police mishandle missing-child reports varies considerably from one city to the next. Only 9 percent of missing children in Los Angeles are not immediately reported to the FBI database, compared to a 31 percent failure rate in New York City.

HPD last year reported only 10 missing children to the FBI, but the city reported making 2,791 arrests of runaway children, according to the study.

"The low number of reported missing children is due to the department's current practice of not counting runaways as missing persons," Honolulu Police Chief Boisse Correa told Scripps Howard in a written statement.

LT. BRENT HUME of HPD's Juvenile Services Division said the federal definition states that a child is considered missing when he or she might have been "removed by another" without the consent of that child's legal custodian and his or her whereabouts are unknown.

"Basically this is somebody who is taken," Hume said. "Our definition of a runaway is someone who is voluntarily absent.

"Most of these runaways are chronics. ... They're mad at their mother, they take something and leave ... and they've done it six times before," he said.

According to an HPD spokeswoman, the department has "contacted an FBI attorney in West Virginia who says that HPD's interpretation" of the federal law is "valid."

However, when asked the name of the FBI attorney so the Star-Bulletin could verify the comments, HPD officials said they were not sure they could release the name to the media.

Honolulu FBI spokesman Arnold Laanui said the department has never had a problem with HPD's procedure of inputting runaway data first into the state's juvenile information database, and then choosing whether to put the data into the federal system.

"I don't remember any incidents where the police department negligently did not submit something," he said. "There's been no noncompliance."

THE SCRIPPS HOWARD study of computer files at the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children found that police departments failed to report at least 4,498 runaway, lost and abducted children.

The study said 17 of those unreported children are dead and 131 are still missing.

Among the 17 dead children whose cases were not reported to the FBI database was Kahealani Indreginal, 11, whose disappearance in 2002 made front-page news throughout Hawaii.

Her badly beaten body was found in a state park near Aiea Heights following a massive three-day search. Christopher Aki, the former boyfriend of Kahealani's older sister, was later convicted of manslaughter in the case.

"The local Federal Bureau of Investigation office was notified immediately and Honolulu Police Department investigators were able to develop a major lead for a suspect shortly after she was reported missing," Correa said, adding that there seemed little reason to enter the case into the FBI database.

HPD officials say they will input names of runaways into the NCIC database when they have information that the juvenile might have been able to leave the state.

Officials point to the case of a 17-year-old Oahu girl who ran away from home six months ago and was recently found in Michigan.

She was apparently working as a prostitute but turned herself in to Detroit police after her pimp allegedly beat her, according to HPD's Juvenile Services Division.

Detroit police found her name on the NCIC, the federal database for missing children nationwide.

"Our policy does work," Hume said. "We knew she had left the state and so she went into the system."

Hume and Juvenile Services Division Capt. Kurt Kendro said because of Hawaii's geographical location, it is very difficult for runaways to get on board a plane or boat to get to the mainland and that if they do, detectives know about it.

LORRAINE FAITHFUL of Sisters Offering Support, an organization that helps women exploited by prostitution, wondered if HPD should stop making a distinction about which cases to report to the FBI when it appears it doesn't have to.

"Hopefully, the right people are making those decisions," Faithful said.

"However, SOS would encourage HPD to take that extra step to report runaway kids to the federal government," she said.

"It's in their best interests."

Some state officials with the Missing Children's Center of Hawaii said the problem at HPD mostly involves staffing, and with 30 or 40 runaways at any given time -- some of whom run away 10 to 15 times each -- there is not enough staffing to log everyone into the federal database.

Juvenile records including runaways, arrests and adjudicated cases are entered into the state's Juvenile Justice Information System, which can be accessed by police, judiciary and public safety officials on every island.

"Right now, we're seeing if we can interface the JJIS system with the NCIC so that when you input information in one, it shows up in the other," state Deputy Attorney General Chris Young said. "We want to make it as efficient as possible and have as much information as we can get into the system.

"As far as the information not being inputted into the federal system ... it could help, but it's not a detriment at this point," Young said.

WHILE HPD SAID it is in compliance with federal law, in light of the Scripps Howard study, police are looking at other runaway cases to see if it could be "beneficial" to have them input into the NCIC system, according to Kendro.

"We are examining our policy and reviewing and developing criteria to put them into the system," he said.

Correa said his department "has chosen to review its reporting procedures for missing children and runaways" because of questions raised by the study.

"We are working toward being in compliance with the law," Honolulu police Capt. Frank Fujii told Scripps Howard.

Nationally, several law-enforcement officials expressed displeasure at the Justice Department's failure to alert them to their reporting failures.

"Nobody told us that we were not following this law," Fujii told Scripps Howard.

The National Child Search Assistance Act directs that the "attorney general may establish guidelines for the collection of such (missing children) reports, including procedures for carrying out the purpose of this act."

The Justice Department is also instructed "to publish an annual statistical summary of the reports received under this title."

Federal authorities would not answer whether either of these provisions has ever been followed since the 15-year-old law was enacted.