Last week I wrote a story for The Crime Report, a fine online publication of the John Jay Center on Crime, Media and Justice in New York. The story, which you can find here:

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centers around the University of Grenada’s  (Spain) joint initiative with the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification, DNA-Prokids. The nonprofit (and brainchild of Dr. Jose Lorente) has already compiled a successful record of bringing back home abducted children. These youngters are stolen for many reasons: adoptive purposes, to be indentured as servants or sex slaves, impressed as soldiers and even used to harvest their organs for sale.

Please read about the efforts of the fine people at DNA-Prokid and the job they’re doing. 

Gail Coontz is on trial for shooting her 14 and 10 year olds and holding a therapist hostage. The defense is going for insanity — something I’ve rarely seen work. The real kicker to this case is that Kentucky child welfare authorities apparently checked on this family prior to the murders and determined Gail Coontz was not a threat to her children. This would be laughable if it were not so tragic.

Time and again, child welfare agencies stick with the old party line of keeping the family together, rather than looking out for the basic safety of the children. Don’t believe me? There are way too many little graves that testify to this stupidity.

We need better-trained child welfare workers in this country.

Here are two things you should teach your kids to avoid stranger abductions:

If your child is on the street and a stranger in a car approaches, tell him to run the opposite direction of what the car is traveling. It takes time to turn around. Have your child scream, “Fire!” over and over as he is running away.

If anyone tries to touch or pick up your child, teach him to yell “I DON’T KNOW HIM!” Many people see a crying child being led or carried by another person and think it’s a family situation.