New Found Hope

Kidnappings in the United States as well the world are a big problem. There are various different things being done such as the Amber Alert as well as the GPS on children’s phones but that is not enough. This is why I purpose the Idea of voluntary micro chipping of children. There are so many benefits that could come from this idea. In the end, if this idea really takes off the amount of kidnappings will dramatically decrease.
This subject is particularly important to me because I work with children currently. I work in a day care with sixteen two year olds. Although there are times I want to pull my hair out because they are wild some days, they mean the world to me. They are so innocent and don’t know the difference between strangers and people they know. It would be so easy to take a child. So I have thought of an idea that could potentially change the outlook of kidnappings among other things. I believe if families had the choice of micro chipping their children at a young age it would cut down on kidnappings. The micro chip would be placed in an area that no one would know about except for the people who have placed the micro chip in. This would cut down on the idea that the micro chip could be removed during a kidnapping. This procedure would be completely optional. So in the case that a child was abducted the parents would call a number and the dispatcher would immediately type in the serial number on the chip and then the child would be located by GPS. When the child gets older then they can decide for themselves if the would like to have the chip removed. I am going to research more on approximately how much it would cost to have this procedure done on a human. I am hoping that maybe if the cost was as much as it would be to get an animal micro chipped so many people would be more willing to get their child micro chipped. I do see this procedure being feasible because it can be done to a human, it is completely optional for people, and finally it can be removed later in life. The reason many people are against this idea because it would take away from their freedoms so to speak because it would be easy access for the government to watch people. While that may be true and there is really no way of knowing this but the pro’s completely outweigh the con’s. The micro chipping of humans would not only help in cases of kidnappings it would also help with children who run away. There are more teenagers running away then ever. To most parents the loss of their child is most devastating. With micro chipping the chance of finding a run away are great rather than trying to find them with posters, news broadcasts ect. It’s a dangerous world out there and not many run a way’s realize that until it is too late. With micro chipping we could potentially prevent run a way’s and kidnappings because people would know there is no use to do it because they will be found! This is a great idea in my personal opinion because the minute a child goes missing there is a greater chance we could find the child unharmed rather than doing the Amber Alert.
There are millions of kidnappings every year around the world (nationmaster.com). I have prepared to show a diagram of kidnappings that occur around the world. In the United States alone there are approximately three hundred children abducted every year. Almost every forty seconds another child goes missing (eyesofamerica.com). This is outrageous. But around the world millions more are being abducted. In the chart below it shows how many children are abducted in other countries. As adults, children look to us to be protectors and we are failing them by not doing more to help. The government has made plans to give are trying to give harsher punishments to kidnapper’s (house.gov/list/press/az01), but we are still not seeing much being done as you can tell from the charts below.
Colombia 66.8%
Mexico 16.4%
Brazil 6.6%
Philippines 6.3%
India 1%
Ecuador 0.9%
Nigeria 0.4%
South Africa 0.1%

In February 2007 the FDA approved the veri-chip which is a micro chip that is used to find medical records in people that were severely injured or killed (rb59.com). There has already been about twenty two hundred implanted into people’s arms all over the world. It is injected into the dermis of the skin. There are no stitches involved (rb59.com). If we applied this concept into children we could dramatically lower the kidnappings around the world. There are a few obstacles that would have to be thought out. The biggest obstacle I foresee is a child is abducted the kidnapped could just remove the devise. Well I have thought about this and I have come to the thought that if the medical staff keeps the location of the micro chip top secret it would eliminate this problem. There is a chance that it could leak out but at the same time the benefits far out see the risks. There is also the argument that later in life these children would not want to feel consistently watched and they want the chip removed, well that can be taken care of. The chip could be just as easily removed. The picture below show’s exactly how small the micro chip would be.



http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6237364/(October 15, 2004)
Oct. 13, 2004
In the end the reason why I am writing this paper is to show people that there is a problem in kidnappings and we need to do something more. I feel that if this idea is spread and people really catch onto this idea, I know that we will have a safer world!