The Mason County Sheriff’s Office Enhances its Response Rate to Child Abductions

      When a child is reported missing, time is one of law enforcement’s greatest enemies. Every hour a child is missing, the likelihood of a safe recovery decreases. In order to ensure a high level of preparedness for child abduction cases, the Mason County Sheriff’s Office today announced the implementation of LOCATER, (Lost Child Alert Technology Resource).

     There are many challenges facing law enforcement personnel in missing child cases. One of the greatest is collecting and disseminating the child’s descriptive information quickly. With that goal in mind, LOCATER was created to provide the computer hardware and software needed to rapidly distribute critical missing child data on a local, statewide, or nationwide basis. This program enables law enforcement agencies to rapidly disseminate images and information about missing and abducted children to other law enforcement agencies, the media, and the public. Although it is designed for missing child posters, the technology may also be used for a number of purposes such as stolen vehicles, wanted persons and crime alerts.

     “I have looked at the LOCATER program and found it to be straightforward to use and believe it will prove to be a very effective tool for law enforcement”, said Sheriff Wayne Youell. “I want our county’s residents to have the comfort of knowing that the Mason County Sheriff’s Office will utilize all available resources to make certain that if, in the rare case a child from Mason County becomes missing, we will do all we can to ensure a safe recovery.”

     The Mason County Sheriff’s Office is pleased to be working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMED) to implement LOCATER. NCMEC has found that when pictures of missing children or abductors are made available to the public, one in six children is recovered as a direct result.

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