The National Center For Missing & Exploited Children's Texas Regional Office

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children's mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation; help find missing children; and assist victims of abduction and sexual exploitation, their families, and the professionals who serve them.

Description:
The Texas regional office of NCMEC is based in Austin, Texas, bringing the full resources of NCMEC to the region through a small number of expertly trained staff members.

NCMEC/Texas provides training for law enforcement and prosecutors with a particular emphasis on Internet-related crimes committed against children. In addition the office works with and assists government and non-government organizations in presenting prevention and education programs about child safety.

This office also provides case-management services to law enforcement and families through two case-management teams under the direction of NCMEC’s Missing Children Division.

Texas has special challenges because of its size and status in bordering Mexico. Also Texas is second only to California in the incidence of nonfamily-abduction cases1 and has more than 50,0002 of the nation’s more than 673,000 registered sex offenders.3

NCMEC/Texas is also ideally located to further the prevention of international child abductions, as well as the rescue of children and apprehension of criminals in these cases, the largest of which involve Mexico. With its 1,254 mile Mexican border,4 Texas is often a gateway to Mexico, as well as to Central and South America. At the same time, in the battle to protect children, its law-enforcement agencies have become national models, including the widely praised Dallas Police Department Sex Offender Apprehension Program (SOAP), the Texas Missing Children’s Clearinghouse, and others. The additional resources that NCMEC offers from the Texas regional office aids and enhances the work that is currently being done to target offenders and help keep children safer.

History:
On May 25, 1979, 6-year-old Etan Patz disappeared from the streets of New York City while on his way to school. The massive search efforts and media attention that followed focused the nation’s attention on the problem of child abduction and lack of plans to address it.

On July 27, 1981, 6-year-old Adam Walsh disappeared from a Florida shopping mall. His parents, John and Revé Walsh, immediately turned to law-enforcement agencies to help find their son. To their disappointment, there was no coordinated effort among law- enforcement to search for Adam on a state or national level, and no organization to help them in their desperation.

The momentum that began with the disappearance of Etan and Adam led to photographs of missing children on milk cartons and, ultimately, a nationwide movement. In 1984, President Reagan signed into law the Missing Children’s Assistance Act, establishing a national clearinghouse of information about missing and exploited children. The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children® (NCMEC) is designated by the U.S. Congress to fulfill this role, and opened its doors in Washington, DC in 1984.

In 1999, the Charles B. Wang International Children’s Building was dedicated to serve as the national headquarters for NCMEC and the “nerve center” for searching parents, law-enforcement, and missing and exploited children.

The Children’s Building, in the 75-year-old George Mason Building in historic Old Town, Alexandria, Virginia, serves as a memorial to victimized children. With NCMEC’s promise and commitment to its mission of finding missing children and preventing child victimization, the building is dedicated to their memory.

Contact person: Shannon Posern, Office Manager, (512) 465-2156

Office fax number: (512) 428-6927

Address:

PO Box 204330 Austin, TX 78720

Web Site: http://tx.missingkids.com

Last updated on June 30, 2009