# 2200 kids missing everyDAY??!!!? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 31, 1999, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948 "1999-08-31T03:43:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/1 "1999-08-31T03:43:00Z")
I just read this statistic in an ad in the TIME magazine. Where do these children go? Heck, this is an epdemic!!! And how come it hasnt made headlines so far? ---
**Author:** ![DougC](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/7feea3/32.png) [@DougC](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DougC)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 4:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/2 "1999-08-31T04:08:00Z")
- - - Because it isn’t what you think it is. - - The figure represents all the reports filed of missing kids, it doesn’t take into account that most turn up again. Some stay at a friend’s house for the night without telling their parents, some some go to -or are taken- by relatives and are later found. Some do “run away” but only for a few days. In short, most turn up again. And even where kids do run away for a stretch of years, when they are found by parents, often the police aren’t notified and that case file is still outstanding (still counted as a “missing child”). - - IIRC, only about 170 kids disappear completely each year in the US, and are never found. That figure was a couple years back though. - MC ---
**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/3 "1999-08-31T07:18:00Z")
Lessee, 2200x365= 803,000 a year Even in a population exeeding 200 million this number seems way off. My guess is the author was trying to make some kind of point about the plight of something or other and inflated the numbers too make it seem epidemic. Be wary of these type figures and always do the math. I heard a PSA the other day claiming “every 3 seconds a woman is assulted in the US” Some quick calculator work reveals that over 105 million women suffer from domestic abuse each year. Either these numbers are misleading or the world is a much worse place than I thought. ---
**Author:** ![funneefarmer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/9fc348/32.png) [@funneefarmer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/funneefarmer)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 9:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/4 "1999-08-31T09:53:00Z")
Maybe the statistic is that 2200 kids are missing each day. Not 2200 go missing each day. For example on any given day 2200 kids are on the missing persons list, not 2200 kids are added to the missing persons list. It would seem to make more sense that way. ---
**Author:** ![Alphagene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Alphagene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alphagene)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/5 "1999-09-01T05:33:00Z")
> [@](#): > > I heard a PSA the other day claiming “every 3 seconds a woman is assulted in the US” Some quick calculator work reveals that over 105 million women suffer from domestic abuse each year. Or, more logically, that a smaller number of women are repeatedly abused by their spouse. ---
**Author:** ![torq](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/dfb087/32.png) [@torq](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/torq)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 5:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/6 "1999-09-01T05:42:00Z")
Saying that every 3 seconds a woman is assaulted in the US doesn’t mean that 105 million women are assaulted per year in the US (actually, the “105 million” figure must be due to a math error; I get 10.5 million instead). Domestic abuse is not a random event, and it would not surprise me if less than a million women account for the majority of those ten million incidents. ---
**Author:** ![system](https://global.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/original/2X/e/e489c3b7d8fce19c4b355dd4fc3f88cc39c34b87.png) [@system](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/system)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 6:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/7 "1999-08-31T18:41:00Z")
I read an ad that began, “A woman is attacked every three seconds,” and my first thought was, “well, she is obviously hanging out in the wrong neighborhood!” ---
**Author:** ![Shirley\_Ujest](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/45deac/32.png) [@Shirley\_Ujest](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shirley_Ujest)\ **Post date:** [August 31, 1999, 6:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/8 "1999-08-31T18:48:00Z")
Someone had a sig line that I love that is appropriate here: You are a victim once. After than you’re just volunteering. - Naomi Judd ---
**Author:** ![Lumpy](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lumpy/32/446_2.png) [@Lumpy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lumpy)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/9 "1999-09-01T00:14:00Z")
So just how many people do vanish and are never accounted for again? Given that it’s hard to get a perfect count of every last person in the country, but how many people would have to get abducted by aliens, or eaten by backwoods cannibals, or fall through timewarps, before it became noticable? ---
**Author:** ![Czarcasm](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/czarcasm/32/4050_2.png) [@Czarcasm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Czarcasm)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 3:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/10 "1999-09-01T03:20:00Z")
I don’t know, Lumpy. I tried taking a poll once. No-one responded. ---
**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 6:30am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/11 "1999-09-01T06:30:00Z")
I ran the numbers again and I still get 105,120,000. Could be my calculator or possibly I input an extra zero but the point remains. Producers of PSAs seem to lean heavily on wildly inflated numbers. Or perhaps they just pick a stastic and misrepresent it. Kidnapped children and battered spouses are a real problem in the US. It seems to me that by exagerating the problem they undermine their credibility. This can only serve to hurt their cause. ---
**Author:** ![Markxxx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/5daacb/32.png) [@Markxxx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Markxxx)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 6:56am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/12 "1999-09-01T06:56:00Z")
Ok lets go step by step. (now watch ME screw this up) 🙂 A woman is assulted every 3 seconds. That means 20 women every minute [There are 60 seconds in a minute so 60/3 = 20] That means every hour there are 1200 women assulted. [There are 60 minutes in one hour so 20 X 60 = 1200] That means there are 28,800 women assulted every day. [There are 24 hours in each day so 24 X 1200 = 28,800] That means there are 10,512,000 women assulted every year. [365 Days in a year so 28,800 X 365 = 10,512,000] Extra stuff here: Now there are about 273,000,000 people in the USA about 52% are female. [52% of 273,000,000 = 141,960,000] So about 7.4% of the population of women are assulted every year. [10,512.000/141,960,000] That doesn’t seem that out of line to me. Especially if it includes multiple assults. ---
**Author:** ![EvilGhandi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@EvilGhandi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EvilGhandi)\ **Post date:** [September 1, 1999, 7:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2200-kids-missing-everyday/2948/13 "1999-09-01T07:45:00Z")
Damn Mark your right. No Idea where the extra zero came from. I guess I have to find another PSA to rag on for my “inflated statistics” theory. With battered women, the “repeated assults” model is well known, so I guess that one isn’t all that misleading. Just goes to show, a calculator isn’t all you need to make a point. Appoligies.