…So my mom used to tell me, with alarm, on more than one occasion, while I was growing up. (I’m a man.)
If this true? I cannot tell if she was referring to statistics for the USA alone, or the whole world. I suspect that this statistic was arrived at by including figures such as gangs kidnapping rival gang members, or men who have traveled to some place voluntarily but then are held against their will by paramilitary forces or whatnot.
I don’t know about kidnappings, which seem pretty rare these days, but young white men are by far and away the most likely to get mugged.
The muggers want money and expensive phones. They choose the victims most likely to have them.
The answer would probably depend very much on whether ‘abduction of children by the non-custodial parent’ is included in the definition of ‘kidnapping’ (or counted as a separate offence).
Kidnap-rape gangs will of course beg to differ.
Did she mean globally? Quite a few young men of college age are kidnapped in Mexico, for example.
What are the categories? If one category is “adult males”, and another is “females between the ages of 12 and 12 1/2 years”, then it’s quite plausible. If, on the other hand, the categories are “adult male”, “adult female”, and “child”, not so much.
If we expand kidnappings world wide, I could see claim being correct. I don’t have any stats, but I suspect that the number of kidnapping being committed by Mexican Cartels, Nigerian pirates and Afghani warlords far outstrips the rare abjuctions in the US, and the demographics of those who put themselves in a position where they are in danger of being kidnapped may favor males.
Some statistics from the U.S. show females are more frequently kidnapped:
Never heard her elaborate on the other categories, but I suspect there were four in total: Adult men, adult women, underage boys and underage girls.
There’s also the category of “missing and presumed kidnapped” … the nasty shrewish wife waiting days for the husband to come home so she can nag him until oh-dark-thirty … yeah, she might report him kidnapped when he comes up missing …
“Kidnapped and presumed murdered” is one way out of child support payments as well …
Informative first response.
My WAG? Like with most crimes, most kidnapping victims are targeted by people they know. Since adult males are the group with the largest proportion of criminals, that implies that they’re also the ones who know the most criminals, which means they know the most kidnappers.
In other words, most kidnapping are essentially internal crimel world shenanigans - criminals kidnapping other criminals, and people who hang out with criminals. That means a disproportionate number of young men.