Code Adam is a missing child safety program created by Walmart, named in memory of Adam Walsh, who was abducted from a Sears in 1981.

It is a 6 step process as follows:

1. If a visitor reports a child is missing, a detailed description of the child and what he or she is wearing is obtained. Additionally, all exterior access to the building is locked and monitored; anyone approaching a door is turned away.
2. The employee goes to the nearest in-house telephone and pages Code Adam, describing the child’s physical features and clothing. As designated employees monitor front entrances, other employees begin looking for the child.
3. If the child is not found within 10 minutes, law enforcement is called.
4. If the child is found and appears to have been lost and unharmed, the child is reunited with the searching family member.
5. If the child is found accompanied by someone other than a parent or legal guardian, reasonable efforts to delay their departure will be used without putting the child, staff, or visitors at risk. Law enforcement will be notified and given details about the person accompanying the child.
6. The Code Adam page will be canceled after the child is found or law enforcement arrives.

No word on what the process is if a child is found, but the parents are missing.  But my guess is that they aren’t supposed to page the kids name and physical description over the PA, let the kid wander around for 15 more minutes and then let the kid go off with some stranger, like they did at the Vadnais Heights, MN, store a few weeks ago.

As stated above, Adam Walsh was abducted from a Sears store in FL.  The story goes, he was watching some older kids play some videogames and his mom (Revé) went off to do some shopping, and came back about 7 minutes later to find everyone gone.  There are rumors that the older kids were asked to leave the store, and Adam may have been ushered out of the store with them.  From there, Adam was abducted, and his severed head was found 2 weeks later.

“Convicted serial killer Ottis Toole confessed to the boy’s murder but was never tried for the crime. Although no new evidence has come forth, on December 16, 2008, police announced that the Walsh case was now closed as they were satisfied that Toole was the murderer of Adam Walsh. Ottis Toole died of liver failure on September 15, 1996.”

AMBER alerts, officially named “America’s Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response” were originally named for Amber Hagerman, a 9-year-old child who was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas in 1996.

U.S. Department of Justice has the following criteria in order to issue an AMBER alert.

1. Law enforcement must confirm that an abduction has taken place
2. The child must be at risk of serious injury or death
3. There must be sufficient descriptive information of child, captor, or captor’s vehicle to issue an alert
4. The child must be 17 years old or younger

These rules are not always followed:

A Scripps Howard study of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in the United States in 2004 found that most issued alerts did not meet the Department of Justice’s criteria. Fully 50% (117 alerts) were categorized by the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children as being “family abductions,” very often a parent involved in a custody dispute. There were 48 alerts for children who had not been abducted at all, but were lost, ran away, involved in family misunderstandings (for example, two instances where the child was with grandparents), or as the result of hoaxes. Another 23 alerts were issued in cases where police didn’t know the name of the allegedly abducted child, often as the result of misunderstandings by witnesses who reported an abduction.

70 of the 233 AMBER Alerts issued in 2004 (30%) were actually children taken by strangers or who were unlawfully traveling with adults other than their legal guardians.

The only other thing I have to say about AMBER alerts is you can sign up to get them texted to your cell phone.  I will do this once they start following the US DOJ rules to eliminate false alarms.

There are some things in here I meant to block quote, but couldn’t get it formatted right, but my source information was wiki, wiki, and wiki.