Racial Profiling in Missing Person Cases

This past month, Jaycee Dugard was discovered alive in California eighteen years after she was abducted from her bus stop. Jaycee's childhood picture has graced the cover of People Magazine and has been given major airtime on all the major news networks. I often find myself fascinated by stories like this of missing people, however I cant help but notice the similarities between so many of the victims that get television airtime. Besides for Jaycee Dugard, Elizabeth Smart, Chandra Levy, Laci Peterson have all been major news stories in the past decade about missing people. Of the missing cases the media covers, almost all of them are about attractive, white, young women. The reality of missing cases is very different. 

According to these graphs from the FBI, the majority of missing people in the US are men, not women like the media portrays. And while the majority of missing people may be white, almost 30% are black, a number which is not accurately reported in the media. There are currently 47,6000 missing people worldwide, less than five cases are given true media attention every year. In 2004, when a young african- american girl, Tamika Huston vanished  her family and friend tried desperately to get her story covered by the media and were completely ignored. While NBC, CBS, and ABC gave a combined 941 minutes to cover Lacy Peterson in 2004, the best Tamika ever got was a 15 second mention on Fox. This is not a coincidence!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/8667821//- image and information source

Here are some pictures of popular missing persons cases: note the similarities

  Laci Peterson

  Chandra Levy

 Elizabeth Smart

 Jaycee Dugard