The Editor, Sir:

In 1996, nine-year-old Amber Hageman was abducted and murdered in Arlington, Texas. The tragic death of Amber Hageman led to one of the most effective nationwide child-abduction alert systems on the planet known as 'Amber Alert'. The name 'Amber' is also the 'acronym' for 'America's Missing: Broadcasting Emergency Response'.

Today, Amber Alerts are the norm in America and in many other countries throughout the world. In the state of Georgia, it's 'Levi's Call', Hawaii has 'Maile Amber Alert', in Arkansas it is called 'Morgan Nick Amber Alert', and in Malaysia, it's 'Nurin Alert'. All these child-abduction alert plans were named after children who went missing in those jurisdictions.

Brutal slaying

The recent abduction and brutal slaying of Ananda Dean presents a sad but timely opportunity for Jamaica to institute its own child-abduction alert system known as Ananda Alert. Ananda's plight is just one too many of such monstrous act of senseless violence perpetrated against children in Jamaica, and it's time for the entire nation to say enough is enough.

Under the various child abduction alerts in America, Amber Alerts are "distributed via commercial radio stations, satellite radio, television stations, and cable TV by the emergencies alert system", and these media distributions to the public are called 'child-abduction emergencies' (CBEs). CBEs are also transmitted by email, electronic traffic-condition signs on the highway, electronic reader-board signs in supermarkets, and also by wireless devices, such as 'SMS text messages'. Ontario has even gone as far as to offer Amber Alerts on the province's 9,000 lottery terminal screens.

Establish guidelines

To minimise false alerts, the US Department of Justice has established guidelines for the issuance of an Amber Alert. The guidelines are: 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; and, 4. The child must be 17 years old or younger.

An Ananda Alert child-abduction emergency system is long overdue in Jamaica where child abduction and murder have become the order of the day. It can be just as effective here as in other jurisdictions plagued with paedophiles, sexual perverts, and other criminal deviants who prey on the young.

Jamaica's Ananda Alert will, upon the abduction of a child, mobilise the entire nation as the eyes and ears of law enforcement through the lottery machines, mobile phones, and strategically placed reader-board signs, and may just intimidate the abductor into releasing his captive for fear of being detected.

I am, etc.,

BERTRAM SCOTT

jamaicanambassadors@yahoo.com

Kingston 2

Via Go-Jamaica