John E. Bischoff III
Executive Director, Missing Children Division
National Center for Missing & Exploited Children
S: What was it like before 1984 when your child went missing?
JB: A police report would be filled, but there was limited communication between police agencies, work between police agencies local and police agencies at the state level. Or even cross-state for that fact. So there wasn't much communication, and the majority of the missing child cases prior to 1984 were handled at a local level. Depending on your locallity, depending on the ammount of services that you were able to recieve. Would you take for example the John Walsh case with Adam Walsh, who was abducted in Hollywood, FL: there were towns 20 miles away, 30 miles away, that did not have any indication that there was a child abduction who took place even in the state. So the communication just wasn't there.
S: What help could you get if your child went missing back then? Were there any organizations that people could go for help?
JB: I'm sure there were, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. Before 1984, a lot depended on where you lived and what services were offered locally. For example, in Louisville, KY, they had a lot of coordination of telling locals in Louisville about missing children cases in Louisville, before 1984. And it was more or less a good program that the federal government took a look at to see we need to duplicate this out beyond what the locality is able to do. But it really did depend on where you lived. There wasn't a set series of, you know, as a parent with a missing child, you would receive the following items just because your child is missing, the support. It was very sporadic. There were services available, but the communication about those services and how those services would help the families wasn't firmly done.
S: What was the main reason the milk carton campaign started? What is Etan Patz's contribution?
JB: The Etan Patz case, which took place in the late 70s I believe, shook New York City because of the circumstances surrounding that case. For one, it was New York. For two it was a small child, nine years old at the time. Left alone to go to school, walked up the street and was never seen or heard from again. There was no body, no remains, nothing like that that was found. So, for people in that time, it created a lot of publicity because of the circumstances surrounding it, that whole "What did happen with this young child?". So it raised a lot of awareness as far as missing children. And there's been a lot of discussion to start the milk carton campaign, whether it was the National Safety Council, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children... For us, the milk carton campaign was just an avenue to put the vision out there. We're always looking for different avenues, even today. Different avenues for distribution. A picture says a 1000 words, and the milk cartons at that time was a powerful way to get those images out there. And the milk carton companies were on board with that famous distribution because it is a way to give back to the community as well. The way to put the missing information on the side of a milk carton for space that, wasn't really utilized for anything else, but it was something that was gonna end up in everyone's homes, and a way to distribute the information and make awareness of these missing children.
S: How has the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children helped find missing children in relation to the milk cartons?
JB: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, nicknamed NCMEC, started in 1984, it started by a bunch of people in Congress, as well as some people who were in practice, specifically like John Walsh, played a major part in getting the center it self off the ground. Because of the issue that he had with his son, Adam, and his disappearance ultimately the murder that took there they were in the need of communication in the need for a national clearing house to be established to insure that information about missing children could be laid out further than what locality had the technology that at the time if you went back to 1984 there was nothing in the Internet around, there was not that method of communication, it just did not happen, there needed to be something else, there needed to be something on a national level, a clearinghouse to intake information about missing children and then help promote that information to either regional areas, if a child was believed to be missing within the state of Georgia, then spread the image of the child and information about that child to people within the state of Georgia, for that Child was believed to be within the Eastern seaboard have the information about that child be promoted on a national level. So that is where the national center came in play and we originally were indorsed by a congressional mandate and we still have congressional mandates that we have to live up too. So those congressional mandates, when congress help start the national center, they could have done it one of two ways, they could have made us a federal entity and made us a federal agency or they could have done what they ended up doing which made us a nonprofit. By making us a nonprofit there were some really strong division there because it gave us the opportunity to work with private sector much more freely than if we were a government agency, if we were a government agency it would have been more difficult to make private sector relationships because there are restrictions on federal agencies what you can do and how you do it. So I guess by being a private nonprofit agency, pretty much a stand alone with government funding and government support it really gave us the flexibility to work with a lot of private sector companies, helped promote that information to several nationalities. Today, the way we work in reuniting children with their families and the way we work on missing child cases, we have managers here at the center that are actually in my position at the center to work directly with parents, to work directly with legal guardians, to work directly with law enforcement to provide the national center resources indirectly, resources vary depending on what is actually taking place. We can help with poster distribution, we can help with relationships for additional resources that law enforcement can use, all the way through works internally that work directly with the family advocacy to help get through this tough time. So we pretty much nail it with what we can provide for a family. Off course is all free, we do not charge for our services, we do not charge law enforcement, we do not charge families, that is part of being nonprofit our main goal is what we can do to help reunify child with their family and help law enforcement with this case and help them solve it as quickly as possible.
S: What is your opinion on the Milk Carton Campaign?
JB: Whoa, that’s a loaded question... the Milk Carton Campaign for what it was at the time it was precutting edge. It was a way of getting images out there. I was not at the center in that time, it was the early ages of the center actually, I believe it was eighty four, eighty five, eighty six was around the Milk Carton Campaign time frame and for what is was at the time, it was great because it was a way to part the images into specific areas and working with the diary group, the people who actually print the milk cartons, which do an okay job targeting where those images were billing, so it was not just one image that would be sent to every milk carton in the United States, we were doing our best to work with distributors in the southwest, in the southeast to have images of children put on the milk carton that were from that area. If you take a look from a statistical standpoint, back in eighty four, eighty five, eighty six, our assistance in recovery rate was around 62% and around that time 62% that was pretty good, you know, because back then, starting out we were really starting to help and we were figuring out our recovery rate Today its about 97% and we haven’t taken part in the Milk Carton Campaign since the mid eighties, it was only a two to three year campaign. If we take a look at what we are doing today, we are still a nonprofit organization, and the way we are utilizing our research to target images out there to help with reunification, we are doing a much better job today statistically in how we were doing back in the eighties. In the mid eighties tactics which was the Milk Carton Campaign versus today tactics of different poster distribution and working with internet service providers and sending images out across the internet, like in newspapers, if you look at it purely based on recovery rate which was 62% in 1985 up to 97% now, from a statistical stand point alone you could say it more affective to do it the way we are doing it today, which would absolutely be right. But the Milk Carton Campaign was a great first step with what we had at our fingertips at the time so it was a great step to get that information out there and it was a validate effort to try something new, although it did not work too well or okay at the time more statistically speaking, but it still did a very great job. It was great first effort in trying to make public awareness of missing children bringing literally to the breakfast table in getting it in front of peoples faces and that is what it needed to happen, that is what people needed to see at the time, to see that we had a national problem at our hands and we are missing America’s children, they are going missing, they are either running away, being lost, injured, or missing, or some type of abduction that takes place and to bring that to the breakfast table and tell the American public that we have a problem and we need to work on it, for what it was at the time, I think it worked great.
JB: A police report would be filled, but there was limited communication between police agencies, work between police agencies local and police agencies at the state level. Or even cross-state for that fact. So there wasn't much communication, and the majority of the missing child cases prior to 1984 were handled at a local level. Depending on your locallity, depending on the ammount of services that you were able to recieve. Would you take for example the John Walsh case with Adam Walsh, who was abducted in Hollywood, FL: there were towns 20 miles away, 30 miles away, that did not have any indication that there was a child abduction who took place even in the state. So the communication just wasn't there.
S: What help could you get if your child went missing back then? Were there any organizations that people could go for help?
JB: I'm sure there were, but I don't know of any off the top of my head. Before 1984, a lot depended on where you lived and what services were offered locally. For example, in Louisville, KY, they had a lot of coordination of telling locals in Louisville about missing children cases in Louisville, before 1984. And it was more or less a good program that the federal government took a look at to see we need to duplicate this out beyond what the locality is able to do. But it really did depend on where you lived. There wasn't a set series of, you know, as a parent with a missing child, you would receive the following items just because your child is missing, the support. It was very sporadic. There were services available, but the communication about those services and how those services would help the families wasn't firmly done.
S: What was the main reason the milk carton campaign started? What is Etan Patz's contribution?
JB: The Etan Patz case, which took place in the late 70s I believe, shook New York City because of the circumstances surrounding that case. For one, it was New York. For two it was a small child, nine years old at the time. Left alone to go to school, walked up the street and was never seen or heard from again. There was no body, no remains, nothing like that that was found. So, for people in that time, it created a lot of publicity because of the circumstances surrounding it, that whole "What did happen with this young child?". So it raised a lot of awareness as far as missing children. And there's been a lot of discussion to start the milk carton campaign, whether it was the National Safety Council, or the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children... For us, the milk carton campaign was just an avenue to put the vision out there. We're always looking for different avenues, even today. Different avenues for distribution. A picture says a 1000 words, and the milk cartons at that time was a powerful way to get those images out there. And the milk carton companies were on board with that famous distribution because it is a way to give back to the community as well. The way to put the missing information on the side of a milk carton for space that, wasn't really utilized for anything else, but it was something that was gonna end up in everyone's homes, and a way to distribute the information and make awareness of these missing children.
S: How has the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children helped find missing children in relation to the milk cartons?
JB: The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, nicknamed NCMEC, started in 1984, it started by a bunch of people in Congress, as well as some people who were in practice, specifically like John Walsh, played a major part in getting the center it self off the ground. Because of the issue that he had with his son, Adam, and his disappearance ultimately the murder that took there they were in the need of communication in the need for a national clearing house to be established to insure that information about missing children could be laid out further than what locality had the technology that at the time if you went back to 1984 there was nothing in the Internet around, there was not that method of communication, it just did not happen, there needed to be something else, there needed to be something on a national level, a clearinghouse to intake information about missing children and then help promote that information to either regional areas, if a child was believed to be missing within the state of Georgia, then spread the image of the child and information about that child to people within the state of Georgia, for that Child was believed to be within the Eastern seaboard have the information about that child be promoted on a national level. So that is where the national center came in play and we originally were indorsed by a congressional mandate and we still have congressional mandates that we have to live up too. So those congressional mandates, when congress help start the national center, they could have done it one of two ways, they could have made us a federal entity and made us a federal agency or they could have done what they ended up doing which made us a nonprofit. By making us a nonprofit there were some really strong division there because it gave us the opportunity to work with private sector much more freely than if we were a government agency, if we were a government agency it would have been more difficult to make private sector relationships because there are restrictions on federal agencies what you can do and how you do it. So I guess by being a private nonprofit agency, pretty much a stand alone with government funding and government support it really gave us the flexibility to work with a lot of private sector companies, helped promote that information to several nationalities. Today, the way we work in reuniting children with their families and the way we work on missing child cases, we have managers here at the center that are actually in my position at the center to work directly with parents, to work directly with legal guardians, to work directly with law enforcement to provide the national center resources indirectly, resources vary depending on what is actually taking place. We can help with poster distribution, we can help with relationships for additional resources that law enforcement can use, all the way through works internally that work directly with the family advocacy to help get through this tough time. So we pretty much nail it with what we can provide for a family. Off course is all free, we do not charge for our services, we do not charge law enforcement, we do not charge families, that is part of being nonprofit our main goal is what we can do to help reunify child with their family and help law enforcement with this case and help them solve it as quickly as possible.
S: What is your opinion on the Milk Carton Campaign?
JB: Whoa, that’s a loaded question... the Milk Carton Campaign for what it was at the time it was precutting edge. It was a way of getting images out there. I was not at the center in that time, it was the early ages of the center actually, I believe it was eighty four, eighty five, eighty six was around the Milk Carton Campaign time frame and for what is was at the time, it was great because it was a way to part the images into specific areas and working with the diary group, the people who actually print the milk cartons, which do an okay job targeting where those images were billing, so it was not just one image that would be sent to every milk carton in the United States, we were doing our best to work with distributors in the southwest, in the southeast to have images of children put on the milk carton that were from that area. If you take a look from a statistical standpoint, back in eighty four, eighty five, eighty six, our assistance in recovery rate was around 62% and around that time 62% that was pretty good, you know, because back then, starting out we were really starting to help and we were figuring out our recovery rate Today its about 97% and we haven’t taken part in the Milk Carton Campaign since the mid eighties, it was only a two to three year campaign. If we take a look at what we are doing today, we are still a nonprofit organization, and the way we are utilizing our research to target images out there to help with reunification, we are doing a much better job today statistically in how we were doing back in the eighties. In the mid eighties tactics which was the Milk Carton Campaign versus today tactics of different poster distribution and working with internet service providers and sending images out across the internet, like in newspapers, if you look at it purely based on recovery rate which was 62% in 1985 up to 97% now, from a statistical stand point alone you could say it more affective to do it the way we are doing it today, which would absolutely be right. But the Milk Carton Campaign was a great first step with what we had at our fingertips at the time so it was a great step to get that information out there and it was a validate effort to try something new, although it did not work too well or okay at the time more statistically speaking, but it still did a very great job. It was great first effort in trying to make public awareness of missing children bringing literally to the breakfast table in getting it in front of peoples faces and that is what it needed to happen, that is what people needed to see at the time, to see that we had a national problem at our hands and we are missing America’s children, they are going missing, they are either running away, being lost, injured, or missing, or some type of abduction that takes place and to bring that to the breakfast table and tell the American public that we have a problem and we need to work on it, for what it was at the time, I think it worked great.