Missing-children milk carton

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Beginning in the early 1980s, advertisements on milk cartons in the United States were used to publicize cases of missing children. The printing of such ads continued until the late 1990s when other programs became more popular for serving the same purpose. Contemporary popular media portrayed the practice in fiction, often in a satirical manner.

Contents

History

During the late 1970s and 1980s in the United States, missing child cases garnered a great deal of news media attention. Chief among these were the disappearance of Etan Patz (1979) and the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh (1981), whose story was told in the 1983 television movie, Adam . These reports developed into a type of moral panic called "stranger danger". In 1984, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children was founded. [1]

In September 1984, Anderson Erickson Dairy in Des Moines, Iowa, began printing the photographs of two boys — Johnny Gosch (age 12, missing since September 5, 1982) and Eugene Martin (age 13, missing since August 12, 1984) — who went missing while delivering newspapers for the Des Moines Register. A similar milk-carton advertising program for missing children launched in Chicago, Illinois, with support from the police and statewide in California with support from the government. [2]

In December 1984/January 1985,[ inconsistent ] [2] the nonprofit National Child Safety Council began a nationwide program called the Missing Children Milk Carton Program in the United States of putting photos of missing children on milk cartons. By March 1985, 700 of 1600 independent dairies in the United States had adopted the practice of publishing photos of missing children on milk cartons. [3]

Etan Patz was one of the first missing children, and perhaps the most famous of them, to be sought with this strategy. [4] In 1979, when the six-year-old boy went missing on the way to the schoolbus in Manhattan, [5] there had been no system in the United States for tracking missing children nationwide. [6] In 1985, Patz's photo was printed on milk cartons so that consumers purchasing milk at retail markets could be encouraged to look for the missing child. [5]

Decline of use

The practice had begun to fade by the late 1980s and became obsolete when the Amber alert system was created in 1996. [7] Today, AMBER Alerts use technology including notifications to mobile phones to give up-to-date information about potential child abductions.

Yvonne Jewkes and Travis Linnemann write in Media and Crime in the U.S.:

[T]he 'milk carton kids' campaign proved only marginally successful in helping to locate missing children (neither Patz nor Gosch nor Martin has been found), and was eventually abandoned as paper cartons were replaced by plastic jugs [...] [8]

One of the more recent appearances of a face on a milk carton was when 16-year-old Molly Bish disappeared from her lifeguarding job in Massachusetts in 2000. Her parents became active in raising awareness about missing children. The girl's remains were found three years later, five miles from where she disappeared. [9]

Criticism

Overstating risk

The campaigns brought attention to the idea of "stranger danger". [8] However, most of the abducted children pictured on milk cartons during the 1980s were taken by a noncustodial divorced parent, not a stranger. [10]

Racially biased

Standup comedian Eddie Griffin performed a "White Kids on Milk Cartons" routine based on his recollection that the children featured on the cartons were usually white. [11] This is not representative of the demographics of missing children. In 1997, while making up only 15 percent of the U.S. child population, Black (non-Hispanic) children were 42 percent of all nonfamily abductions. Hispanic children too were slightly more likely to be victimized this way than average, making up 16 percent of the population but 23 percent of nonfamily abductions. By contrast, White (non-Hispanic) children, at 65 percent of the population, were 35 percent of the nonfamily abductions. [12] Natalie Wilson, cofounder of the Black and Missing Foundation, told Essence Magazine in 2014: "In the field, I've seen a majority of black missing children classified as runaways, who don't get Amber Alerts." [13]

"There were some legal issues that arose in the mid 1980s about who could post a child's photo on a milk carton", said Donna Linder, Executive Director of Child Find Of America. [14]

Emotionally distressing

In the late 1980s, the pediatrician Benjamin Spock said that the cartons terrified small children at the breakfast table with the implication that they, too, might be abducted. [15]

No data to track success

It is hard to say how successful these advertisements were, since "nobody kept any hard, verifiable numbers on the program as a whole." [16] "What it did was raise the level of awareness," said Johnny Gosch's mother. "It didn't necessarily bring us tips or leads we could actually use." [15]

Motivated by tax breaks

Adam Garfinkle suggested a financial motive: "For many years companies got 'public service' tax breaks by putting pictures of 'missing children' on milk cartons." [17]

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Amber alert</span> US based child abduction emergency alert system

An Amber alert or a child abduction emergency alert is a message distributed by a child abduction alert system to ask the public for help in finding abducted children. The system originated in the United States of America.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Missing person</span> Person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed

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<i>The Face on the Milk Carton</i> 1990 book by Caroline B. Cooney

The Face on the Milk Carton is a young adult mystery novel written by author Caroline B. Cooney that was first published in 1990. The first in the five-book Janie Johnson series, it was later adapted into a film for television. The book is about a 15-year-old girl named Janie Johnson, who starts to suspect that her parents may have kidnapped her and that her biological parents are somewhere in New Jersey. These suspicions come after Janie recognizes a picture of herself on a milk carton under the heading "Missing Child." Janie's life gets more stressful as she tries to find the truth while hiding the secret from her parents.

The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, nonprofit organization established in 1984 by the United States Congress. In September 2013, the United States House of Representatives, United States Senate, and the President of the United States reauthorized the allocation of $40 million in funding for the organization as part of Missing Children's Assistance Reauthorization Act of 2013. The current chair of the organization is Jon Grosso of Kohl's. NCMEC handles cases of missing minors from infancy to young adults through age 20.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Johnny Gosch</span> American boy who went missing in 1982

John David Gosch was a paperboy in West Des Moines, Iowa, who disappeared between 6 and 7 a.m. on September 5, 1982. He is presumed to have been kidnapped. Gosch's picture was among the first to be featured on milk cartons as part of a campaign to find missing children. As of 2024, there have been no arrests made and the case is now considered cold, but remains open.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Disappearance of Etan Patz</span> 1979 missing-person case

Etan Kalil Patz was an American boy who was six years old on May 25, 1979, when he disappeared on his way to his school bus stop in the SoHo neighborhood of Lower Manhattan. His disappearance helped launch the missing children movement, which included new legislation and new methods for tracking down missing children. Several years after he disappeared, Patz was one of the first children to be profiled on the "photo on a milk carton" campaigns of the early 1980s. In 1983, President Ronald Reagan designated May 25—the anniversary of Etan's disappearance—as National Missing Children's Day in the United States.

Stranger danger is the idea or warning that all strangers can potentially be dangerous. The phrase is intended to encapsulate the danger associated with adults whom children do not know. The phrase has found widespread usage and many children will hear it during their childhood. Many books, films and public service announcements have been devoted to helping children remember this advice.

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International Missing Children's Day is an international day celebrated on May 25th, the same day as the United States' National Missing Children's Day designated by Ronald Reagan in 1983. It is a day dedicated to raising awareness about the issue of missing children, highlighting the efforts made to find and bring them back safely, and supporting the families affected by these tragedies.

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<span class="mw-page-title-main">Anderson Erickson Dairy</span> Dairy in Iowa

The Anderson Erickson Dairy (AE) is the largest independently owned dairy in Iowa. Headquartered in Des Moines, it was founded in June 1930 during the Great Depression by Iver Erickson and Bill Anderson. After eight years in business, Anderson sold his interest in the company and moved to Minnesota, leaving Erickson with complete ownership of the company. By 2004 the family-owned company was the 73rd largest dairy by sales in the United States. As of 2021, it was still run by descendants of Iver Erickson.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Child abduction scare of 2002</span> Child safety scare in the United States

During the summer of 2002 there were a number of high-profile child abductions in the United States. Despite the statistical decrease of non-custodial child abductions since 1999, extensive media coverage of selected cases created a nationwide sense of panic. The focus on child abductions led governmental entities to take action. Many states instituted Amber alerts systems and a national Amber alert was included as part of a package of federal legislation known as the PROTECT Act of 2003.

The missing children panic was a moral panic concerning child abduction and murder by strangers in the United States. The event was triggered after the abduction of Etan Patz in 1979 and the kidnapping and murder of Adam Walsh in 1981, with subsequent media reports exaggerating and misrepresenting child abduction statistics. The panic popularized the misleading claim that 1.5 million children per year disappeared or were abducted in the United States, introduced the stranger danger narrative into public discourse and intensified tropes relating to the sexual predation and murder of boys by homosexuals in American culture, especially after the publicization of gay serial killers Ottis Toole, John Wayne Gacy and Randy Kraft.

References

  1. ↑ Wojcik, Pamela Robertson (2016). "5. Helicopters and Catastrophes". Fantasies of Neglect: Imagining the Urban Child in American Film and Fiction (ebook/PDF). The Rutgers Series in Childhood Studies. Rutgers University Press. p. 172. ISBN   9780813564494. LCCN   2016003240. OCLC   957619247.
  2. 1 2 Ta, Linh (4 September 2017). "The missing kids milk carton campaign started in Iowa". Des Moines Register. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  3. ↑ Palmer, Brian (20 April 2012). "Why Did Missing Children Start Showing Up on Milk Cartons?". Slate. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  4. ↑ McElwaine, Sandra (11 May 2009). "The Original Milk-Carton Kid". The Daily Beast. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  5. 1 2 LaFrance, Adrienne (14 February 2017). "When Bad News Was Printed on Milk Cartons". The Atlantic. Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  6. ↑ Zap, Claudine (25 May 2012). "Etan Patz and the history of missing kids on milk cartons" . Retrieved 16 February 2017.
  7. ↑ Springer, Kate. "Etan Patz: A Brief History of the 'Missing Child' Milk Carton Campaign". Time. ISSN   0040-781X . Retrieved 2017-06-05.
  8. 1 2 Jewkes, Yvonne; Linnemann, Travis (2017). Media and Crime in the U.S. Thousand Oaks, Calif.: SAGE Publications. ISBN   978-1-48-337392-8.
  9. ↑ Tuohy, Lynne (10 June 2003). "Family 'Grateful' To Bring Daughter Home". Hartford Courant. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  10. ↑ Stickler, Gunnar B.; Salter, Margery; Broughton, Daniel D.; Alario, Anthony (September 1991). "Parents' Worries About Children Compared to Actual Risks". Clinical Pediatrics. 30 (9): 522–528. CiteSeerX   10.1.1.1023.8010 . doi:10.1177/000992289103000901. PMID   1804584. S2CID   43339416.
  11. ↑ Griffin, Eddie. "Eddie Griffin Remembers Playing Outside As a Kid & White Kids on Milk Cartons (Video)". Antidiary. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  12. ↑ Finkelhor, David; Hammer, Heather; Sedlak, Andrea J. "Nonfamily Abducted Children: National Estimates and Characteristics" (PDF). National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (October 2002). U.S. Department of Justice: 7. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  13. ↑ Obell, Sylvia (July 2014). "Missing While Black" (PDF). Essence. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  14. ↑ Mormile, Dara (26 April 2012). "Why Successful Milk Carton Campaign Went Sour With Time". Canarsie Courier (New York). Archived from the original on 26 December 2017. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  15. 1 2 Salazar, Cristian (20 April 2012). "Era of missing children on milk cartons recalled". Times Free Press. Associated Press. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  16. ↑ "How the Missing-Children Milk Carton Program Started (23 November 2015)". Today I Found Out. 2015-11-23. Retrieved 25 December 2017.
  17. ↑ Garfinkle, Adam (13 Dec 2017). "In Way Too Little We Trust". The American Interest. Retrieved 25 December 2017.

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