National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway and Thrownaway Children (NISMART), [United States], 2019

The National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART) were undertaken in response to the mandate of the 1984 Missing Children's Assistance Act (Pub. L. 98-473) that requires the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention to conduct periodic national incidence studies to determine the actual number of children reported missing and the number of missing children who are recovered for a given year. The fourth installment, NISMART-4, was undertaken in 2019, and is focused solely on law enforcement data on kidnapped and missing children. It was designed to provide reliable and accurate estimates on the number of child victims of stereotypical (stranger) kidnappings.