State agencies find many missing children

Gov. Jeb Bush ordered the DCF and FDLE to work together. Their efforts were largely successful, he says.

©Associated Press
December 3, 2002

TALLAHASSEE -- A task force ordered to find hundreds of children missing from state custody reached its deadline Monday having found most of them, Gov. Jeb Bush said.

Bush ordered the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the Department of Children and Families in August to work together to find 393 children missing from state care. Most were runaways or had been taken by a noncustodial relative.

"A whole lot of progress has been made," Bush said. "On a short-term basis, a majority of the children were found."

While some children weren't located, Bush said the departments have improved the way they work together to find children.

"We need to have law enforcement actively engaged from the very beginning," Bush said. "And we're convinced now because of this process and the learning experience that the department and the local law enforcement went through, that we're going to be able to achieve that."

FDLE Commissioner Tim Moore said the departments have resolved several communications issues regarding reporting and searching for missing children, including a difference in defining what is a missing child.

The DCF came under intense scrutiny after it was learned in April that 5-year-old Rilya Wilson had been missing for 15 months before the department realized she was gone.

The FDLE and DCF are preparing a report on the exact number of children found since August and would not discuss specifics until it is completed later this month. The joint effort will continue, Moore said: "We're not just going to dust our hands off and walk away."

DCF spokesman Bob Brooks said the governor's goal of finding every child would have been impossible: "We are never going to find every runaway child or every abducted child. There's no way we're ever going to bring that number down to zero. That doesn't mean we don't use every effort to find the kids."

Moore said as part of the operation, police officers "debriefed" runaways to find out why they were trying to leave the foster care system. Bush said the state will try to address helping children who are chronic runaways.

"If for the fifth time in a month a 16-year-old has run away, our response ought to be: Let's expand treatment and care for teenagers that . . . have relationships with their parents or their guardians that is so disruptive they can't go back there -- let's find another alternative for them," he said.

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