seems to think this doesn’t apply to the once “Golden” state, since he has now signed into law a bill that creates a special emergency alert—but only for missing black children and no one else.between the ages of 12 and 25. The usual “Amber Alert” that has been sounding off Americans’ phones for years applies only to children under 17 years of age. Amber Alerts were started in 1996 after the abduction and murder of 9-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas.
But it is worth asking why California even tried to do something like this. Once again, as with all truly bad and nakedly unconstitutional policy decisions, it starts with the racial disparities that bedevil officeholders and policymakers alike. According to Elon University, “To be labeled an Amber Alert, there must be reasonable evidence that an abduction has occurred, the child must be believed to be in imminent danger of serious bodily injury or death, there must be enough descriptive information about the victim and the abductor, the child must be under the age of 17.”Democratic state Sen. Steven Bradford, vice chair of the Legislative Black Caucus, in a press release.
These are all tragedies and must be seen that way. As with nearly all the demographic disparities in cultural indicators, the numbers represent real problems to be solved, either by policy or by an all-of-society, cultural approach.