Scott County sheriff to get LOCATOR

BENTON, Mo. -- When a child is reported missing, time is one of law enforcement's greatest enemies. Every hour a child is missing, the likelihood of a safe recovery falls.

The Scott County Sheriff's Office is now working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) to implement LOCATOR, the Lost Child Alert Technology Resource.

Scott County Sheriff Bill Ferrell said that with the increasing incidents of child abductions throughout the country, he thinks the LOCATOR will help his office better prepare for this type of situation should it occur locally.

The system was created to provide the computer hardware and software needed to rapidly distribute critical missing-child data locally, statewide and nationally.

Federal funds allow NCMEC to provide the LOCATOR system for free to law enforcement agencies that investigate missing child cases. NCMEC has found that when pictures of missing children or abductors are made available to the public, one in six children are recovered as a result.

Use of the LOCATOR system, made up of a Dell Pentium IV computer, HP DeskJet 940C printer, high-resolution scanner and customized software, is not limited to missing children cases. It includes templates for than 100 different types of posters such as missing adults, wanted persons and crime alerts.