Kidnapping is a crime in the United States. Throughout its history, a number of incidents have taken place.
Kidnapping statistics for U.S. adults continue to remain elusive; the crime of kidnapping is not separately recorded by the Uniform Crime Report. In 2010, according to NCIC's Missing Person File, over 69,000 individuals were categorized as "person over the age of 21, not meeting the criteria for entry in any category who is missing and for whom there is a reasonable concern for his/her safety".
The federal government estimated around 70,000 missing persons above the age of 18 cases in 2001.
The vast majority of child abduction cases in the United States are parental kidnapping, where one parent hides, takes or holds a child without the knowledge or consent of another parent or guardian. Depending on the state and the legal status of the family members, this might not be a criminal offense. In 1976, parental child abduction estimates (under narrower legal definitions) ranged from 15,000 to 60,000 cases per year.
By 1984, estimates of parental child snatchings in the United States ranged between 459,000 and 751,000 per year. In 2010, the US Department of Justice reported 200,000 cases of parental kidnapping; these comprised both domestic and international abductions.
Fewer than 350 people under the age of 21 have been abducted by strangers in the United States per year, on average, between 2010âÂÂ2017. According to another source, only about 100 cases per year can be classified as abductions by strangers.
According to the State Department, between 2008 and 2017 an average of about 1,100 children were abducted from the U.S. to a foreign country. In 2017, 345 resulted in the department opening an international kidnapping case.
According to the Federal Kidnapping Act (18 U.S.C. 1201), whoever illegally confines, decoys, kidnaps, abducts, seizes or takes away a person and holds for ransom or prize can be considered as a criminal.
In some instances, it cannot be considered as kidnapping if the person is:
Kidnapping of a person can be punished by imprisonment up to life. If kidnapping resulted in the death of a person, it can be punished by execution or life imprisonment. Kidnapping someone who is 17 or under is considered child abduction since the United States legally defines a child as someone 17 or under.
The United States is a party to the Hague Convention on the Civil Aspects of International Child Abduction.
The Sean and David Goldman International Child Abduction Prevention and Return Act of 2014 allows the U.S. Secretary of State to sanction countries that do not cooperate with the return of abducted children, and to seek extradition of abducting parents. The law also set up the Transportation Security Administration's "do not depart" list.