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Woodstock, Cherokee County, Ga. February 18, 2003 The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office enhances its response rate to Child Abductions in Cherokee County. 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 decreases. In order to ensure a high level of preparedness for child abduction cases, the Cherokee County Sheriff's Office announces the implementation of LOCATERTM, the Lost Child Alert Technology Resource.
There are many challenges facing law enforcement personnel in a missing child
case. One of the greatest is collecting and disseminating the child's descriptive information quickly. With that goal in mind, LOCATER was created to provide the computer hardware and software needed to rapidly distribute critical missing child data on a local, statewide or nationwide basis.
Sheriff Roger Garrison strongly feels that in a missing child case the most important factor for law enforcement personnel is the immediate utilization of all resources available to ensure that if, in the rare case a child from Cherokee County, should go missing the agency will do all it can to ensure a safe recovery.
The Cherokee County Sheriff's Office obtained and is pleased to be working with
the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) to implement LOCATER. United States Congressional funds allow NCMEC to provide the LOCATER system free-of-charge to law enforcement agencies that investigate missing child cases. NCMEC has found when pictures of missing children or abductors are made available to the public; one in six children are recovered as a direct result.
Use of the LOCATER system, comprised 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 more than 100 different types of posters such as missing adults, wanted persons, and crime alerts such as the Amber Plan.
The National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) is a private, 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization. Working in cooperation with the U.S. Department of Justice's Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, NCMEC is the national resource center and clearinghouse on missing and exploited child cases. For information about the many free services NCMEC has to offer law enforcement personnel, please visit www.missingkids.com. For more information about LOCATER, please call
toll-free 1-877-446-2632, x6389 or visit www.locaterposters.org.
