74 Montana Children Are Missing Right Now

As of August 27th, 2020, 74 school aged children are missing in Montana. I don't know about you, but that number seems extraordinarily high considering how little you hear about missing kids in the news. There's an Amber Alert or breaking news now and then, but I wouldn't have guessed this high of a number for the number of missing children in Montana on any given day, it's shocking.

The Montana Department of Justice website for missing kids provides up to date information, and also distributes all of the info to all schools across the state. The DOJ also works closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and other state clearinghouses to aid in locating children who have been unlawfully taken out of Montana or brought into Montana.

Something to store to memory is the fact that there is NOT a required amount of time you must wait before calling in a missing person. People watch these crime dramas, or whatever, and think you have to wait 12 or 24 hours to alert the authorities about a missing loved one, and that's simply not true. When a child is suspected to be abducted, it's considered an Amber Alert, if a person of any age is missing for a number of reasons, it's considered a Missing and Endangered Person Advisory. So when you see that language being used in breaking news, you can kind of determine what it means.

Here are the 74 children currently missing in our state. It's heartbreaking to consider what their circumstances might be on this very day. Please take a look at their photos and read the names, just as you would want folks to do if these were your kids.