Encyclopedia of Psychology and Law

lead a criminal to kill and dispose of the child more

quickly than he or she had planned.

AMBER Alert Research

A few researchers have attempted to test the effective-

ness of the system. An examination of 233 AMBER

alerts issued in 2004 revealed that, despite the inten-

tion of focusing AMBER alerts on only serious abduc-

tion cases (which generally involve strangers), 50%

of the alerts studied involved familial abductions,

another 20% involved hoaxes or confusions, and only

30% actually involved abduction by strangers. The

researchers recommended stricter adherence to the

restrictive issuance criteria recommended by the U.S.

Department of Justice to avoid overuse of the system.

There has also been one attempt to determine how

effective AMBER Alert is in accomplishing its key

goal, which is saving abducted children’s lives in the

worst cases (often called “stereotypical” abductions).

The researchers found that, despite claims by some

practitioners that AMBER alerts have helped rescue

hundreds of children, successful recovery is most likely

when the victim is abducted by a parent and least likely

when the child is abducted by a stranger. Since prior

research has shown that most children abducted by par-

ents are not harmed (regardless of whether an alert was

issued or not), researchers questioned the effectiveness

of alerts and their ability to “save” lives.

In addition to these issues, there might be obstacles

to AMBER alerts routinely functioning as intended. For

practical reasons, it is very difficult to learn of an abduc-

tion and issue an alert within the small, critical window of

opportunity that exists in the worst cases. Despite the rea-

sonableness of insisting that AMBER alerts only be issued

in serious scenarios, there is an inherent dilemma in deter-

mining the level of threat actually posed when a child is

missing and might or might not have been abducted.

Monica K. Miller and Timothy Griffin

See also Eyewitness Memory; Reporting Crimes and

Victimization; Sex Offender Community Notification

(Megan’s Laws); Victimization

Further Readings

Griffin, T., Miller, M. K., Hammack, R., Hoppe, J., &

Rebideaux, A. (2007). A preliminary examination of

AMBER Alert’s effects. Criminal Justice Policy Review.

Hargrove, T. (2005). False alarms endangering future

of Amber Alert system. New York: Scripps Howard

News Service.

Miller, M. K., & Clinkinbeard, S. S. (2006). Improving

the AMBER Alert system: Psychology research

and policy recommendations. Law and Psychology

Review, 30,1–21.

Miller, M. K., Griffin, T., Clinkinbeard, S. S., & Thomas, R. M.

(2006, April). The psychology of AMBER Alert:

Unresolved issues and policy implications. Paper

presented at the Western Social Science Association

Conference, Phoenix, AZ.

AMERICANBARASSOCIATION

RESOLUTION ONMENTALDISABILITY

AND THE DEATHPENALTY

The question of how individuals with severe mental

disabilities should be sentenced when they are con-

victed of capital (death penalty) crimes is a vexing one

in U.S. society. On one hand, the death penalty is an

established part of the criminal justice system in the

United States, which exists in part as a reflection of our

society’s outrage in response to certain kinds of violent

crime. On the other hand, in the words of former U.S.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, a society’s

“evolving standards of decency that mark the progress

of a maturing society” require that we recognize that

there must be exceptions to this most extreme form of

punishment. This entry describes the Resolution of the

American Bar Association on Mental Disability and the

Death Penalty, which was endorsed by the American

Psychological Association and other professional orga-

nizations, and the Resolution’s approach to the difficult

problem of mental disability and capital punishment.

The American Bar Association (ABA) formed an

interdisciplinary task force to consider this problem.

The Task Force on Mental Disability and the Death

Penalty (hereinafter “Task Force”) was established by

the ABA’s Section of Individual Rights and Responsibil-

ities and chaired by Ronald Tabak (Task Force, 2006).

Many of the 24 members of the Task Force were attor-

neys, including representation from the National

Alliance on Mental Illness, but there were also represen-

tatives from the American Psychological Association

(the three authors of this entry) and the American Psy-

chiatric Association. The Task Force worked for 2 years

20 ———American Bar Association Resolution on Mental Disability and the Death Penalty

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