Details

Subject(s)

• Abandoned children—United States [Browse]
• Abduction—United States [Browse]
• Child abuse—United States [Browse]
• Household surveys—United States [Browse]
• Missing children—United States [Browse]
• Runaway children—United States [Browse]

Related name

• Finkelhor, David [Browse]
• Hotaling, Gerald T. [Browse]
• Sedlak, Andrea [Browse]
• United States. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention [Browse]
• Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [Browse]

Series

• ICPSR (Series) ; 9682. [More in this series]
• ICPSR ; 9682

Restrictions note

Use of these data is restricted to Princeton University students, faculty, and staff for non-commercial statistical analysis and research purposes only.

Summary note

This collection was undertaken in response to the mandate of the 1984 Missing Children Act. The objective of the act was to estimate the incidence of five categories of children: children abducted by family members, children abducted by nonfamily members, runaways, thrownaways (those not wanted by their families or taken from families because of abuse or neglect), and children considered missing. Data were collected by several different methods. The centerpiece of this collection is a household survey (Parts 19, 20, and 35) that interviewed families to determine whether any children fit the categories under study. Basic demographic information on age, race, and sex was collected, and questions on the family situation were asked of identified children and their parents and siblings. A survey of juvenile facilities (Parts 28 and 29) was also conducted to determine how many children had run away from these facilities. Facility administrators were prompted for demographic information on the runaways as well as for information on the structure of the runaways' families. In addition, a survey of returned runaways (children who had run away and returned home) (Part 30) was completed to find out whether children's accounts of runaway episodes matched the accounts given by their parents. Children were queried about their relationships with their parents and their views of their contributions to the family. They were also asked about each specific runaway episode: whether they actually ran away or were asked to leave, how long the episode lasted, whether friends knew about it, whether friends accompanied them, whether they used drugs before, during, or after the episode, how they were found, where they were found, and whether disciplinary action was taken. The police records component (Parts 31-33) contains information on homicides, abductions, and sexual assaults.

Notes

• Codebook available in print and electronic format.
• Title from title screen (viewed on November 20, 2008).

Type of data

Extent of collection: 9 data files + machine-readable documentation (text) + SAS data definition statements + SPSS data definition statements + data collection instruments.

Time and place of event

• Date(s) of collection: 1988-1989.
• Time period: 1988.

Geographic coverage

Geographic coverage: United States.

Funding information

• Funding agency: United States Department of Justice. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention.
• Grant number: 87-MC-CX-K069.

System details

• Mode of access: World Wide Web.
• Extent of processing: CDBK.ICPSR/ CONCHK.ICPSR/ DDEF.ICPSR/ MDATA.ICPSR/ UNDOCCHK.ICPSR/ RECODE.

Methodology note

• Data source: personal telephone interviews, self-enumerated forms, official juvenile facility records, and official police records
• Sample: (1) the sample for the household survey was generated through computerized random-digit dialing. (2) The sample for the juvenile facilities was generated by asking respondents in the household survey if any child in the family had lived in some type of facility such as a boarding school for at least two weeks in the previous year. A juvenile facility in the sample had a probability of being nominated in proportion to the number of children in the facility from telephone households. (3) The sample for the returned runaway file was constituted from the household survey. Households indicating a returned runaway incident were included in this sample. (4) The police records survey was conducted from a stratified random sample based upon region of country, level of urbanization, and population by age.
• Universe: all households in the United States.

Contents

Part 19: Institution and Child Link Segment Data; Part 20: Institution Type Data; Part 28: Juvenile Facilities Survey, Part 1; Part 29: Juvenile Facilities Survey, Part 2; Part 30: Returned Runaways Survey; Part 31: Police Records--Abductions Data; Part 32: Police Records--Homicide Data; Part 33: Police Records--Sexual Assault Data; Part 35: Household Hierarchical Data; Part 36: SAS Data Definition Statements for Household Hierarchical Data; Part 37: SAS Data Definition Statements for Institution and Child LinkSegment Data; Part 38: SAS Data Definition Statements for Institution Type Data; Part 39: SAS Data Definition Statements for Juvenile Facilities Survey, Part 1; Part 40: SAS Data Definition Statements for Juvenile Facilities Survey,Part 2; Part 41: SAS Data Definition Statements for Returned Runaways Survey; Part 42: SAS Data Definition Statements for Police Records--AbductionsData; Part 43: SAS Data Definition Statements for Police Records--Homicide Data; Part 44: SAS Da...

Cite as

Finkelhor, David, Gerald Hotaling, and Andrea Sedlak. NATIONAL INCIDENCE STUDIES OF MISSING, ABDUCTED, RUNAWAY, AND THROWNAWAY CHILDREN (NISMART), 1988 [Computer file]. Conducted by David Finkelhor, University of New Hampshire, Gerald Hotaling, University of Lowell, and Andrea Sedlak, Westat, Inc. ICPSR ed. Ann Arbor, MI: Inter-university Consortium for Political and Social Research [producer and distributor], 1996.

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