2007年VOA标准英语-Alert System Helps Locate Missing Children

By Tabinda Naeem
Washington, DC
26 January 2007
 
watch Amber¹ Alert report 

 
Dylan and Shasta Groene
Every day thousands of children around the world are reported missing. Authorities in the United States have devised a special method to alert the public and police about missing children who, in a small number of cases, have been abducted³. The alert was named after a kidnapped girl and is known as the Amber Alert.  VOA's Jim Bertel has more.

 
Amber Hagerman
On average, 800,000 children are reported missing in the U.S. every year, but only a small number of these are kidnappings. The Amber Alert program was created in 1996 to help find children believed to be abducted. It is named after 9-year-old Amber Hagerman who was kidnapped and brutally⁴ murdered while riding her bicycle in Arlington, in the southern state of Texas.  The tragedy galvanized the entire state and since then the program has spread nationwide.

RADIO ANNOUNCER: "This is an activation⁵ of the Amber Alert system at the request of the Arlington Police Department. Arlington police say a child, a two month-old female baby has been kidnapped."

When a child under 18 years of age is abducted, local radio stations broadcast special "alerts."

RADIO ANNOUNCER: "Police believe the victim was abducted by her babysitter." A white female 42 years of age, five foot three [1.6 meters], 135 pounds [61 kilograms], with black hair, brown eyes, and driving a turquoise⁶ 1993 Ford⁷ Ranger⁸ Splash pickup⁹ truck…"

Robert Hover¹⁰, with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, says the alert has expanded. "Now we use the Internet, radio, we use television, the department of transportation, the roadway signs, lottery¹¹ machines, we send out alerts to truckers -- to the trucking industry. There are a variety of ways and any new technology that comes up we try to embrace that technology to get that information out."

And that now includes distributing Amber Alerts through MySpace.com, the popular networking site. Whenever an an Amber Alert is issued, the information will be relayed to every MySpace user who lives in the same zip code as the missing child.

Police Officer Brian Johnson believes this will play a key role in locating missing children. "The more people that see it, the more likely that somebody is going to recognize the people that they see and give me a call."

The National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has been assisting law enforcement agencies with missing child cases since long before Amber Alerts went into effect. Established in 1984, the center's mission is to help prevent child abduction and sexual exploitation and to help find missing children.

Hover says there are many reasons children are abducted. "You have everything from infant abductions to family abductions, non-family abductions. Sometimes it is a family dispute where one parent wants to take the child from the other parent. There could be custody¹² disputes. There are many non-family situations where there are sexual motivations, where people are looking to sexually exploit the child.  There are a whole variety of reasons why somebody would actually abduct² the child."

Robert Hover says the center's search for abducted children can now extend around the globe. "We have a sister agency that is referred to as the International Centre for Missing and Exploited Children and globally they have offices all around the world."

Since its inception¹³, the National Center has helped police find more than 100,000 children. The Amber Alert system has perhaps most of all helped to raise the public's consciousness about this serious and worldwide problem.

1 amber   

n.琥珀；琥珀色；adj.琥珀制的

参考例句：

• Would you like an amber necklace for your birthday?你过生日想要一条琥珀项链吗？
• This is a piece of little amber stones.这是一块小小的琥珀化石。

2 abduct   

vt.诱拐，拐带，绑架

参考例句：

• The police caught the man who tried to abduct the boy for ransom.警察抓住了那个企图拐走这男孩以便勒索赎金的家伙。
• The news that we see those use network abduct children sometimes filled with apprehension.我们有时看到那些利用网络诱拐儿童的新闻都心惊肉跳。

3 abducted   

劫持，诱拐( abduct的过去式和过去分词 )； 使（肢体等）外展

参考例句：

• Detectives have not ruled out the possibility that she was abducted. 侦探尚未排除她被绑架的可能性。
• The kid was abducted at the gate of kindergarten. 那小孩在幼儿园大门口被绑架走了。

4 brutally   

adv.残忍地，野蛮地，冷酷无情地

参考例句：

• The uprising was brutally put down.起义被残酷地镇压下去了。
• A pro-democracy uprising was brutally suppressed.一场争取民主的起义被残酷镇压了。

5 activation   

n. 激活，催化作用

参考例句：

• A computer controls the activation of an air bag.电脑控制着气囊的启动。

6 turquoise   

n.绿宝石；adj.蓝绿色的

参考例句：

• She wore a string of turquoise round her neck.她脖子上戴着一串绿宝石。
• The women have elaborate necklaces of turquoise.那些女人戴着由绿松石制成的精美项链。

7 Ford   

n.浅滩，水浅可涉处；v.涉水，涉过

参考例句：

• They were guarding the bridge,so we forded the river.他们驻守在那座桥上，所以我们只能涉水过河。
• If you decide to ford a stream,be extremely careful.如果已决定要涉过小溪，必须极度小心。

8 ranger   

n.国家公园管理员，护林员；骑兵巡逻队员

参考例句：

• He was the head ranger of the national park.他曾是国家公园的首席看守员。
• He loved working as a ranger.他喜欢做护林人。

9 pickup   

n.拾起，获得

参考例句：

• I would love to trade this car for a pickup truck.我愿意用这辆汽车换一辆小型轻便卡车。||The luck guy is a choice pickup for the girls.那位幸运的男孩是女孩子们想勾搭上的人。

10 hover   

vi.翱翔，盘旋；徘徊；彷徨，犹豫

参考例句：

• You don't hover round the table.你不要围着桌子走来走去。
• A plane is hover on our house.有一架飞机在我们的房子上盘旋。

11 lottery   

n.抽彩；碰运气的事，难于算计的事

参考例句：

• He won no less than ￡5000 in the lottery.他居然中了5000英镑的奖券。
• They thought themselves lucky in the lottery of life.他们认为自己是变幻莫测的人生中的幸运者。

12 custody   

n.监护，照看，羁押，拘留

参考例句：

• He spent a week in custody on remand awaiting sentence.等候判决期间他被还押候审一个星期。
• He was taken into custody immediately after the robbery.抢劫案发生后，他立即被押了起来。

13 inception   

n.开端，开始，取得学位

参考例句：

• The programme has been successful since its inception.这个方案自开始实施以来一直卓有成效。
• Julia's worked for that company from its inception.自从那家公司开办以来，朱莉娅一直在那儿工作。