OCR to use Geographic Information System in locating missing children

The Office of the Children's Registry (OCR) announced on Friday that it will be turning to a Geographic Information System (GIS) as it boosts efforts to locate children reported missing on the Ananda Alert System.   

During a press conference, the OCR disclosed that it will be partnering with the National Spatial Data Management Division in the Ministry of Water, Land, Environment and Climate Change, to also identify the possible reasons why children go missing from their homes.

At the press conference the police  confirmed widespread reports that the parents of children missing, have actually sent them away from their communities... away from preying dons.

Superintendent Kirk Ricketts , Director of the National Intelligence Bureau (NIB) said data has suggested that this is taking place in several low-income communities in Kingston and the central parish of St. Catherine

He said through investigations, the NIB which is the missing persons call centre, has found that gangs are the cause of the problem in these two parishes.

“A number of the missing reports  - are not really missing reports, we have gang members preying upon our young females. What a mother will do in order to protect the child, she will  send the child to the country and if this is done against the wishes of the don and it is known, then the family will be in danger so of course you would have to report that the child is missing and you would probably have to shed a couple of tears that the normal mother would."

Geo-Spatial technology has identified the hotspots where children are frequently reported missing and they are in low-income communities in Kingston and St. Catherine.

Rohan Richards ,Principal Director of the National Spatial Data Management Division, says the data has been turned over to the OCR.

“Since 2011, based on the data that we have  - we have produced reports on the number of children missing per parish , the number missing per community , per area and the time of day ratio for missing children for a period."

He said that with the data, agencies such as the OCR will be able to better deploy their resources.