Ontario police simplify Amber Alert guidelines

TORONTO - Ontario Provincial Police are making changes to simplify the guidelines used to trigger an Amber Alert as a result of a review of the program.

Ontario Provincial Police Insp. Dave Ross said Monday the guidelines have been changed to allow police more "discretion" when deciding whether to issue an alert.

Under the new rules, police must believe a child has been abducted; the old criteria required police to confirm a child had been abducted.

Ross said law enforcement agencies now have only to believe a child is in danger whereas before, police had to believe a child was in danger of serious bodily harm or death.

Police will also require descriptive information about either the child, abductor or vehicle.

"Previously, the wording wasn't clear and was often interpreted that police needed information about all three of those things," Ross said.

The review, requested by OPP Commissioner Julian Fantino, also recommends the creation of an investigative checklist designed to assist police in deciding whether to activate an alert at the onset of an investigation.

Ontario's Amber Alert System has been under the microscope since the disappearance and murder of Victoria Stafford last April. The eight-year-old Woodstock, Ont., girl disappeared but police said her case didn't fit the criteria for an Amber Alert and it was never activated.

The review concluded the impact of an Amber Alert would be diminished if it was triggered too often. With 21,000 missing children Ontario cases in 2007, an Amber Amber would have been issued twice a day, every day if each case triggered an activation.

"The public would soon ignore alerts, due to their high frequency," said the review.

The Amber Alert program was created in the United States in 1996 after the kidnapping and murder of nine-year-old Amber Hagerman in Arlington, Texas.

The review of the program was done by representatives from police, government and the media.