Child Locator Devices

On March 27th of this year, 8 year old Sandra Cantu of Tracy, CA went to go play with friends 5 doors away from her house. She never made it home. Police searched for 10 days, and the child was finally found dead, stuffed into a suitcase and tossed into an irrigation pond. The person accused of this crime was a family friend, Sunday School teacher, mother and neighbor. A surveillance video taken the day the child went missing shows her skipping and dancing just a few doors from her house. This crime has consumed me and shakes me to the core of my being. It's a sad revelation that our children are no longer safe. It seems that recent crimes against children involve adults with new age psychosis, depression and mental illnesses never heard of before. Newly diagnosed postpartum depressions are blamed for many heinous crimes. The point is, who do we trust? Alerting communities of individuals with past crimes against children is a great tool, but sadly not nearly enough. Society has gone way past surveillance cameras and trusting our neighbors.

This site is to inform and educate parents on what is available for child tracking and locating.

I explored the idea of implanted child tracking devices. I discovered that this technology does exist. Developed for the Military and high profile individuals, this system is obviously too sophisticated and costly to the average family.

I found a company called "Brickhouse Security". Their website is http://www.brickhousesecurity.com/

This site offers two types of child locator's.

One style is a hand held model. It features:

* A locate mode that lets you find your child up to 600 feet away out doors and up to 250 plus feet indoors.
*Includes both audio and visual directional guidance technology that leads you to 1 inch of the lost child.
*An alert mode will warn you if your child is outside your designated "safety zone" The safety zone range can be set up independently for up to 24 homing tags.
*Miniaturized homing tags can be attached to almost anything with a key ring or adhesive strip.
*Panic tags allow an individual to set off a distress alarm that is sent to the locator's.
This unit sells for about $280.00

The second type of device is a Spark Nano Child Tracker.

This device is one of the smallest, most lightweight GPS trackers on the market today. Based on personal preference, parents can get instant alerts by text message or e-mail the moment the tracker goes outside the designated area.
This device sells for about $430.00

It is important that we get past the mindset that this is "spying" and invading personal privacy.
There are billboards in cities telling parents to turn off the television, and send their children outside to play. This is a sad and melancholy message. To send our children outside to play in this day and age has become a risk. A tracking and locating device has become a necessity to find and keep our children out of harms way.

One main concern is the cost of these devices. Due to recent economic changes,many households cannot support this cost. My goal is to encourage a program to be developed that would offer financial assistance or rebate programs so all families can afford the units. Another idea is that programs be offered through the schools or law enforcement offices that would offer these units at a lower cost.

All children deserve to be safe. We need to utilize that small window of opportunity that police say we have when a child goes missing. These devices will give children additional protection against predators. With the ever growing stories of kidnapped children and the sad outcome, I truly believe this tool will help with that "window of opportunity" to return children home safely.

I look forward to any and all interested parents that would like to help with encouraging our Government to set up a program to assist parents with the cost of these units.
It is a given that in this day and age, child tracking is useful and necessary. I am a mother and grandmother and I am sick by the constant news of abducted children that never make it home.