For the first time in the country’s history, a national system will warn residents of missing black youth from January 1.

California Governor Gavin Newsom signed Senate Bill 673, also known as the Ebony Alert, into law on Sunday.

The legislation allows the California Highway Patrol to approve warnings announced on the changeable information signs along highways when a vehicle is involved in a crash.

the

a missing person incident.

The CHP may also contact the media and use social media to distribute a bulletin. Supporters of the legislation say so

Black youth and women

Young Black people are too often classified as “runaways” and therefore less likely to be reported missing under the current Amber Alert system.

Under the new law, the CHP will consider issuing an alert to Black people ages 12 to 25 if the missing person suffers from a mental or physical disability, if there is imminent danger or if the individual is being trafficked.

Other circumstances include if the person has disappeared under unexplained or suspicious circumstances or even if there is danger due to environmental or weather conditions.

Our Black children and young women are disproportionately represented on missing persons lists, states the bill’s author, Senator Sen.

Steve

Steven Bradford (D-Gardena) said in a statement. This is heartbreaking and painful for so many families and a public crisis for our entire state. The Ebony Alert could change this.

Bradford said the statistics supported the need for an Ebony Alert.

The Maryland-based Black and Missing Foundation, a nonprofit organization dedicated to promoting awareness of missing people of color, noted that 39% of all missing children in the United States in 2022 were Black.

That percentage has gone up

two

2 percentage points from a 2018 FBI report that put the number at 37%. Both percentages are not proportional to the black population in the US, which is 14%.

https://twitter.com/SenBradfordCA/status/1711439693907361875

The Congressional Black Caucus also released a report in 2020 showing that 40% of all sex trafficking victims were Black and that 57.5% of all arrests of youth prostitutes involved Black children.

The bill received support from several advocacy groups, including the California Hawaii State Conference of the NAACP.

It’s actually a historic bill, conference chairman Rick Callender said in a Zoom call Wednesday morning. When you look at what has happened to black girls, women and children, this is necessary because we don’t get the same treatment and benefits as people with blonde hair.

e

hair and blue eyes.

Bradford’s bill specifically addressed what he considered

goods

the shortcomings of the

current

Amber Alert system, which has stricter restrictions than the Ebony Alert.

Under the Bradford bill, an Amber Alert would be called for children who have gone missing and are not considered runaways.

Bradford notes in the legislation that black children are disproportionately classified as runaways compared to their white counterparts and do not receive an Amber Alert.

Many of these decisions about whether a Black child is considered a runaway are based on societal stereotypes of people who don’t understand the Black community, Callender said. We see this in foster care where social workers label black children as runaways rather than being taken away because they were not raised in those circumstances.

Bradford also noted that the Amber Alert system is only for children

under 18

while Ebony extends the age range to 25 years.

“Senator Steven Bradford’s Ebony Alert legislation is a step in the right direction and we hope it will encourage other lawmakers across the country to follow suit,” Natalie Wilson, co-founder of the Black and Missing Foundation, said in a statement. It is important to continue raising awareness of this issue and advocating for policies that prioritize finding missing people of color.