VICAP is going online

Carole Moore
Missing Persons Contributor
Officer.com

The Federal Bureau of Investigation recently announced that VICAP, the Violent Criminal Apprehension Program, is about to debut online. It’s about time. Developed in 1985 to give law enforcement a vehicle for tracking and, hopefully, identifying, serial killers and murderers on the move, VICAP now functions as a central repository for information on many different types of cases, including missing persons, child abductions and unidentified recovered remains. The FBI says its database today contains facts on around 150,000 investigations submitted by law enforcement agencies around the country. According the FBI some of the older cases in the VICAP system date from the 1950s. VICAP information isn’t accessible to everyone. It’s a law enforcement investigatory tool that has been available to employees of police and criminal justice agencies. What will change is the method of accessing that information. In the past, only VICAP officers could add, search or retrieve information. The online access will make it easier for investigators to transmit and access the information in VICAP’s files. The FBI says an online presence will allow agencies to not only keep submitted information more current, but to search historical data and work faster and more efficiently. VICAP’s always been a good idea. Putting it online is a great one. Now here’s my missing person/unidentified remains link for this post. The link takes you to an unidentified African American woman believed to be 22 to 30 years of age. Her body was found in 1997, but investigators believe she died the previous year. Please look closely at this facial reconstruction. I am sure someone, somewhere, is looking for her. http://www.michigandoes.com/UID/Kent1.html