Portrayals in the news media have tended to reinforce public fears of strangers as potential pedophiles, despite sexual abuse of children being more likely to occur in families.
Conversely, other proponents of stranger danger warnings propose teaching children never to approach others without parental permission.
In addition to stranger danger warnings, programs from the Federal Bureau of Investigation, local law enforcement agencies and other organizations offer free fingerprinting services usually done in schools, childcare centers, shopping malls, fairs, and festivals.
[9] On August 16, 2011, the Brooklyn District Attorney's office announced a similar program called "Safe Stop".
As of August 2011, 76 stores had signed up to display a green "Safe Haven" sticker in their windows to help lost children.
[14] In response to these statistics, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children has reversed their campaign focusing on "stranger danger".
[17] Journalist Stephen J. Dubner, co-author of Freakonomics, referred to this statistic as an example of his point that "most people are pretty terrible at risk assessment.
Black was a stranger who lured his victims from different parts of Britain while working as a lorry driver, while Sarah Payne's killer Roy Whiting was not known to the victim or to any of her family, who had confirmed this to the police when Sarah Payne was still missing and Whiting was first identified as a possible suspect.
[22] The murder of James Bulger in 1993 has also been cited as part of this phenomenon, although in that case the toddler involved was killed by a pair of older children rather than an adult.
In the aftermath of Bulger's murder, in "a survey of parents by the children's organisation, Kidscape, 97% of respondents put abduction as their biggest worry, ahead of traffic accidents, glue-sniffing and Aids.
[citation needed] The Soham murders in Cambridgeshire, where two 10-year-old girls were found dead two weeks after their disappearance in August 2002, are a notable example – the killer of the girls, Ian Huntley, was known to both of his victims, and his role as a local school caretaker portrayed him as a man with a position of trust who would not appear to be a likely danger to children whether known to them or not.
A notable example is Amanda Dowler, the Surrey teenager who disappeared in March 2002 and whose remains were found in Hampshire six months later.