Illinois AMBER Alerts Get an Upgrade

John Gregory -- Illinois Radio Network

AMBER Alerts -- public notices about abducted children -- will now be delivered faster in Illinois.

The state is being provided with new technology, free of charge, which will distribute AMBER Alerts through highway signs, radio and TV stations, text messages and e-mails, all at once. Craig Burge, the Illinois State Police AMBER Alert coordinator, says before, alerts had to be sent out into those different systems individually.

"By having just one system to enter it into, it saves a significant amount of time," Burge said. "We can get the information in 10 or 15 minutes, where as it might have taken twice or three times that long in the past."

Burge says the upgraded system will also allow greater coordination with two neighboring states, Missouri and Kentucky, which have the same software for delivering their AMBER Alerts.

Since Illinois' first AMBER Alert was issued in 2002, the system has been directly credited with bringing home 42 missing children around the state