Ohio is struggling to keep up with a concerning surge of missing minors that has totaled over 1,072 this year after an alarming total of 1,600 last year, according to reports.
This month alone there have more than 45 school children reported missing in the Cleveland-Akron area after an August that totaled 35 missing, according to reports citing Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost's official website.
The "extraordinary surge" in missing children in Ohio began in May, News-5 Cleveland reported, bringing it to a priority for Yost.
"Yes, of course we are worried about that," Yost told News-5.
Yost is working with the University of Toledo on improving Ohio's missing person reports and investigation data to help find the children.
"I am fearful of all kinds of things that fall through the cracks, that include missing children," Yost continued to News-5. "I rely on the tenacity of a worried parent more than I do a harried bureaucrat whose job it is to put data into a computer.
"Law enforcement can't be everywhere and can't see everything. We rely on the people, the population, because we have 11.7 million pairs of eyes out there that can keep an eye out."
But reports have Ohio's missing children issue as outsized compared to other states of similar population, such North Carolina. Despite having similar populations, Ohio had more than double the missing children as North Carolina did in 2022, the Daily Mail reported.
"For some reason, in 2023, we've seen a lot more than we normally see, which is troubling in part because we don't know what's going on with some of these kids — whether they're being trafficked or whether they're involved in gang activity or drugs," Cleveland Missing President and Newburgh Heights Police Chief John Majoy said in May.
Join Us in Minors Protection founder Breana Brown is concerned.
"As a community, I feel like we need to do more," she told News-5. "We need to make it a priority. If we make more things like this a priority, we will be more on top of it, such as updating the website so we can know who is missing.
"This is our community; we want to know what's going on in our community, and with our children especially.
"We have so many missing children, we want to prevent this from happening, so we need to buckle down. This is not a matter we should take lightly, not at all."
Eric Mack ✉
Eric Mack has been a writer and editor at Newsmax since 2016. He is a 1998 Syracuse University journalism graduate and a New York Press Association award-winning writer.
© 2025 Newsmax. All rights reserved.