Why Americans Are Afraid of Their Neighbors
May 23, 2026
If you were sentient in the early 1980s, you probably remember watching public service announcements that made it seem as if every neighborhood in America was teeming with creeps. A typical “stranger danger” P.S.A. went something like this one, from the American Medical Association. A maternal voice-over intones: “You’ve taught your children to be polite and friendly. But have you taught them when not to be?” Then, a central-casting child predator rolls up in a sleazy sedan and tries to kidnap a little girl on her way to school.
The announcement claims that in the previous year, 50,000 children disappeared, but that figure is wildly misleading: Nearly all of those missing children were runaways, not kidnapped by strangers. A few cases of child abduction and murder — Etan Patz in 1979 and Adam Walsh in 1981 — put the country on edge, and these ads were meant to help raise awareness so no other children would meet the same hideous fate.
