This classification was opened following the June 2, 1932, act of Congress commonly called the "Lindbergh" or "Kidnapping Act." The violation was assigned number 7, one of the numbers not used when the Bureau adopted the Justice Department's filing scheme in 1921. The law conferred primary investigative jurisdiction on the FBI when three conditions were met: the person had been unlawfully seized, the person had been transported across state lines, and the person was held for ransom or reward. In addition, the law made the conspiracy to kidnap a violation. Because it was difficult to determine whether state lines had been crossed, the Bureau and the Department of Justice agreed that after seven days the Bureau could presume that there had been interstate transportation. In the 1956 amendment of the Act Congress reduced the presumptive period to one day. The FBI has usually taken a strict view of the Federal kidnapping law in order to aviod involvement in missing persons cases. the 00 file suggests that in the late 1930's the Bureau was especially sensitive to cases with overtones of civil rights or labor conflicts and in the late 1940's to cases involving racketeers kidnapped by their rivals and children kidnapped by parents. Constant problems were cases in which the invidicual reported kidnapped was actually trying to run away, in which a domestic dispute was the cause of the complaint, or in which a minor willingly accompanied a male in defiance of partents' wishes. FBI Headquarters has opened 18,293 cases in this classification, including 10,519 cases on 93 reels of microfilm and the remainder on 406.5 cubic feet or paper. Two hundred thirty-four cases have multi-sections, with an average of 17 sections each. Only 188 cases have enclsures, which include 105 bulkies and 620 enclosures behind file. During the period 1945-80, two peaks in kidnappings occurred, one in 1954 and one in 1974. The highest number of cases in a year was 708 in 1974 and the lowest 164 in 1945. The average number of cases opened during the 1970s was 497. All 59 Field Offices report extant cases. The distribution of cases appears roughly consistent with the size of the Field Office, New York having opened the most and Anchorage the fewest. Much destruction of these files has occurred.
