Law enforcement: reports; Michigan Amber alert act; modify. Amends title & sec. 3 of 2002 PA 712 (MCL 28.753).

For missing children with special needs, the Amber alert plan no longer activates automatically upon the child going missing. The department must now also believe the child is in imminent danger after a law enforcement preliminary investigation.

The danger standard for all missing children was raised from 'in danger' to 'in imminent danger,' a higher threshold that makes it harder to trigger the alert plan.

The phrase 'as defined by the department' was added, giving the state department discretion to define what constitutes 'imminent danger' rather than leaving it to general legal interpretation.

For missing children with special needs (subsection a), the requirement that the department believe the child is in 'imminent danger, as defined by the department' was removed. Now any report of a missing child with special needs requires Amber alert activation, with no danger threshold at all.

For missing children generally (subsection b), the standard for activation was lowered from 'imminent danger, as defined by the department' to simply 'in danger.' This removes both the 'imminent' qualifier and the department's ability to define the threshold, making it easier to trigger an Amber alert.

For missing children with special needs, the Senate added a requirement that the department must believe the child is in imminent danger AND that law enforcement has conducted a preliminary investigation before an Amber Alert can be triggered. The House version had no such requirements - it would have activated automatically for any missing child with special needs.

For all missing children (subsection b), the threshold for triggering an Amber Alert was raised from 'danger' to 'imminent danger, as defined by the department,' making it a higher bar that the department must meet before activating an alert.

A new definition of 'child with special needs' was added in Section 3(2). It requires that the individual: (1) has been evaluated under the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act or Michigan special education administrative rules, (2) has been determined to have a qualifying impairment by an IEP team, IFSP team, judge, or health care professional, (3) needs services, (4) is no more than 26 years old, and (5) has not yet graduated high school.

Section 3 was restructured from a single unnumbered paragraph into two numbered subsections: subsection (1) contains the existing activation requirements, and subsection (2) contains the new definition. The substantive activation criteria in what is now subsection (1) are unchanged.