After 27 years, police are saying definitively that Adam Walsh, son of America’s Most Wanted host John Walsh, was murdered by Ottis Toole, a “drifter” who later died in prison where he was serving time on other charges. The AP yesterday ran a story about how the senior Walsh’s conversion from hotel developer to prime-time crime fighter transformed the way American deals with missing persons cases:

Adam’s death…helped put missing children’s faces on milk cartons and in mailboxes, started fingerprinting programs and increased security at schools and stores.

It spurred the creation of missing persons units at every large police department. And it prompted legislation to create a national center, database and toll-free line devoted to missing children. It also prompted the television program “America’s Most Wanted,” hosted by John Walsh, which brought such cases into millions of homes.

“In 1981, when a child disappeared, you couldn’t enter information about a child into the FBI database. You could enter information about stolen cars, stolen guns but not stolen children,” said Ernie Allen, president of the Center for Missing and Exploited Children, which was co-founded by John Walsh. “Those things have all changed.”

I wasn’t aware of the technological/law enforcement advances spurred by Adam Walsh’s murder. But I remember the first airing of America’s Most Wanted and have been amazed at its “no-brainer” effectiveness through the years. I mean, it’s like the old post office wanted posters on steroids — a really simple, why-didn’t-we-think-of-that-sooner? concept.

Of course, every activist has his critics. Still, reading further in the AP story, I was surprised to see a university sociologist accusing John Walsh of stoking unreasonable fear among kids and parents:

Others are more hesitant to dole out credit. John Walsh’s efforts, said Mount Holyoke College sociologist and criminologist Richard Moran, have made children and adults exponentially more afraid of the world.

“He ended up really producing a generation of cautious and afraid kids who view all adults and strangers as a threat to them and it made parents extremely paranoid about the safety of their children,” Moran said.

I started thinking about my own kids: One is very cautious and often worries about such things as child abduction. But I attribute that to the high profile San Diego case of David Westerfield, who snatched 7-year-old Danielle van Dam from her bedroom one night and murdered her. My son was about the same age at the time.

Read the AP story here. What do you think of Moran’s assessment of Walsh’s anti-crime activism? Is it reasonable for kids to be afraid, and for parents to be “paranoid” about their children’s safety? Is it Walsh’s fault that so many of us are?