BALTIMORE (Map, News) - With 13,000 missing children reports annually, authorities have used the state’s Amber Alert system only 23 times since it was created in 2002, statistics show.

The Amber Alert system, which has an almost perfect record of helping find abducted children, was deployed Tuesday when Sterling Blackwell, 15, and Stephon Blackwell, 16, were abducted from their Catonsville home.

It was the first time the system that disseminates information about kidnappings to local media and posts information on highway electronic boards was used this year.

Twenty-one of 22 previous cases resulted in police finding children safe, police said.

“The children were returned alive and unharmed,” said Maryland State Police Sgt. Arthur Betts. “It’s been what we consider to be a success.”

Local police forces have requested Amber Alerts 68 times since 2002, but state police only issue the alert if they can verify the child is facing a serious chance of bodily harm or death and media attention would help find the kid, Betts said.

Carla Proudfoot, director of Maryland’s Center for Missing Children, said the Blackwell kidnappings are very rare, because it involved an armed home invasion.

“This is the first case I know of that type,” Proudfoot said. “Most often, it’s a direct relative or it’s an someone the family knows like a baby sitter.”

lbroadwater@baltimoreexaminer.com