It is still quite common in Mexico and Latin America. It can even be somewhat civilized, where if both sides play by the rules it turns out fine. Common in the sense that most people are never kidnapped, but everyone knows someone who has been.

It's hard to find good data from the US due to how statistics are collected. upwards of a million children go missing each year.

That is almost entirely runaways and of the small fraction that isn't they are usually abducted by other relatives. About 99% of them return home [safely](https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/ojjdp/196465.pdf#page=6). Taken (2006) style kidnappings basically do not happen.

Edit: https://www.missingkids.org/ourwork/impact says there were 142 "nonfamily abductions" in 2021 and 121 of those were resolved.

And most of those are taken by a parent or close family member if I remember correctly. So that's not really relevant.

That stat doesn't provide much insight when asking about ransom or the sort of criminal schemes we're talking about.

I know. If only the data were collected at all so we could have a discussion about kidnapping in the USA....