...if the cops don't find your kids, they learn from their mistake and improve their processes so crap like this doesn't happen again.
Stop clenching your wallet for a second. Yes, the parents are at fault for not keeping track of their children. However, it would seem that the police made a fatal error in not being thorough when initially searching the trunk of that car. So let's insist they make steps to improve on that. That said, I agree with you, (ok, now we can both start clenching our wallets) in this case, the parents should not be awarded money for something they could have prevented.
Do your realize how many missing kid calls they get everyday, 99.99% of which are false alarms?
So you're a cop, you come to a house on a missing child call, you stand in front of the house next to an abandoned car talking to the single mother about her missing boys, it's obvious that the whole neighborhood has been walking past that car for the past three hours in search of the boys, so you don't search the car very hard.
And you want a policy for this situation?
Priceless.