Missing children: risks, repeats and responses

ABSTRACT

Investigating reports of missing children is a major source of demand for the police in the UK. Repeat disappearances are common, can indicate underlying vulnerabilities and have been linked with various forms of exploitation and abuse. Inspired by research on repeat victimisation, this paper examines the prevalence and temporal patterns of repeat missing episodes by children, as well as the characteristics of those involved. Using data on all missing children incidents recorded by one UK police service in 2015 (n = 3352), we find that: (a) 75% of missing incidents involving children were repeats, i.e. attributed to children who had already been reported missing in 2015; (b) a small proportion of repeatedly missing children (n = 59; 4%) accounted for almost a third of all missing children incidents (n = 952, 28%); (c) over half of all first repeat disappearances occurred within four weeks of an initial police recorded missing episode; and (d) children recorded as missing ten times or more over the one year study period were significantly more likely than those recorded missing once to be teenagers, in the care system or to have drug and/or alcohol dependencies. We conclude by discussing the implications of our findings for future research and the prevention of repeat disappearances by children.

KEYWORDS:

• Care
• exploitation
• missing children
• repeat victimisation

Acknowledgements

We thank Ken Pease, Reka Solymosi, Nick Tilley and two anonymous reviewers for commenting on earlier drafts of this article.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1 According to the National Crime Agency, there were 242,317 police recorded missing person incidents in England and Wales in 2015/16. By way of comparison, over the same time period the police recorded 193,773 domestic burglary offences and 45,483 robbery of personal property offences (ONS 2016).

2 Return to home interviews are designed to help understand why a child has gone missing, identify harm and help them feel safe. They are conducted by an independent, trained professional, whereas Safe and Well checks are conducted by the police, to locate vulnerable people at risk of harm in order to safeguard them.

3 These questions are derived from the College of Policing’s Decision-Making Guide (2009) available online at: http://library.college.police.uk/docs/APPREF/Decision-making-guide-2009.doc.

4 582/1331*10000.

5 The most prolific individual was recorded as going missing forty one times in 2015.

6 We performed the same analysis for boys and girls separately and observed similar results (available from the authors on request).

7 It is important to note that initial disappearance, as defined herein, need not denote first disappearance. Some children may have been reported missing at some point in time that predates this study period. Initial, for the purposes of this study, refers to the first disappearance reported during the calendar year of 2015.

8 This is likely to be a conservative estimate, for two reasons. First, the cost estimate computed by Shalev-Greene and Pakes (2013) relates to a medium-risk medium-term missing persons case. Of the 952 incidents associated with our chronically missing group (children who went missing 10 times or more in the one year study period), fifty (5%) were categorised as high risk. These investigations likely cost considerably more than £2415.80. Second, this estimate does not include the costs imposed on partner agencies affected by missing person incidents. For example, local authorities who undertake return to home interviews.