Missing person facts for kids

Kids Encyclopedia Facts

A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, death in a location where they cannot be found (such as at sea), or many other reasons. In most parts of the world, a missing person will usually be found quickly. While criminal abductions are some of the most widely reported missing person cases, these account for only 2–5% of missing children in Europe.

By contrast, some missing person cases remain unresolved for many years. Laws related to these cases are often complex since, in many jurisdictions, relatives and third parties may not deal with a person's assets until their death is considered proven by law and a formal death certificate issued. The situation, uncertainties, and lack of closure or a funeral resulting when a person goes missing may be extremely painful with long-lasting effects on family and friends.

A number of organizations seek to connect, share best practices, and disseminate information and images of missing children to improve the effectiveness of missing children investigations, including the International Commission on Missing Persons, the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC), as well as national organizations, including the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece.

Reasons

People disappear for many reasons. Some individuals choose to disappear, for others disappearance is inadvertent (e.g. getting lost) or it is imposed on them (abduction/imprisonment).

Categories of missing children

Runaways: Minors who run away from home, from the institution where they have been placed, or from the people responsible for their care.
Thrownaways: Minors who are abandoned by their parents or guardians.
Parental abduction: Minors who are abducted by their parents or guardians for unknown reasons.
Non-parental abduction: Minors who are abducted by non-parental means. (e.g. random kidnapping on streets by random people.)
Missing unaccompanied migrant minors: Disappearances of migrant children, nationals of a country in which there is no free movement of persons, under the age of 18 who have been separated from both parents and are not being cared for by an adult, who by law is responsible for doing so.
Lost, injured or otherwise missing children: Disappearances for no apparent reason of minors who got lost (e.g., young children at the seaside in summer) or hurt themselves and cannot be found immediately (e.g. accidents during sport activities, at youth camps, etc.), as well as children whose reason for disappearing has not yet been determined or found.

Legal aspects

A common misconception is that a person must be absent for at least 24 hours before being legally classed as missing, but this is rarely the case. Law enforcement agencies often stress that the case should be reported as early as possible. In fact it is extremely crucial to report a missing person as soon as possible. This is in order to make take immediate action in the vital first 48 hours after a person is declared missing. In these 48 hours the police will be able to interview any eyewitness and get any suspect descriptions while it is still fresh in their minds.

In most common law jurisdictions a missing person can be declared dead in absentia (or "legally dead") after seven years. This time frame may be reduced in certain cases, such as deaths in major battles or mass disasters such as the September 11 attacks.

Searches

In most countries, the police are the default agency for leading an investigation into a missing person case. Disappearances at sea are a general exception, as these require a specialized agency such as a coast guard. In many countries, such as the United States, voluntary search and rescue teams can be called out to assist the police in the search. Rescue agencies such as fire departments, mountain rescue and cave rescue may also participate in cases that require their specialized resources.

Police forces such as Lancashire Constabulary stress the need to try to find the person quickly, to assess how vulnerable the person is, and to search places that the person may have links to.

Various charities exist to assist the investigations into unsolved cases. These include the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children in the US, Missing People in the UK, Child Focus in Belgium, and The Smile of the Child in Greece. Some missing person cases are given wide media coverage, with the searchers turning to the public for assistance. The persons' photographs may be displayed on bulletin boards, milk cartons, postcards, websites and social media to publicize their description.

Torchlight procession on the 23rd of February 2019 in Trondheim, Norway for the search of missing boy Odin Andre Hagen Jacobsen who has been missing since 18th November 2018. The people protest to demand from the police to strengthen their efforts and for the media to give the case more coverage. Sign says: "We want Odin home".

Media coverage

Ethnicity and socioeconomic status

A racial disparity between the American news media response when a white individual goes missing and when a black individual goes missing has been observed. According to Seong-Jae Min & John C. Feaster, throughout history the news media has provided white individuals, particularly affluent women, more comprehensive news coverage than people of color. The authors have noted that while a correlation has been established, they have no clear causation. They suggest that the socioeconomic status or attractiveness of a child may also influence their chances of appearing in the news media.

American journalist Howard Kurtz, best known for his analysis of the media, supported the conclusion that a person's race and socioeconomic status impacted media coverage. He gave the kidnappings of Elizabeth Smart and Alexis Patterson as an example—when Smart, a young affluent Caucasian girl from Utah, went missing, the media coverage was worldwide. After several months of searching, she was found alive. In comparison, when Patterson, a young black girl from Wisconsin, went missing, she received only local news coverage and is still missing to this day.

Within the U.S., there are several organizations that bring awareness and equality to missing people of color, such as the Black and Missing Foundation, a non-profit organization founded in 2008. The Black and Missing Foundation's goal is to provide resources to families of missing people of color and educate minority groups on personal safety. Additionally, Deidra Robey leads a non-profit organization called Black and Missing but not Forgotten, which provides assistance in spreading awareness about a missing person.

It has also been speculated by Kristen Gilchrist that, in Canadian news media, Aboriginal women receive three and a half times less coverage than white women. Their articles were found to be shorter and less detailed—with an average word count for white women of 713 compared to 518 for Aboriginal women—and less likely to be front-page news. Depictions of the Aboriginals were also described by Gilchrist as more "detached" in tone.

Emphasis on stranger kidnappings

Some of the most widely covered missing person cases have been kidnappings of children by strangers; however these instances are rare. In most parts of the world, criminal abductions make up only a small percentage of missing person cases and, in turn, most of these abductions are by someone who knows the child (such as a non-custodial parent). A child staying too long with a non-custodial parent can be enough to qualify as an abduction. During the year 1999 in the United States, there were an estimated 800,000 reported missing children cases. Of these, 203,900 children were reported as the victims of family abductions and 58,200 of non-family abductions. However, only 115 were the result of "stereotypical" kidnaps (by someone unknown or of slight acquaintance to the child).

International statistics and efforts

The Wall Street Journal reported in 2012 that: "It is estimated that some 8 million children go missing around the world each year." The BBC News reported that of the children who go missing worldwide, "while usually the child is found quickly the ordeal can sometimes last months, even years."

The issue of child disappearances is increasingly recognized as a concern for national and international policy makers.

According to the UNHCR, over 15,000 unaccompanied and separated children claimed asylum in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland in 2009. The precarious situation of these children makes them particularly vulnerable to human rights abuses, rendering their protection critical, given the high risks to which they are exposed. Most of these children are boys aged 14 years and over, with diverse ethnic, cultural, religious and social backgrounds mainly originating from Afghanistan, Somalia, Angola, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Eritrea and Iraq.

A sailor assigned to Naval Computer Telecommunications Station (NCTS) Guam, fingerprints Alexis Kosak during the 11th annual Project KidCare event held at Agana Shopping Center. The project's goal is to assist local authorities with locating and recovering missing children and inform the public about ways to prevent child abduction.

In the report, UNICEF also warns that there is a dramatic absence of harmonized and systematic data collection, analysis and dissemination at all levels without which countries lack important evidence that informs national policies and responses. Missing Children Europe, the European federation for missing children, aims to meet this need. The CRM system is expected to have a clear impact on the way hotlines are able to work together and collect data on the problem of missing children.

The British Asylum Screening Unit estimated that 60% of the unaccompanied minors accommodated in social care centres in the UK go missing and are not found again. According to the CIA out of the 800,000 people trafficked annually across national borders in the world, up to 50% are minors.

The United Nations is operating a Commission on Missing Persons that serves as an international coordination center and provides also statistical material regarding missing persons worldwide. The International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement strives to clarify the fate and whereabouts of missing persons when loss of contact is due to armed conflict or other situations of violence; natural or man-made disaster; migration and in other situations of humanitarian need. It is also supporting the families of missing persons to rebuild their social lives and find emotional well-being.

Laws and statistics by country

Austria

Austria has a competence center for missing persons. The police records the missing person's data, which is stored in the Austrian Search System (EKIS) and (automatically) in the Schengen Information System (SIS).

In 2016, a total of 8,887 cases were processed and stored in the EKIS. Of these, 6,322 cases involved EU citizens, except for 44 resolved, and 2,565 non-EU citizens, except for 264 resolved. As of October 1, 2017, a total of 1,300 people were reported missing in Austria: 349 were women, 198 of whom were minors; 951 were male, of whom 597 were minors. The number of EU citizens who were stored in the EKIS as missing was between 400 and 500 at all times mentioned in 2015/2016/2017. In 2017, 10,000 missing person reports were filed in Austria. As of May 1, 2018, 1,267 people had been reported missing, including 746 children and young people. Only 505 came from EU countries.

In January 2019, 1037 people were recorded as missing in the EKIS, in January 2020 884 people. Between 2016 and 2019, 85 percent of missing persons cases were resolved within a week, 95 percent within a month, 97 percent within six months and 98 percent within a year. In 2019, the KAP published a search in only 13 cases, the result of which was: 8 alive, 3 dead, 2 still missing.

The legal status of missing persons in Austria is regulated by the Declaration of Death Act (Todeserklärungsgesetz).

Australia

Over 305,000 people were reported missing in Australia from 2008–2015 (Bricknell, 2017), which is estimated to be one person reported missing every 18 minutes (Henderson, Henderson & Kienan, 2000). Around 38,159 missing person reports are made on average every year in Australia (Bricknell, 2017). James, Anderson and Putt (2008) found that around 12,001 females and 12,505 males went missing in Australia in 2008.

Canada

Royal Canadian Mounted Police missing child statistics for a ten-year period show a total of 60,582 missing children in 2007.

France

The file named Fichier des personnes recherchées (FPR) is a data collection of the French national police. It is also under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of the Interior and the Ministry of Defence.

Ireland

On May 26, 2002, a monument to missing persons was unveiled in County Kilkenny, Ireland by President Mary McAleese. It was the first monument of its kind in the world.

Jamaica

The founder of Jamaica's Hear the Children's Cry, child-rights advocate Betty Ann Blaine, asked the government to introduce missing-children legislation in Jamaica. She said in May 2015: "Jamaica is facing a crisis of missing children. Every single month, we have approximately 150 reports of children who go missing. That is a crisis because we are only 2.7 million people." She said her organization would work with the International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children (ICMEC) to recommend a model law to the Parliament of Jamaica.

Japan

It has been estimated that one hundred thousand Japanese people disappear annually. The term jouhatsu refers to the people in Japan who purposely vanish from their established lives without a trace.

Latin America

In the 1970s and 1980s, almost all South American countries were ruled for a long time by right-wing military dictatorships. Most of them violently suppressed the opposition, usually with the secret kidnapping of unwanted people by unnamed members of the security forces.

Russia

According to a report by the Russian news agency TASS released in 2018, between 70,000 and 100,000 people go missing in Russia every year. About 25% of missing persons cases remain unsolved.

Switzerland

The cantonal police are responsible for reports of disappearances, which do not have specialized sections on the matter. The complaint can be filed one year after an event that can be linked to a danger to life or five years after the last sign of life of the interested person. If the person found by the authorities is of age, they can only inform other people with her consent.

Police search and emergency room costs are usually charged in part or in full to the applicants. Helicopter searches are particularly expensive. The insurance covers the costs if the situation was not caused by gross negligence, if there is a risk of death and if there is a reasonable chance of survival.

A relatively large number of people are lost in Switzerland due to accidents in alpine sports.

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom, The Huffington Post reported in 2012, over 140,000 children go missing each year, as calculated by the Child Exploitation and Online Protection Centre (CEOP) of the United Kingdom's National Crime Agency.

United States

Statistical information on missing persons in the USA is provided by annual National Crime Information Center (NCIC) "Missing Person and Unidentified Person Statistics", annual AMBER Alert Reports (minors only) and a comprehensive 2002 NISMART–2 study (covering children missing in year 1999).

AMBER Alerts are reserved for confirmed abductions, where child is at risk of serious injury or death. In 2018, 161 such alerts were issued, concerning 203 children. Of those 161 cases, 23 were found to be hoaxes or unfounded (minor was not missing), 92 were familial abductions, 38 were non-familial abductions and remaining 8 were runaways, lost, injured or unclassified. As of early 2019, 11 children were still missing and 7 were found deceased, with remaining children having been recovered. Notably, even though all states have operational AMBER program, 16 did not issue any alerts in 2018.

National Incidence Studies of Missing, Abducted, Runaway, and Thrownaway Children (NISMART–2) study by the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention from 2002 comprehensively described missing children cases for year 1999. The study considered a child missing when the child's whereabouts were unknown to the primary caretaker, with the result that the caretaker was alarmed for at least 1 hour and tried to locate the child. The estimated number of "caretaker missing children (reported and not reported)" was around 1.3 million, with about 800 thousand missing children estimated to have been reported. The 1,300,000 number is further broken down into approximately 33,000 non-familial abductions, 117,000 familial abductions, 629,000 runaway/thrownaway cases, 198,000 lost/injured, and 375,000 "benign explanations". By the time the study data were collected, 99.8% of 1.3 million caretaker missing children had been returned home alive or located. Only 0.2% percent or 2,500 had not, the vast majority of which were runaways from institutions. Furthermore, only an estimated 115 of 33,000 non-familial abductions were stereotypical kidnappings, involving a stranger or slight acquaintance. Data in the study was derived from a Law Enforcement Study, National Household Surveys of both Adult Caretakers and Youth (telephone interviews) and a Juvenile Facilities Study. The estimated number of 800,000 missing children reports has been widely circulated in the popular press.

The United States' National Crime Information Center (NCIC) of the Federal Bureau of Investigation, mandated by the National Child Search Assistance Act, maintains its own "Missing Person File" to which local police report people for whom they are searching. The NCIC "Missing Person File" does have a category that is entitled "Juvenile" or "EMJ" (for: Enter Missing Person - Juvenile), but that category does not reflect the total number of all juveniles reported missing to the NCIC, for whom local police are searching. The NCIC also uses its own classification criteria; it does not use the above NISMART definitions of what constitutes a missing child. The NCIC data is limited to individuals who have been reported to the NCIC as missing, and are being searched for, by local police. In addition, the EMJ category does not contain all reports of juveniles who have been reported missing to the NCIC. While the EMJ category holds records of some of the juveniles reported missing, the totals for the EMJ category excludes those juveniles recorded missing but who "have a proven physical or mental disability ... are missing under circumstances indicating that they may be in physical danger ... are missing after a catastrophe ... [or] are missing under circumstances indicating their disappearance may not have been voluntary". In 2013, the NCIC entered 445,214 "EMJ" reports (440,625 in the EMJ category under the age of 18; but 462,567 under the age of 18 in all categories, and 494,372 under the age of 21 in all categories), and NCIC's total reports numbered 627,911. Of the children under age 18, a total of 4,883 reports were classified as "missing under circumstances indicating that the disappearance may not have been voluntary, i.e., abduction or kidnapping" (9,572 under age 21), and an additional 9,617 as "missing under circumstances indicating that his/her physical safety may be in danger" (15,163 under age 21). The total missing person records entered into NCIC were 661,593 in 2012, 678,860 in 2011 (550,424 of whom were under 21), 692,944 in 2010 (531,928 of whom were under 18, and 565,692 of whom were under 21), and 719,558 in 2009. A total of 630,990 records were cleared or canceled during 2013. At end-of-year 2013, NCIC had 84,136 still-active missing person records, with 33,849 (40.2%) being of juveniles under 18, and 9,706 (11.5%) being of juveniles between 18 and 20.

European Union

116 000 is the European hotline for missing children active in all 27 countries of the EU as well as Albania, Serbia, Switzerland, Ukraine and the United Kingdom. The hotline was an initiative pushed for by Missing Children Europe, the European federation for missing children.