ABSTRACT
The definition of a missing person is a multifaceted one. As Edkins (2011) argued, ‘missingness’ is often experienced by the person reporting the incident, rather than the person being reported to the police. In the UK, a missing person is defined as ‘anyone whose whereabouts cannot be established and where the circumstances are out of character or the context suggests the person may be the subject of crime or at risk of harm to themselves or another’ (ACPO, 2013). Each year in the UK, over 300,000 reports are made to the police (NCA, 2014a, 2015; NPIA, 2012; SOCA, 2013). Shalev Greene and Pakes (2014) estimate that the annual cost of missing person investigations is well over £700 million and equates to 14 per cent of the total number of full-time police officers across the UK.
