The power few missing persons: A 10-year follow-up study of over 2,000 youth missing persons

Abstract

Abstract Youths going missing continues to be a matter of great concern for the police. This group has been consistently found to comprise most police missing person reports, be more likely to go repeatedly missing, and experience victimization and vulnerability related to these incidents. This study thus sought to examine single versus repeat versus habitual/chronic missing youth cases to extract differentiated insights to initiate discussions on proactive policing efforts for reducing and preventing missing youth cases. Data employed tracked 2,126 young people reported missing for the first time in 2005, for 10 years using their police records. Over a third went missing more than once. There was evidence of the power few hypothesis, with the habitual/chronic cases constituting 17% of the cases and over 60% of the missing person reports across the study period, and clear differences emerged between single, repeat, and habitual/chronic cases in terms of their demographics, mental health concerns, and justice involvement.