Study sets base for missing persons search matrix

01.08.2006
Results from a Ph.D. study into missing persons around Australia will soon be in use by the New South Wales (NSW) Police Force to develop a standardized procedure for locating missing persons.

The five-year study, on which Charles Sturt University and the NSW Police Force collaborated, discovered 26 common variables on why people go missing. These variables, or flag points, will be integrated as a search matrix within the missing persons database to provide a percentage risk factor based on missing person behavior.

Shaunagh Foy, then a student of Forensic Psychology at Charles Sturt University (CSU), worked on the project as part of her Ph.D. and said the researchers initially wanted 60 variables, but were unable to obtain this due to a lack of available missing persons data.

The project started in 1999 and was completed in 2004. Foy said initially there was only sparse missing person data to work with.

"Each year 30,000 people are recorded missing; if you break that down it is about 22 people a day in NSW. Cases are often ambiguous and it's hard to tell what has happened to [people]," Foy said.

"Senior staff at NSW Police wanted to try and understand missing persons further as there was no research available; only basic studies from the National Center of Missing and Exploited Children in the US. We wanted to look at basic demographic data, but in terms of behavior there are no studies on why adults run away.