Faces behind the statistics
THE charity Missing People lists three men who have been long-term missing from the local area.
Doran Malaj was 17 when he vanished in Portsmouth on September 12 last year.
Paul Carter was last seen on April 21, 2007, then aged 22.
James Stone, 67 at the time of his disappearance, was last seen on March 1, 1988.
Children’s homes tend to call police at 12.01am if a child was supposed to be at home by midnight, according to Dr Karen Shalev-Greene, director of the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons at the University of Portsmouth.
This instant reporting can create tension between police and the care system.
If the two have agreed protocols about who will be called and when, and how much the carer is supposed to search for the child, then calls to police could reduce.
During previous research, Dr Shalev-Greene found some people had been missing for a “negative period of time” — reported missing after they had returned home.
When a public appeal is made, this can lead to longterm disastrous effects. Dating and job hunts can be thwarted when a former missing child’s name is found in a story still published online.
Dr Shalev-Greene wants to see legislation to end the naming of missing children, but does acknowledge this can help find them and is only used in a handful of cases.
She said: ‘If nobody knows you’re missing but the police and you come back and they say “we’re just looking after you, you’re not in trouble”, fine.
‘But there’s other issues when the name of a person is out there – they can’t reclaim it.’