There is a limited amount of research in the area of missing persons, especially adults. The aim of this research is to expand on the understanding of missing people, by examining adults' behaviours while missing and determining if distinct behavioural themes exist. Based on previous literature it was hypothesised that three behavioural themes will be present; dysfunctional, escape, and unintentional. Thirty-six behaviours were coded from 362 missing person police reports and analysed using smallest space analysis (SSA). This produced a spatial representation of the behaviours, showing three distinct behavioural themes. Seventy percent of the adult missing person reports were classified under one dominant theme, 41% were 'unintentional', 18% were 'dysfunctional', and 11% were 'escape'. The relationship between a missing person's dominant behavioural theme and their assigned risk level and demographic characteristics were also analysed. A significant association was found between the age, occupational status, whether they had any mental health issues, and the risk level assigned to the missing person; and their dominant behavioural theme. The findings are the first step in the development of a standardised checklist for a missing person investigation. This has implications on how practitioners prioritise missing adults, and interventions to prevent individuals from going missing.

This paper outlines a brief history of the evolutionary trajectory of offender profiling and illustrates the three broad strands (investigative, clinical, and statistical ) that emerged in the 1970s-1990s. We then indicate how a more pragmatic, interdisciplinary practitioner-academic model has emerged in recent years and go on to describe the range of contributions that are now made across the criminal justice field. More recently termed 'behavioural investigative advice' in the UK, the paper then argues that whilst a range of potential contributions exist (from linking crimes, risk assessment, provision of bad character evidence, investigative interviewing advice, to geoprofiling), the nature of the process by which that contribution occurs is not yet well understood. The review of these potential contributions concludes with several suggestions and recommendations for further research and relevant methodologies by which to conduct that research. This includes the requirement to combine conceptual and theory-driven models alongside empirically driven statistical approaches, as well as the requirement to more precisely delineate and describe how contributions are made by behavioural experts through cognitive task analyses and associated methods.Several countries' police services regularly employ the assistance of psychologists in relation to the prevention, management, and investigation of crime (Alison, 2005).Although some of what they are engaged in might be described as offender profiling, the support from psychologists over the last 10 years, in the UK at least, might be more accurately described as behavioural investigative advice (BIA; ACPO, 2006). The older term offender profiling has developed an almost mythic status in popular literature and drama (Herndon, 2007), although, as this paper will demonstrate, in its best understood but narrow definition, it has failed to make much operational impact.

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