Is It Possible to Estimate Spanish Missing Person’s Forced and Fatal Outcomes Cases Using Socio-demographic Data? Gender, Age and Nationality

Abstract

Although research on missing persons has globally increased during the past few years, most of the studies conducted have focused on the description of socio-demographic and situational factors associated with this phenomenon. The aim of this study is to explore in-depth the relation between missing person’s socio-demographic factors and missing person’s typology and outcomes. A full 1-year sample of police recorded missing persons (n = 24,284) was extracted from the Spanish ‘Missing Persons and Unidentified Human Remains (PDyRH)’ system and a multivariate statistical approach was used. The findings of this research show that, although nationality and gender are mainly important from a descriptive level, age is the socio-demographic variable that better classifies the typology and outcome of missing person cases. These findings suggest that age is a modulating variable of this phenomenon. Thus, there is a need for the conduction of research for each specific age group focused on identifying psychosocial, criminological and geographical risk factors which could explain missing person case outcomes from a multifaceted approach. Considering previous research in the field, the findings of this research are mostly consistent with these previous studies and entail different implications, both at prevention level and in the scope of police investigations.

Cause of death in fatal missing person cases in England and Wales

“…Internationally, there is a relative paucity of literature on the rate of fatality in missing person cases. The studies that have been published indicate that typically around 1% or fewer missing persons will be found deceased (see, for example, García-Barceló et al, 2022 and Ministerio del Interior, 2021 for analyses of Spanish cases recorded in 2019 and 2020 respectively; Bricknell, 2017 for a brief summary of Australian disappearances in 2015; Hirschel and Lab, 1988 for a now dated analysis of missing person records recorded in one US city in 1984; as well as Newiss, 1999, 2006 and Tarling and Burrows, 2004 for UK analyses).…”