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Missing Persons Essay

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“Outline and Critically Assess the Police use of the Media in Missing Persons Investigations”
In this essay, I will analyse what is a missing person, reasons why persons go missing, critically asses the police use of the media, the media’s role, media and search strategies and senior investigative officer’s (SIO) responsibility.
A missing person is defined by the Association of Chief Police Officers as “Anyone whose whereabouts is unknown whatever the circumstances of disappearance. They will be considered missing until located and their well-being or otherwise established”. (ACPO, 2005: 8) The main objectives in missing person cases are the safe and well recovery of the missing person. And the majority of missing persons turn up …show more content…

All this data, collected will inevitably help with the search and media strategy once again. Person suffering from depression have a desire to be alone and sometimes possess suicidal thoughts. So the SIO will have to consider this, when making a search strategy i.e. search secluded areas like parks, forests and other private places. However, persons that go missing due to a mental illness can confuse the SIO’s search strategy because that person may not think logically and head in a random direction. The person may act rationally and not have a clear objective, therefore wander about pointlessly.
Searching has strict guidelines that the police must obey to legally secure and preserve evidence. The police have to obtain consent from the owner before searching the premises and if the consent is withdrawn before the searching officers have finished their search, then the search is no longer legal and they cannot carry on searching. Section 23 of the PACE Act 1984, states what can be searched i.e. any vehicle etc. The police can also track and triangulate a missing person’s mobile phone if applicable, and that will help with the search strategy.
There are 3 phases of searches used to search for missing persons. Phase 1 is a search of home address and nearby area. Phase 2 search is used to search large areas, and the police use volunteers with the help of the media, to search through the area. Phase 3 search is only used when

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