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Examining Long-Term Missing (LTM) Persons Cases to Advance the Study of the UK Police Missing Persons Risk Assessment

Analysis of 4,746 police cases, including 237 unresolved beyond 28 days, identified features associated with prolonged disappearance, including health concerns, suicide risk and out-of-character behaviour.

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Published on IPP

  • Publisher(s): SAGE Publications.

  • Publication date: 22 September 2026.

  • Country: United Kingdom.

Operational relevance: Supports deeper questioning of vulnerabilities that may not be adequately conveyed by the initial police risk grade.

Transferability and limitations: Relevant to UK police–SAR information exchange. One-force retrospective data, class imbalance and synthetic oversampling limit generalisation. Feature importance is neither causation nor a validated operational score.

Training influence: Supply a risk grade alongside incomplete information; assess independent identification of unanswered questions and reasons for reassessment.

Training sections: Initial Incident Picture; subject assessment; urgency; reassessment; decision logging.

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