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2023-10-10

Return Home Interviews with Children Who Have Been Missing: An Exploratory Analysis

Laura Boulton1, Jessica Phoenix2,

Eric Halford3, Aiden Sidebottom4

1 School of Justice Studies, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, UK

2 Research and Innovation, Rabdan Academy, Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates

3 Jill Dando Institute of Security and Crime Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom

Responding to reports of missing children is an everyday occurrence in many police agencies, and a significant source of police demand. In England, there is a statutory requirement that all those under the age of 18 be offered a return home interview (RHI) within 72 hours of returning from a missing episode.

The main purpose of an RHI is to better understand the reasons why a young person went missing and, where necessary, put measures in place to safeguard that young person and reduce the likelihood of them going missing again.

Although widely practiced in England, there is currently limited research on the conduct of and information elicited from RHIs. In an attempt to help fill this research gap, this article reports the findings of an exploratory analysis of 113 RHIs carried out in one police force area in England. Findings indicate that 42 per cent (n = 48) of the sampled RHIs occurred within the required 72-hour timeframe.

Absent or incomplete information was common, particularly in relation to the presence and types of vulnerabilities associated with missing children. In terms of those interviewed, nearly half of the interviewees did not consider themselves to be missing. Moreover, many exhibited a high prevalence of mental health concerns, conflict at home and drug and alcohol use. The implications of the findings for safeguarding children and preventing missing incidents are discussed.

The safeguarding of vulnerable young people is a key priority area in many jurisdictions. It is a task which touches upon a variety of public services from policing and healthcare to housing and social work. To this end, in England, the focus of this paper, it is a statutory requirement that within 72 hours of a young person (under 18) returning from a missing episode, they are to be offered a RHI. The stated aims of an RHI include providing a chance to reveal information that can help in protecting children from the risk of going missing again, and to protect them from potential risks they may have been exposed.

RHIs are separate from the prevention interviews and ‘safe and well’ checks of missing children ordinarily undertaken by the police in England, thus it is the local authorities’ responsibility to conduct RHIs. Despite the widespread use of RHIs in England and their potentially important role in the support and safeguarding of vulnerable children, presently little is known about the type and quality of information they elicit, nor their effectiveness in informing efforts to support children who have gone missing previously. This lack of research is likely owing to difficulties in accessing RHI data, which by definition involves potentially vulnerable people and sensitive topics.

Building on recent research on missing people, this article reports an exploratory analysis of a sample of RHIs conducted in one UK police force area. The study has three broad aims:

1. To determine what information is routinely collected in RHIs

2. To explore what insights RHIs might provide on missing incidents and the young people involved, including their exposure to and experience of harm when missing

3. To consider how information gleaned from RHIs could inform efforts to support and safeguard young people who have gone missing.

We acknowledge from the outset that in many regions there is no formal, statutory requirement to interview young people who have been missing. Elsewhere (such as Canada) the police (and related agencies) often follow a more informal, rapport-building process albeit one with broadly the same aims as RHIs. Consequently, although our paper focuses on data from England, the findings presented here are considered relevant to the police, their partners and researchers in other jurisdictions who have an interest in and responsibility for the safeguarding of children and reduction of missing incidents.

Although the relatively small sample of RHIs and prevalence of missing data restricted the capacity of our analysis, the analysis found patterns in the available data that warrant further investigation. For instance, 73 per cent of our sample of missing children were already known to Children’s Services, 54 per cent had an active key worker and 48 per cent had gone missing before. Nearly half of the RHIs (43 per cent) related to children living in local authority care which is exceptionally high considering the proportion of children living in care in the general population (less than 1 per cent). Children living in care were therefore extremely over-represented in our sample, supporting previous research relevant to the topic being investigated.

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