Missing vs. Runaway

Why do we even have the ‘Runaway’ category still in existence?

If someone’s location is currently unknown, shouldn’t they simply be categorized as ‘Missing’?

For the life of me, I cannot come to any logical conclusion of why law enforcement would still utilize this label other than being able to dismiss the case more quickly and stigmatize the person being sought. The term 'missing person' invites pity and implies there is a victim. The word 'runaway' is associated with an unruly young person who deserves to be in whatever predicament they find when they leave home and should not incite any further action on the part of police since they will return when they are good and ready. They are simply wasting the police's time.

Yet, how many of these ‘missing’ / ‘runaways’ fall victim to criminal activity once on the street? How many stories do we hear of young people that disappear and are found dead in some obscure location, get hooked on drugs and perpetrate further crime, are recruited by pimps, are enslaved by child pornographers, etc.? Doesn’t it stand to reason that if being reported as missing, can and usually does lead to further criminal activity perpetrated by the actual missing person or a person preying on the vulnerable, then why would you minimize this situation by labeling the missing as a runaway and giving up on the case? To me, this seems to be another instance where we blame the victim for a crime that is not their fault?

It is no secret that many missing young persons do run away from home. However, we are not looking at the bigger picture in most instances. Why are these young people running away from home in the first place? Most kids do not run away for completely frivolous and absolutely mundane reasons as we’d like to think. This measure is usually a last resort and in many cases a cry for help. How many times are these kids not being abused at home or have very questionable situations going on at home? I am not saying that this is the situation with all youths who want to take it to that level, but for the majority it seems to be the case. Even the cases where you hear the young couple who gets caught up in the all consuming and obsessive love…what is going on with these particular young people? Having been a teen and now seeing life from a 40 yers old’s perspective, most teens I have ever known fall in love with one person this week and at least two more people by the end of next week. Teens and tweens for the most part are a fickle bunch and their love is all or nothing for a week or two, then their attention is veered to other objects of desire. Most young people simply want to be desired and accepted, not commited to an all consuming destructive relationship.

Personally, I find it very disturbing that law enforcement still uses the very condescending and antiquated label ‘runaway’ at all, and in particular when they refer to underage youths. If you come to accept two intrinsic facts as truths; that these young people are underage (because of this cannot make entirely rational and mature decisions on their own) and that they belong at home (without the protection of the home and primary caretaker (s)/guardian, assuming it is in fact a safe environment, they can be victimized and are made vulnerable), then does it matter whether they voluntarily left home on a whim, as a result of an argument, or whether they were removed or coerced by another person? Connecticut Law leaves the judgment call to the police officer. The one guaranteed protection they offer is that they cannot sit on the report and simply wait. They must disseminate the information and share it with a wider net. However, they give the officer, who is another human being with a set of biases, preconceptions, and preferences of his/her own, absolute power to judge the character of another whose age and circumstance they most likely may not be able to relate to and someone they may never have even met before. Isn't this what profiling is all about? Maybe we should leave that role to actual FBI Profilers who are trained exclusively on researching and analyzing deviated psychology, as well as pathology of the psyche rather than simply walking the beat or having been trickled down a particular case by the precinct Sergeant? I mean no disrespect to police officers, but we are demanding a skill-set, which takes years of practical experience from people who simply do not have it and emporwering them to make one of the most important decisions in this type of case - how to proceed in the immediate future when time is of the essence.

Now getting back to the subject of teenagers - Is it s a big secret that teen hormones rage and that they say and do stupid things that they don’t mean? Shouldn’t we use equitable criteria as we use for sexual contact when proving statutory rape (that underage youths cannot consent to sex regardless of their own feelings)? Yet, it’s ok for children to make life altering socio-economic decisions, which can compromise their safety, future, and well-being and relocate themselves at will to potentially harmful situations and places without being pronounced emancipated by the State? I’m sorry this makes absolutely no sense to me at all.

I think as parents, we should not tolerate that the label runaway be used for any unemancipated child ever again!