Missing persons - 1040/21

Provision of information held by Northumbria Police made under the Freedom of Information Act 2000 (the 'Act')

As you may be aware the purpose of the Act is to allow a general right of access to information held at the time of a request, by a Public Authority (including the Police), subject to certain limitations and exemptions.

You asked:

1. The number of missing people reported to Northumbria Police from March 2020 to 26/07/21 and their ethnicity.
2. Of these missing people reports, I would also like a breakdown of whether they were actioned by police within 24, 48 or up to 72 hours, with a further breakdown by ethnicity.
3. I would also like a breakdown by ethnicity of the initial level of perceived risk (high, medium or low) under which each report was categorised.
4. How many people reported missing between March 2020 and 26/07/21 were found with a breakdown by ethnicity.

 

After we sought clarity you advised:

“To clarify, where I referred to ‘actioned by police’, I meant when the police acted in response to the missing persons report submitted, so when an assessment of the level of risk is made based on the information supplied.

I’m also referring to the number of individual missing persons reports made to Northumbria Police from March 2020 to 26^th July 2021.”

In Response:

Every effort is made to ensure that the figures presented are accurate and complete. However, it is important to note that these data have been extracted from a number of data sources used by forces for police purposes. The detail collected to respond specifically to your request is subject to the inaccuracies inherent in any large scale recording system. As a consequence, care should be taken to ensure data collection processes and their inevitable limitations are taken into account when interpreting those data.

The figures provided therefore are our best interpretation of relevance of data to your request, but you should be aware that the collation of figures for ad hoc requests may have limitations and this should be taken into account when those data are used.

The data will include multiple counts of people who have been reported missing more than once.

With all the above noted I am able to disclose the located information to you as follows.

1.

Ethnicity	Count
Afro/Caribbean	257
Arabian	36
Asian	210
Dark European	108
Mixed Heritage	223
Oriental	19
White European	15,198
Unknown	720
Total	16,771

 

2. Once a call is received regarding a missing person it is risk assessed at that point, and therefore actioned at the time of call.  Any further actions will be prioritised according to current workloads and will happen as soon as resources allow.

 

3.

Ethnicity	High	Medium	Low	Absent	Total
Afro/Caribbean	5	196	56	-	257
Arabian	-	32	4	-	36
Asian	2	162	44	2	210
Dark European	-	85	23	-	108
Mixed Heritage	1	204	17	1	223
Oriental	-	15	4	-	19
White European	214	12,828	2,089	67	15,198
Unknown	12	619	85	4	720
Total	234	14,141	2,322	74	16,771

 

4.

Ethnicity	High	Low	Medium	Absent	Total
Afro/Caribbean	5	53	196	-	254
Arabian	-	4	32	-	36
Asian	2	37	162	2	203
Dark European	-	22	85	-	107
Mixed Heritage	1	17	204	1	223
Oriental	-	3	15	-	18
White European	214	2,063	12,826	67	15,170
Unknown	12	82	618	4	716
Total	234	2,281	14,138	74	16,727