Citation

Hunt D. J. Investig. Psych. Offender Profil. 2021; 18(1): 18-34.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2021, John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

10.1002/jip.1567

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Over 320,000 missing persons are estimated to go missing annually in United Kingdom due to a variety of intentional and unintentional factors. This article aims to investigate whether the criminal narrative experience framework can be applied to missing persons to acquire a deeper insight into the psychological differences between missing children. Sixty-one previously missing persons completed a missing experience survey, narrative roles questionnaire, and emotions questionnaire. Data were content analysed and subjected to a non-metric, multi-dimensional scaling procedure in the form of smallest space analysis. The results identified four distinct behavioural themes as follows: depressed throwaway victim, distressed pushaway revenger, calm runaway professional and elated fallaway hero. Following a stringent criterion, 88.50% of the sample could be differentiated into one dominant behavioural theme with the remaining 11.50% identified as a hybrid theme. Due to the exploratory nature of the study, additional exploration of the applicability of the framework is required.

Language: en

Keywords

criminal narratives; missing children; missing children narrative experience framework; missing persons; narrative experience