Applying the criminal narrative experience framework to missing children

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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.
Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)18-34
Number of pages17
JournalJournal of Investigative Psychology and Offender Profiling
Volume18
Issue number1
Early online date6 Nov 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jan 2021

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