1. Harm and missing persons:
Challenges to & opportunities for the measurement of harm -
a review of the literature

2. Introduction Short introduction to the literature review
Research questions
Policing context for reviewing missing harm
Conceptual perspectives on understanding harm and social harm
Measuring harm: harm and harm in policing
Discussion: politics; individual and collective harm
Conclusions: framing missing as harm and conceptual contributions to a discipline

3. Research questions
Which existing conceptual approaches are helpful in understanding harm?
What evidence is there to describe and explain individual harm in respect to missing persons’ events as well as to understand the potential for collective harm to other groups and society?
What evidence in the literature is there on the best ways to assess or measure and model harm

4. Policing context for reviewing missing harm
Figure 1: Continuum of missing (adapted from Biehal et al., 2003, p. 3)
Policing and the policy context
Understanding missing
Missing and harm

5. Conceptual perspectives on understanding harm and social harm
Defining harm
Sparrow (2008): five special categories of harm
Hillyard and Tombs (2004) and Maltz (1990): four areas of harm
Zemiology
Pemberton (2016) and Yar (2012) ‘human flourishing’ & ‘needs based’

6. Measuring harm: harm & harm in policing
Drugs – the drugs harm index, assessment parameters, Delphic analysis
Road collisions – contingent valuation or stated preferences, WTP & WTA
Alcohol harms – quality of life losses & human capital approach
Domestic abuse – Hedonic regression or revealed preferences, life satisfaction equations
Measuring harm in crime and policing – value of life estimates, QALYs & DALYs, crime harm indices (Ratcliffe, 2014; Sherman et al., 2015)

7. Discussion: politics, individual and collective harm
Three key questions:
How is harm conceptualized in missing
How is harm in missing currently measured
What emerges from review that could be applied to missing
Current politics of missing
Missing and politics of individual harm
Missing as everyday harm
Missing and politics of collective harm
Existing approaches to measuring harm
Emerging ways to measure harm
Figure 10: Different discourses of missing (adapted from Fyfe, 2001)
Official discourse Local discourse
Focus risks actual events
Social context ‘misper’ (missing person) family member
Spatial context search parameters places (home & community)
Temporal context short term never ending
Policy orientation prevention & public justice, health & protection social care

8. Conclusions: Shifting politics of vulnerability
New politics of missing harm: construction of missing as individual and collective harm
Framing missing as harm: a potentially powerful political narrative
Aspects of invisibility – the hidden nature of missing harm
Current measures insubstantial at best
Gap in research and academic thinking
Conceptual and innovative contributions to law enforcement and public health discipline

9. Any questions?
Joe Apps, PG Researcher