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

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

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

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

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’

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)

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  

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

Any questions? Joe Apps, PG Researcher g.apps@dundee.ac.uk joe.apps@nca.x.gsi.gov.uk 07710 152399