← Back to Vol. 02 Issue No. 04 — July
Abstract
Establishing consistent investigative strategies for missing and unidentified persons. Every day in the United States people go missing, and unidentified bodies are located both individually and after mass disasters. Law enforcement must standardize the way in which those victims are investigated, through meaningful collaboration in order to resolve these cases. The tens of thousands of missing persons and unidentified bodies has become known as America’s silent mass disaster, and with more than four-thousand new cases being investigated by the nation’s coroner’s and medical examiners annually law enforcement has a duty to develop the protocols and practices needed to deal with missing persons and unidentified human remains (UHR’s) through collaboration, policies, and training. The lack of consistent and effective agency policies and practices dedicated to resolving missing and unidentified human remains cases has caused these cases to reach unacceptable proportions, and a low probability of resolution. Collaboration with coroner’s office, and other law enforcement agencies for prioritization of UHR’s and missing person’s case investigation. The lack of training in safety net procedures involving missing and unidentified person’s databases, lack of use of federal, state, databases for the identification of missing and unidentified persons. Trust and ethical challenges of DNA samples use; and fingerprints for comparison to missing, and unidentified persons; and degraded DNA issues after mass disasters is a problem for law enforcement, and forensics.