Police shake-up over missing person cases:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-21854549


But surely, you wouldn't report someone as missing if you weren't concerned about their wellbeing anyway? *shrug*
And by "monitored" that presumably means the report is forgotten about or stuffed in a filing cabinet until a body turns up.

Indeed. Yet another case of police abdicating their responsibility to actually keep the public safe and happy, as oppose to using them as a revenue stream.

Not just young children, but there are many elderly who get confused and are found wandering by the police. There is one woman in Hove, who regularly walks out of her nursing home presumably to find her way back to her own home and every day the police have to pick her up, mainly because social services pass the buck.

It's not the Police's job to keep the public safe or happy - that's what the Government as a whole is for.

The Police's responsibilities are to enforce the law, prevent civil disorder and protect property; they're not there to pick up Aunty Ethel.

"Keep the public safe" is very much part of what they're expected to do, although there are limits...

I wonder which government department is responsible for Aunty Ethel..? I don't think Social Services has patrol cars.

Unless she is shoplifting, rioting and burning someone else's home down.

Yes but Auntie Ethel might have Alzheimer's so would be impossible to charge.

She would only be suffering until the charges are dropped ala Saunders

Yes but I suspect that the average Aunt will not have access to amenable doctors willing to testify about that. I suspect that many will have existing medical notes that once passed to the CPS will lead to charges being dropped. Even if they went to court with it I doubt that a jury would convict anyway. Chances are they will now someone in their family with Alzheimer's so they would not convict.

I'm more concerned about what happens when a vulnerable young person goes missing (let's say a teenager going missing from a care home), under these new guidelines are they simply classed as "absent" and forgotten about by the police?

Seems to me there is a shift towards the onus being on the person reporting them as missing to prove they're in danger before the police will even add them to a missing persons list - OK, if the police aren't going to actually do anything proactive in the search for the person, but at least class them as missing so that they're on the radar for other groups to look out for.

Is it just a coincidence they've chosen Budget Day to announce these changes in the hope that other news will take priority?

I think that teenagers are considered able to fend for themselves. Though that might be grossly overoptimistic. Though if you put out a notice to all police cars to be on the look out for a 15 year old on her own they may get overwhelmed by the numbers.

Well, OK, don't take me literally - teenager is too broad a term, let's say it's a 13-year old in care that runs away. What happens then?

Yes and usually a person in care usually has significant other problems as well, so yes they should be given priority, but then I suspect that you would get middle class parents getting upset that there little Annabelle is not getting any Police attention when she runs off after horse riding.