Please see the below tables for the requested information. To note, we have provided information based on how it is recorded, not based on the ethnicities in the table provided.

Notes:
Information represents the number of missing person occurrences recorded during the period

The police along with other agencies have put greater focus on missing people in recent years as it is increasingly recognised that it can be a sign of other risks and problems in a person’s life. In order to try to reduce the risks to young people in particular, considerable work has been done with partners to ensure that missing incidents are treated as a priority.

The protection of children and vulnerable people is a priority and West Yorkshire has focused heavily on developing effective multi agency partnerships (with statutory and third sector partners) around children at risk of criminal exploitation (be it CSE, CCE or County Lines) and children who regularly go missing for other reasons. 

The vast majority who go missing, are located within the first 24 hours and nearly all are located within 72 hours.  In respect of children and young people, the majority stay at the homes of their friends and family and have no intention of staying away from home permanently.  The police still take these incidents seriously as this type of behaviour may lead to increased risk taking by the child or young person and association with inappropriate individuals, if not addressed. 

In recent years however particular care has been taken around properly recording and intervening in missing episodes involving young people, especially those in Local Authority care, to ensure that police are able to differentiate between normal boundary testing behaviour and genuine risk. Inappropriate intervention with the police in this area has been shown to be detrimental to young people in the longer term. The Levels of Intervention model, which was formally introduced at the beginning of 2022, supports this for children and young people, and indeed for the wider community. 

West Yorkshire Police have in previous years implemented protocols which Levels of Intervention model now embeds, such as the Hospital Absconder, Welfare Check and Truancy policies. This aims to ensure that police do not record and treat as missing those who are not. Whilst always of significant concern, only a small percentage of young people suffer harm whilst absent.  Those young people who do go missing with an intention of staying away from home are exposed to the greatest risk of suffering harm and so multi agency structures exist to bring partners together to discuss and act to protect and safeguard children and young people in these cases. Ensuring that Police Prevention interviews are followed up by a quality independent return interview is key along with measures being put in place to the support the young person where problems and risks have been identified.