BOISE, Idaho — A first-of-its-kind report aims to help law enforcement better understand who is going missing across the Gem State - and why.
The Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse put out its first Idaho Missing Persons Report last week.
The Missing Person Clearinghouse collects all of the state's missing persons reports, puts out alerts and works with law enforcement agencies on case assistance and analysis.
The clearinghouse put the report together to better understand the scope of missing persons cases across Idaho.
"You can't manage when you don't know what's going on," Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse Manager Tanea Parmenter said. "So, in order to help us prevent, or even help recover missing persons quickly, we need to understand what our missing persons are looking like in Idaho - the victim demographics, the way that they go missing and how many we are looking at throughout the state."
According to Idaho law, a missing person is defined as "a person whose whereabouts are unknown to a parent, guardian, caretaker or others who have normal contact with the person."
In 2023, 2,355 cases were entered into National Crime Information Center (NCIC), of which 2,297 were purged; meaning the person was located or the case was cleared. As of Dec. 31, 2023, 214 cases were still open and considered active, combining 2023 and previous years, according to Idaho State Police.
Other notable findings from the report are that the state's number of missing male and female reports are nearly identical.
While there are more active adult missing person cases, the most common reports filed are for children ages 15-17. However, the same child could be included in the report multiple times if they ran away multiple times in the same year. Runaways were the most common cause for why a child was reported missing.
When it comes to reporting someone as missing, Idahoans don't have to wait to contact law enforcement.
"When a person goes missing, there's no time period anymore to report that person to law enforcement," Parmenter said. "You see on TV and the crime shows where you have to wait 24 hours, we're recommending people do not wait 24 hours to report their loved one missing."
Parmenter said they made this report to look at numbers on a statewide level to help law enforcement understand what the state is seeing, which could help target training for officers working on missing persons cases.
While this was the first report filed by the Idaho Missing Person Clearinghouse, they would like to make the report annual, building on it in future years by working with law enforcement on what data they would find helpful.
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