Why are there so many ‘missing’ teens?

I honestly don’t recall my town having a new round of ‘missing’ posters up every day or even every week?

There was often articles about missing teenagers in the local papers. I was a tearaway teenager and still have the cut outs from when I ran away from home.

County lines.

I also suspect the threshold for being taken into care has been lowered. So shit parents 30 years ago wouldn't report it if their kids were away for a while, but now those children are reported missing by their non-parental carers.

More kids in care, but no good quality care for teens, no decent therapy or mental health support = kids running away.

They run away from children's homes/independent living facilities-by protocol they then must be reported as missing to the police.

It's usually kids in the care system or under some kind of social services involvement.

Local authorities as the corporate parent can't use the same judgement an actual parent would use to say 'I know they are probably out with mates and being a dick' they have to report the child missing after a certain amount of time, every time, even if they know they are most likely just late and pushing boundaries.

My local police force realised they could hunt down wanted criminals much quicker by advertising them as 'missing'on Facebook rather than 'wanted'. People are much more willing to report a sighting of a missing person than they are to grass up a wanted crim. People are getting wise to it though after a few years - that the missing people all seemed to have police mugshots available for use was a bit of a giveaway.

Sorry but yes I’d agree with this. I foster (respite/short stays) and I regularly see children/young people who have stayed. They know and play the system to avoid doing what they’re told. If they don’t fancy maths on a Tuesday off they go to a mates for 3 days and the whole thing starts again. Once they’ve been ‘found’, there’s lots of meetings, the upshot of which is no more maths and shorter school days, with free access out of the classroom whenever they want. They tell me all about this and think it’s hilarious 🥱

I would hate to think of a child in real danger and a parent using a heavily filtered photo, no one would recognise the child to look out for them

@ParrotParty

In answer to your question, because my teen is extremely violent, verbally abusive and aggressive. She had already physically assaulted her nine-year-old sister. I will not put myself in harm's way in public.

I attended a lecture recently about County Lines. The lecturer said that when you see posts like that on social media, 99% of the time it is teens who have been taken, often to houses to "pay off" debts they didn't know they had. It was actually terrifying and I was very shocked. Sometimes children are taken many hundreds of miles away from their homes. Their parents will have no idea that they've ended up in the clutches of county lines dealers.

I don’t know if it’s increased but it’s always been a thing and now social media is used as a tool to make people aware of all these kids who are missing. I wonder if fb etc posts actually help to locate them at all? I mean, it’s always happened and most of the time they come home safe and sound.

My son is a policeman be says simlar. It can be that the child not returned to the care home and is out beyond curview. So are reported missing due to being vunerble.

These are good points. Often the schools don't even have to notify us now - the school apps notify us automatically if they miss registration.

If you’re seeing them on social media, my guess is your algorithms have something to do with it. You paused to look at one, so you get another. You hovered over that one thinking how odd you see them so often, so you get even more in the future.

Abuse, neglect, drugs, poverty ....

Why couldn't you just to to where she went to? That sounds such a worrying process to wait during not knowing for certain where she was.
Is there any way of locking doors and windows until she is calm again before making any requests if it's demand avoidance which is generally the cause?

Years ago photos of missing children were always school photos. Now, as you say, they are all pouty with loads of make up and filters and unrecognisable.

I often see missing teens on my Facebook and it’s usually kids that are known for misbehaving and causing trouble. They end up at a mates or in town, make everyone worry and end up back the next day. Mum thanks everyone for the shares and support and then the following week they’re ‘missing’ again!
And for the love of god parents please if your child goes missing use a photo that your child can be recognised from not one that has a Snapchat filter on leaving the child unrecognisable!! 🤦‍♀️

In the past it would take until late evening to even realise they were missing, then even if reported to police there wouldn't be neighbourhood wide awareness for at least a few days, by which time most are already home.
Now parents can tell within a couple of hours that they're not replying to messages, school always notify parents if the teenager skips school, and parents can then instantly post online to thousands of people.

This.

Not just missing teens op, missing people.

My adopted teen (multiple complexities, multiple disabilities, all related to her in utero and early years experiences) regularly goes missing. She went missing again yesterday. Except she wasn't missing as I knew exactly where she would go and what she would be doing. Children's social care made me phone the police. They sent two officers out to look for her and a third came and interviewed me at home for about 90 minutes. She was where I said she would be. The police were apparently trying to get access to the public CCTV. They were delayed by GDPR. She was missing but not missing. She leaves our home and goes AWOL because she doesn't like rules and can't cope with very basic 'demands' like 'please put your two weeks of dirty socks in the wash basket'.

There wouldn't have been posters though for a teen that doesn't come back at night but is found the next morning or earlier. That would have taken too long (and they would turn up before the print run had finished). The police would still be treating them as a missing person- and returning them when found.

Social media means the message gets out more quickly and cheaply.

Usually they are children in care. LAs will ask the police to share details on social media if the child doesn’t come home or hasn’t gone to known associates.

They didn’t used to see the child as a vulnerable missing person, but as a trouble maker, runaway.

Only recently have they really recognised the children are vulnerable rather than naughty.

Until recently, a family member of mine was head of missing persons for a big metropolitan area police force. They said that most of the time, the child isn't 'missing', they're just not where they're supposed to be.

A large proportion of these children are in the care system, and many have been exploited by county lines gangs. So when you see that they have links to (for example) London, Milton Keynes, Peterborough, that's why.
Or they're with a parent who has taken them from their care setting without permission.

Almost all of these children are vulnerable and have been victims of some sort of trauma or abuse. It's desperately sad.