The Virginia State Crime Commission presented its Missing Persons and Search and Rescue study to lawmakers Monday in response to resolutions from the state government. The study aims to provide methods for improved coordination and deployment of search and rescue cases.
The initial resolution passed Feb. 25. Originally introduced by Sen. Ryan McDougle, R-Hanover, and Del. David Albo, R-Orange, these resolutions have led to a number of VSCC recommendations to better prepare law enforcement for handling these cases.
VSCC staff synthesized available data, met with both the families of missing persons and representatives from all levels of government, and participated in Land Search and Rescue training.
“There’s been a number of incidents where people have disappeared, and the police and the government haven’t developed effective responses,” Albo said. “This was brought to me by constituents, and I thought it was a good idea to try to improve our response.”
The impetus for reforming current missing persons policies — multiple abductions and murders of young women in the state, including Alicia Showalter Reynolds, Alexis Murphy and Morgan Harrington — were specifically mentioned in the resolutions.
The disappearance and death of second-year College student Hannah Graham focused national attention on Virginia’s missing persons policies. According to preliminary estimates, more than 4,000 individuals dedicated more than 21,000 hours on 875 search tasks to find Graham. Still, her remains were not located until 35 days after her disappearance.
“The Crime Commission examined what needs to be done in order to get increased large scale rapid search and rescue coordination, additional resource and staffing needs, and law enforcement cross training,” Albo said.
The VSCC found that 16 percent of all missing persons records were for missing adults. Though Virginia has specific alert systems available for missing children and senior adults, according to the VSCC study, “The Code of Virginia is silent on missing persons between 21 to 60 years of age.”
The VSCC advocates doing away with policies requiring waiting periods before accepting reports of missing adults and using technology to begin investigating these cases. Their recommendations also call for the creation of uniform model policies for missing people, online resource guides for the families of missing persons and training standards for those involved in search and rescue.
The information will be used by lawmakers as they vote on the recommendations in December. If approved, the recommendations will be presented and discussed in the upcoming 2015 session of the General Assembly.
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