Background - 2015 Fast Fact Sheet

Introduction

Since 2012, the National Centre for Missing Persons and Unidentified Remains (NCMPUR) has produced the NCMPUR Fast Fact Sheet. This fact sheet provides a national breakdown of missing persons reports by province, age (child or adult), sex, and probable cause. The NCMPUR 2015 Fast Fact Sheet has been prepared using numbers generated by the national Missing Children/Persons and Unidentified Remains (MC/PUR) Database, which is a new application that provides the necessary data and tools to coordinate a national approach to these investigations. MC/PUR includes occurrences which are currently open, and concluded occurrences^{Footnote 1} only if they were open after May 16, 2014. This is the first year for which a full set of data exists in MC/PUR for statistical purposes.

The data in MC/PUR is derived from missing person transactions in the Canadian Police Information Centre (CPIC). Thus it is limited by the quality and types of data agencies enter into CPIC, and the techniques used by MC/PUR to compile that data. CPIC transactions include repeat runaways, and situations where a single instance of a missing person may be entered and deleted multiple times by different agencies over a period of time (e.g., a child goes missing with the initial report being filed with one police service, however further investigation indicates the file falls within another police service’s jurisdiction). MC/PUR uses algorithms in an attempt to identify and eliminate duplicate data and produce more accurate statistics. These algorithms are different from those used in previous years, so retroactive comparison to previous years will not be completely correct^{Footnote 2}. An occurrence is considered as belonging to the year 2015 based on the reported Date Last Seen^{Footnote 3}. The number of missing person subjects reported herein reflects a “point in time” and can change if records for 2015 cases are added, modified, or flagged as duplicate^{Footnote 4}.

It is also important to note that in terms of probable cause, there is some subjectivity in the original CPIC data that populates MC/PUR, and it may not be consistently completed nor maintained by agencies.

While the NCMPUR anticipates that future fast fact sheets will be in a similar format to the one produced this year, the categories may change in future years to provide a more comprehensive picture of the missing person reports. As the statistics become more descriptive, retroactive comparisons to previous years may not be possible.

Seven (7) female MP Subjects and twenty-one (21) male MP Subjects were not included in this table as the province was classified under ‘Other’.
Two hundred thirty-eight (238) missing adult reports were not included in this table as there was no probable cause entered.

Fast Facts:

• 57% of missing adult reports involve males.
• 62% of missing adult reports were removed within 24 hours, while 90% were removed within a week^{Footnote 5}.

Four (4) Female MP Subjects and one (1) Male MP Subject were not included in this table as the province was classified under ‘Other’.
Sixty-four (64) missing children reports were not included in this table as there was no probable cause entered.

Fast Facts:

• 58% of all missing children/youth reports involve females.
• 76% of missing children/youth reports (male and female) are runaways.
• 58% of missing children/youth reports were removed within 24 hours, while 91% were removed within a week^{Footnote 6}.

Date modified:

2016-05-19