NCJ Number
162113
Journal
Journal of Contemporary Criminal Justice Volume: 12 Issue: 2 Dated: (May 1996) Pages: 121-150
Date Published
1996
Length
30 pages
Annotation
This analysis of the runaway issue focuses on the perspectives of police and parents in Los Angeles and San Francisco.
Abstract
Police perceptions of the problem of lost or missing children was based on information collected from law enforcement reports for all youths reported missing to the Los Angeles and San Francisco police departments between July 15, 1988, and September 30, 1988 (n=1,459). The data include personal and social characteristics and circumstances related to the disappearances. Police ride-alongs and field observations were conducted during the quantitative data collection process and offered a more indepth understanding of the legal and practical constraints that face the police. Semi-structured interviews with 16 California law enforcement administrators, detectives, and patrol officers supplemented the quantitative portion of the study. The research also secured the perspective of the parents of runaways. The information obtained from parents was based on interviews with nine families who discussed their experiences with runaway daughters and sons. A semi-structured open-ended interview schedule was used to guide the parent interviews and included questions regarding personal and social characteristics, parent reactions to their child's running away, and contact with other parents, private therapists, the police, and social service agencies. Findings show that parents were frustrated and angry with the police and a juvenile justice system that has backed away from using its resources and authority to help supervise children who do not respond to the authority of their parents. Police tend to regard runaways as a problem for which they have few resources, particularly in the current climate of the deinstitutionalization of status offenders. The research suggests a need to explore further parental and police responses to deinstitutionalization. The findings also indicate the need to provide parents with concrete, nonjudicial assistance in dealing more successfully with their defiant children. 3 tables and 29 references