In a recent interview, Metropolitan Police Superintendent Rob Shepherd, who is in charge of missing people, said: “There is a far higher proportion of people from the Afro-Caribbean being reported missing than are represented in the population of London.” Some such reports have garnered widespread attention in the media, such as that of Richard Okorogheye. Richard, a 19-year-old student, went missing from his home in Ladbroke Grove in March 2020. His body was found almost 20 miles away, in Epping Forest, two weeks later.
Shepherd is correct; Black people make up 36% of missing people in London, despite counting for only 13% of the city’s population. Middle Eastern people also make up a higher proportion of missing people than their population, although the difference is less pronounced; 2.3% of missing cases compared to just over 1% of the population.
Asian people account for 9.3% of missing cases but make up over 13% of London’s population, while South-East Asian people comprise just 0.7% of missing cases and 5% of the city’s population. In contrast, white Europeans make up 46% of missing cases, despite being almost 60% of the population.
While not all BAME groups have disproportionate numbers of missing people relative to population, the above data shows that both Black and Middle Eastern people are more likely to go missing. People may go missing for a variety of reasons, some socio-economic and some more personal; when Richard Okorogheye went missing, Ms. Joel previously explained that he had been struggling at university. According to Missing Black People, a project founded to ‘help Black families find their loved ones’: “It’s unclear why Black people specifically have much higher rates of missing person cases relative to other demographics”. Possible reasons cited include mental health issues, relationship breakdown, financial problems or escaping violence, among others. Superintendent Shepherd stated that “unfortunately, it’s mainly down to socio-economic reasons.”
So, if the data shows that Black and Middle Eastern people are more likely to go missing, are these groups (and other BAME people) also less likely to be found?
Richard’s case, along with those of Blessing Olesegun, Bibaa Henry and Nicole Smallman, have bought attention to the other problem that lies behind missing BAME people: an alleged lack of attention and adequate action.
Even when Richard’s body was found, several questions remain unanswered for his mother, Evidence Joel, including the reasons behind his disappearance and why the police did not initially do more to investigate when she reported Richard as missing. Since Richard’s disappearance, Ms. Joel has said that police seemed to be “counting the minutes she was on the phone”, as well as saying to her: “If you can’t find your son, how do you expect police officers to?”. The case continues to attract media attention due to allegations that two Met Police officers are guilty of misconduct over how they handled it.
Unfortunately, this experience seems to be quite common among BAME families whose relatives go missing; the mother of Ms. Henry and Ms. Smallman, Mina Smallman, said to the Independent: “My girls and Sarah (Everard) – they didn’t get the same support, the same outcry.”
Superintendent Shepherd said the force is “conducting research alongside UK charity Missing People into whether conscious or subconscious bias, particularly on race or religious grounds, impacts decision-making”, according to the Evening Standard. While the evidence may be unquantifiable, there is certainly different treatment regarding missing persons cases depending on the ethnic background of the person. The widespread furore surrounding Sarah Everard’s disappearance and murder was evident, but not just because of the circumstances. Cases such as that of Joy Morgan have attracted some attention but not to the same extent, suggesting some subconscious bias in the media and potentially within the authorities. The experience of several Black families is testament to the idea that such investigations are not taken as seriously.
There are currently ongoing studies into the issue of discrimination and bias in the searches for missing BAME people, as well as whether they are less likely to be found, including one from the UK Missing Persons Unit. The lack of official statistics means that it is perhaps more difficult to argue the fact that minority people are less likely to be found, but reports such as Missing People’s Experiences of Racial Discrimination against missing people and their families certainly suggest that that is the case.
Among other things, the report concludes that “missing appeals for people of colour have been less likely to get media attention or engagement on social media” and “some professionals have also recognised in their experience of working with missing people and their families that discrimination happens in missing person investigations”. The report considers 17 separate cases in which families reported feeling that they were discriminated against; Evidence Joel has since called for a public inquiry into how the police deal with such cases. She said that there are “biases in the system when it comes to us. If it was someone who was white, I think they would have been treated differently.”