neighborhood news
Why Do They Run? DC’s Missing Teens Put a Spotlight on Failings in the City’s Services
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article by Christine Rushton | photos by Sasha Bruce
teen makes a call to police. Her mom’s boyfriend tried to stab her. The one before had tried to choke her. She wants a protection order placed on this one, so she goes down to the courthouse alone, only to find her mom there with the boyfriend. She’d like to leave her mom’s house, but she’s 18 and trying to figure out a plan. Worse, her story isn’t unusual. Many of her friends have similar stories. One caught her mom’s boyfriend peeking at her in the shower. She couldn’t do anything about it because she’s pregnant and needs a place to stay. But when he tried to rape her a
Sasha Bruce Youthwork members gather in front of the shelter .
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few months later, she escaped to a local domestic violence shelter. These are the stories Jamila Larson and her staff at the Homeless Children’s Playtime Project hear from the teens, both girls and boys, who come through the program. Abuse and neglect top the reasons why children flee their homes and into often dangerous situations, said Larson, executive director of Playtime Project. “If any teen is getting 80 percent of love from their family, they aren’t running away,” she said. “We need more safe places for teens to talk with someone and help them problem-solve.” More than a thousand teens run off each year in the District, and that’s only the recorded estimate from those who report to police, according to the missing persons records of the Metropolitan Police Department (MPD). Fleeing domestic violence situations, homelessness, or inadequate parenting, or seeking the allure of a better life, teens were quietly racking up examples of failures by the city’s community, leadership, and services to stop putting its children at risk. That was, until the MPD’s Chanel Dickerson changed a policy and released live alerts of “critical missing person” reports. The District quickly found itself at the center of a national uproar over what many thought was an epidemic of trafficking in the nation’s capital. Not the case. But as leaders of the District and service programs responded and Mayor Muriel Bowser launched her task force on the issue, the city realized it needed a more comprehensive, consistent process for reaching out and helping teens facing these situations at home, especially those caused by a disparity of income in the poorer communities.
WHEN POLICE GET THE CALL
Children can go missing each day, as observed in DC’s missing persons reports. Sometimes, police officers report that children were left unsupervised and had to fend for themselves. Other times, a child might fall asleep on a bus and wake up in the wrong neighborhood. But a few cases show the larger picture of what officers see when they investigate. In the case of a 12-year-old male, police have recorded him missing 11 times since the start of 2017. He voluntarily leaves home, and the longest he’s gone missing was three days. Detectives spoke with the boy’s guardian and family members to find out where he hangs out, what may have changed in the time from the last report, and what social media they might use. Detectives spotted the boy on day two of a report, but the boy fled. Finally, the adult that had sheltered and fed the boy saw his picture on a news report and turned him in to police. In another case, a 16-year-old girl has been reported missing at least eight times since the start of 2017. She voluntarily leaves home, and the longest she went missing was for two days. Detectives again searched all of her regular hangouts and spoke with family and friends. But the girl finally turned herself into her social worker. The cases often stem from problems in the home. MPD Captain Michelle Caron said that police officers investigate each case each time the child is reported missing. But these children will continue to leave home if they don’t get the services or support they need, from family or otherwise.
HUMANIZING THE STATISTICS IN REALITY
DC’s rate of reported critical missing teens hasn’t increased. In fact, the numbers in the last five years have actually decreased, said MPD’s Dickerson, head of the Youth and Family Services division. The average came to about 200 a month in years prior, but 2017 sits at about 190 right now. Investigators closed about 99 percent of all missing person cases (teen and other ages) between 2012 and 2016. Compared to other cities, DC sits well under the average for cases reported to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC) of 13-to17-year-old children between 2012 and 2016: Chicago reported 1,820, Fort Lauderdale 1,768, Miami 1,597, and DC 115. (But not all cities are required to report their missing cases to NCMEC, and social services in Illinois and Florida require it, which can skew the numbers.) Of the more than 1,000 cases reported so far this year in DC, only 29 remain open (as of April 23), according to MPD’s missing person’s reports. Of the to-