Public Safety and Security Committee
Judiciary Committee
Planning and Development Committee
AN ACT CONCERNING THE INVESTIGATION OF MISSING ADULT PERSONS REPORTS
SUMMARY: This act makes changes affecting the receipt and investigation of missing person reports by law enforcement officers and the collection of DNA in suspected homicide cases.
It requires state and local police to accept without delay any report of a missing adult, who it defines as anyone age 18 or older. And it requires local police departments to immediately accept reports of missing children under age 18, rather than those under age 15, and notify all on-duty police officers and appropriate law enforcement agencies. By law, they must take the same actions with regard to reports of missing adults age 65 or older and mentally impaired people age 18 or older.
The act requires the State Police unit that investigates cases of missing adults to enter, as appropriate, all information collected on a missing adult in the National Crime Information Center database and any other applicable federal database with all “practicable speed. ”
It extends, from January 1, 2008 to January 1, 2012, the deadline for the Police Officer Standards and Training (POST) Council to develop a missing person policy and extends the provisions to include police handling of missing adult reports. (POST has already developed a policy. ) The act also requires each police basic or review training program the State Police, POST, or a municipal police department conducts or administers to include training in the policy and in the use of the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System created by the “Office of Justice Program's National Institute of Justice. ”
The act requires that, after performing any death scene investigation in a suspected homicide case, the official with custody of the human remains must ensure that they are delivered to the Chief Medical Examiner's Office. It requires the chief medical examiner to obtain samples of tissue, whole bone, or hair suitable for DNA typing from the remains and submit them immediately to the Department of Public Safety Division of Scientific Services.
EFFECTIVE DATE: October 1, 2011
MISSING PERSON POLICY
Prior law required POST, by January 1, 2008, to develop and implement a policy for accepting reports of missing persons. The act extends the deadline to January 1, 2012. It also specifies that the policy must include provisions on missing adults, but the legal effect of this addition is unclear because prior law covered any missing person, regardless of age. By law, the policy must include:
1. guidelines for accepting reports;
2. types of information the agency must collect and record;
3. circumstances that indicate that a missing person should be classified as high risk;
4. types of information the agency should provide to anyone making a report, the missing person's relatives, or other people who can help the agency find the person; and
5. agency responsibilities and procedures in responding to a report.
The act requires the policy also to include preferred methods of responding to reports of missing persons that are sensitive to the emotions of people making such reports.
BACKGROUND
Related Law — Missing Child Clearinghouse
By law, local law enforcement agencies must submit to the state Missing Child Information Clearinghouse reports of all missing (1) children under age 18, (2) mentally impaired adults age 18 or older, and (3) seniors age 65 and older. Parents may also notify the clearinghouse of missing children after they report to local police.
The clearinghouse is the state's central repository of information on missing children. But, subject to available resources, it may collect, process, maintain, and disseminate information to help locate missing persons other than those mentioned above (CGS § 29-1e).
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