Gone And Forgotten

According to one news channel in the USA, there are about 100,000 missing people in the United States, and nearly 1,000 of them are from the Delaware Valley area.

The FBI Missing Persons And Kidnapped Web Page Is Never Short Of Customers .....

There are also 40,000 cases of unidentified remains.

It’s been called the nation’s silent disaster. In fact those TV figures are very conservative, as according to the FBI, in 2018 the number of missing persons with concerns for their safety was 239,847 females under age 21 reported missing, and 62,371 females over the age of 21 reported missing. The figures for males were 211,906 under age 21 reported missing, and 63,371 males  over the age of 21 reported missing. Of course a large percentage of these, usually children, are what used to be termed 'runaways' ... i.e. deliberately 'disappeared'.

However that still leaves a very large number of missing people, particularly females who have probably come to harm. One place to look is the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System NaMus, which allows family members and law enforcement to enter detailed information about missing people and unidentified bodies. While some cases are solved, some files may stay open for years, or forever. It has been observed that there is more media coverage in the United States of white missing persons, even though almost half of missing persons reported, are non white ... however that may be partly explained by them having better organised publicity campaigns.

While the number of missing persons in the United States fluctuates year by year, there is also the fact that many people are not reported as missing because of their lifestyles. This additional figure is obviously not known, but probably accounts for at least an additional 10 per cent, and these form the legion of the forgotten. Those people who disappear or die without family, or anything to identify whoever it was they were and the lives they led .... their bodies sometimes found in lonely places, just bones, whose identities are never uncovered.

In the UK, between 180,000 and 250,000 (estimates vary as an Internet search shows), people are reported missing every year, and addition we have our own legion of the lost and unreported. In November, 2015 the body of a male in his 50's, at between 5ft 8 inches and 5ft 10.5 inches in height, was found in the middle of a dense forest at Pentrellyncymer, near Cerrigydrudion in Conwy, North Wales. Police believe the man was killed between 2004 and 2010.

Just Another Member Of The Forgotten Legion .....

Police forensics suggested that he had died from a blunt force trauma to the head, several years before his skeleton was found. He has never been identified, and no one reported the man as missing. He was just one of the forgotten. He was buried in a paupers grave, or more likely cremated, with no one in attendance apart from cemetery and crematorium staff .... these funerals are on the rise. In one London borough alone, the number of local authority funded funerals rose from 62 in 2010-11, to 67 by the end of 2017-18.

Interestingly, data from the UK's Missing Persons Unit shows that both diagnosed or undiagnosed mental health issues are present in up to eight in ten of the UK’s missing adults, and one has to assume this reflects equally in the USA as well. The reasons for this can be that many people are nearer to the cliff edge than they would like to think, for many, two missed pay cheques, often followed by unpaid bills and the threat of homelessness can leave many in permanent debt, or even push them out of mainstream society completely.
 
Those without family or dependable social networks are the most vulnerable to these sorts of disasters, and they often are at high risk of becoming part of the missing legion. But as these figures show, there are a lot of people who with or without family or dependable social networks, rather sadly just join the ranks of disappeared every year.