Institute of Criminal Justice Studies

First International Conference on Missing Children and Adults, June 2013

The First International Conference on Missing Children and Adults will be held from 18-20th of June, 2013 at the University of Portsmouth, UK. The conference will be partnered by Missing People, CEOP, UK Missing Persons Bureau and the Centre for the Study of Missing Persons.

Proposals

We invite proposals for symposia, papers, and posters addressing topics in all areas of missing persons. We are particularly interested in papers on:

  • Geographies of missing persons
  • Risk Assessment
  • Search  and rescue strategies (including forensic identification studies)
  • Child protection (including child abduction, child exploitation, trafficking and running away)
  • The social experience of going missing (i.e. homelessness, effects on families, etc.)
  • Criminal activity
  • Policing (i.e. public protection, investigation, etc.)
  • International approaches to missing
  • Vulnerable adults (i.e. mental health, adults missing from healthcare services, dementia and wandering, etc.)
  • Other

We especially welcome proposals that are empirically based and those that involve new and emerging topics within this vast subject area. Proposals will be evaluated through a blind review process focused on the following three criteria: (1) the intellectual merit of the proposal, (2) the innovative nature of the proposal, and (3) the proposal's integration of multiple aspects of the field of missing persons.

Symposia

A symposium proposal is appropriate for a coordinated group of presentations that will focus on one topic. Symposium proposals must include a minimum of four presentations and a discussant. The discussant must be independent of research projects that are presented in the symposium. Each participant and the topics to be discussed should be outlined in the proposal. The participation of each presenter should be secured before submitting the proposal. Each symposium session at the conference will be allotted up to 90 minutes. In keeping with the international nature of this conference, higher priority will be given to proposals that have international representation among its panellists.

Papers

Paper proposals are appropriate for presentations that will focus on an individual research topic. After acceptance/rejection of proposals has been determined, the conference co-chairs will group paper presentations into sessions consisting of 3-5 presentations. Every effort will be made to ensure international representation in each paper session (The amount of time allowed for each individual presentation will be determined by the total number of presentations involved).

Posters

Poster presentations will be made at one poster session held in the evening. Presentations will be made in a written format on display boards (size TBA).

Details 

There will be a limit of TWO first-author presentation submissions (either individual papers or papers within a symposium) for each submitter. There is no limit on the number of poster submissions or appearances as a discussant or session chair.

Please be aware of our effort to maintain a high quality of the presentations at the conference through the rigor of a review process. Please be sure to indicate during submission if you would like your paper or symposium papers to be considered for inclusion as posters if they are not accepted as proposed. The deadline for submissions is January 15th, 2013.

All proposals should be submitted electronically to csmp@port.ac.uk. Please check this website for regular updates regarding the conference programme, registration and prices.

Paper and poster proposals should consist of an abstract that is no longer than 250 words Symposium proposals should consist of a 250-word abstract for each paper, plus an additional 200-word abstract for the symposium.

Contact

If you have any questions or comments regarding the call for papers, or about the conference, please feel free to contact one of the conference co-chairs: