Thematic Analysis of Missing Person Cases

Introduction

This report will conduct a thematic analysis of provided research data relating to cases of missing persons. To do this, it will first write up a summary on one provided journal article that investigates missing person cases. The report will then describe the thematic analysis and explain what it entails. The major focus of the report, however, will be on the thematic analysis of a total of six interview transcripts of solved missing person cases and giving its findings from this analysis. These findings will then be discussed based on how they link to the summarized journal article.

Literature Summary of the Journal Article

The article “Investigating missing person cases: How can we learn where they go or how far they travel?” has attempted to demonstrate how missing persons are likely to behave concerning the distances they travel when they disappear, intending to help police forces and other authorities use the understanding of this behavior to better narrow their search rather than look all over for the missing persons and attain efficiency concerning resources spent. The article highlights that most people disappeared from their homes, public places (such as train stations and pubs) or institutions- hospitals, police stations, etc. It found that while the majority of the adults who disappeared were male, the majority of young ones were female (Henderson and Henderson, 1998; Biehal et al., 2003) and that majority of runaways usually returned home or were found by the police within a week though adults tended to disappear for longer periods (Payne, 1995).

Also heightened by the article is that those who disappeared were most of the time found in their friend’s places or public spaces, though a small number tended to go back to the areas from which they had disappeared after periods that ranged from between 1 and 477 days. Majority of the adults (86%) were found alive. It goes ahead to find that people who disappeared either had family problems to contend with or other vulnerabilities. Biehal et al. (2003) in their study of missing persons’ spatial behavior found that a majority missing persons moved to other regions or towns (45%), others abroad (22%) as a minority (10%) stayed within their localities.

Explanation of thematic analysis

Thematic analysis has been touted by several researchers (Braun and Clarke, 2006; Guest, MacQueen and Namey, 2012) as among the most popular techniques used to analyse data that is qualitative. Braun and Clarke (2006) define thematic analysis as a set of approaches used in qualitative research with a focus on identifying, analysing and interpreting themes (patterns of meaning) within the qualitative data. They also identify three main forms in which thematic analysis is applied; coding reliability approaches (Boyatzis, 1998), codebook approaches and matrix analysis (Groenland, 2014), and reflexive thematic analysis (Langdridge, 2004; Hayes, 2000). The thematic analysis explores implicit and explicit meanings of qualitative data in multiple research fields and disciplines, is applicable in different manners, to varying datasets and in addressing numerous research questions (Terry et al., 2017). This analysis method can be employed in analysing most types of qualitative data such as data gathered from focus groups, surveys, observations, story completion, interviews, secondary sources, among others. Data sets that are analysed through thematic analysis may be small or large and may be analysed inductively or deductively (Braun and Clarke, 2019), and could include short answers to survey open-ended questions and several interview transcript pages (Saldana, 2009).

Findings and discussion

This section will analyse and discuss the various themes that repeatedly present themselves from these interview transcripts:

Family disputes or problems at home

One mediating factor and which keeps recurring among all these missing person cases is that of a family dispute, relationship problems or depression. Most people, in their transcripts, suggest the problems they had back at home as the major reasons for their wanting to getaway. They thought that doing so gave them time and space away from their problems and was the only way they would be able to lessen or counter the ill feelings and pressures they experienced, failure to which their situations would get even worse. Eddie, for example, highlights that the trauma and shock he got when his girlfriend’s interest in him was lost made him believe that only disappearing would make him feel better. Katie’s situation is similar. Stuart, on his part, cites depression and a lack of where to get a solution to his problems as having driven him to disappear. When Janie says, ‘Sometimes I just can’t handle it, I need to getaway. I try to talk to folk about it, but they’ve not been through it, so they don’t know and I would rather be on my own’, she most likely refers to depression and the lack of somebody who could relate to how she felt.

Jayne’s probable cause for disappearing is the problems she has with her family as she says: ‘I just knew I needed some distance between me and them.’

How The Decision to Leave or disappear is Reached

Another repetitive pattern that is identifiable from the analysis of these interview transcripts is that, in most cases, the missing persons had decided to disappear after pre-meditating and meticulous planning; while in some, the decision was arrived at more spontaneously without much thought or any plan. For example, Stuart hadn’t previously thought in any way about disappearing; he says: ‘I can remember having suddenly made the impulse decision just to go…. I didn’t decide to go missing deliberately. I just wanted to get away from my life at the time.’ Same as Jayne, who says, ‘I hadn’t mapped anything out. I just knew I needed some distance between me and them’

Eddie, on the other hand, shows intent and deliberation as he plans his disappearance: ‘Two weeks before I disappeared I had looked up the web how to lose your identity, how to disappear… I booked my flight a week beforehand… Everything was quite premeditated. I had packed a few days beforehand’

Spatial Behavior

Data from these transcripts show that majority of the people went missing from their homes, while others from other public places such as their workplaces. Whereas most people usually have in mind an idea of how long they would like to stay away, they show movements that appear unplanned and that show they have no idea where they intend to go. Some simply walked around aimlessly in their town and others who had premeditated their disappearance wandered into neighbouring towns as some went as far as other countries (such as Eddie). As a result of their spatial behaviour, the missing persons were usually found after varying periods- days, weeks or months- in different areas in relation to where they disappeared from: some were found in their neighbourhood vicinities, some in other towns, and others in foreign countries.

Doubts and Guilt

Whereas some victims seemed to get satisfaction from their actions, there lingered some sort of doubt or guilt at the back of their minds. This doubt or guilt comes at various stages of the disappearance for example, one may experience guilt or doubt when planning his or her disappearance or in the process of the act. Those who premeditate their disappearance often feel some doubt as to whether they can do it or if it’s necessary or working. Stuart, for example, records that, ‘I was feeling like I wasn’t getting anywhere, that running away wasn’t doing any good…’

They also experience guilt and an emotional imbalance as a result of the thought of the loved ones they (will) leave behind. Eddie says, ‘I felt very guilty, as you do, and it put me quite emotionally on the edge…’ Jenny says, ‘It was really, really bad of me… I passed him on the bus. I felt really bad… I wanted to be away, but there is also this guilt…’ Jayne poses, ‘I started thinking about my children…the feeling of guilt was enormous…I had so much guilt to contend with.’

Some, on the other hand, show no thoughts of regret or emotions over the people they get away from. They feel that it is those same people who compound their problems and the further away they got from them the better they would be. Jayne says, ‘…I didn’t think about other people. You lose your empathy…. I sort of stopped feeling. I dissociated myself from them’ while Katie says, ‘I wasn’t bothered how other people felt at that point. I didn't care anymore.’

Vulnerability (Wellbeing Concerns)

Another theme that occasionally manifests is that of the missing persons’ concerns about their well-being and the risks they are exposed to. Despite the problems they face, and when they disappear, people are still innately concerned about their safety and wellbeing. So when out there, they take active note of their physical surroundings and when they get to points or areas they perceive as risky, they tend to fear but proceed with caution or move away from those areas. Jayne says; ‘…it was too dark. Those footpaths don’t have any street lights so you are quite vulnerable. It was a cloudy night and I couldn’t see where I was going and I was scared I might get murdered or something...’ and Katie says, ‘. I didn’t know where I was and I started to get a little bit distressed because it’s the middle of the night, the lighting wasn’t so good in the side streets and you’re on foot and I got a bit nervy of being followed.’ People also tend to want to take care of their physical wellbeing and comfort even in the process of their disappearance. This is characterised by them packing and carrying things they deem essential to them such clothes. Jayne says, ‘I’d sort of organized what I needed... So I had my clothes and my purse, and …a pack up as well…I’m quite self-sufficient in that way...’

When they disappear, they will go to cafes for meals, book motels for the night if they have the money or find friends in whose places they could spend a night, or find ways of washing themselves and changing clothes. For example, Jenny says, ‘I checked into a little hotel…and got a wash and some rest. There was a bar there… and I drank quite a lot.’ And Jayne says, ‘I can’t sleep outside tonight…I went into the little café and got changed and had a wash…I still kept myself clean and safe…I was still perfectly aware that I needed to wash and eat.’

However, a small number did not feel threatened about their security, though they tended to worry about other forms of their wellbeing. Stuart says, ‘…I didn’t worry too much about other people, I didn’t feel vulnerable in that way… I didn’t fear for my safety but I was worried about my options.… I hadn’t eaten properly for a few days. I was probably hungry… I had slept three nights on the outside and I was beginning to wonder whether or not I could get through another night. I thought I better not try and sleep out again because I think I’m going to get ill or something.’

Not wanting to be found

Most of the people in their transcripts show that all their actions during the disappearance were fully focused on not being found by their families and the police. So they tried as much as possible to go to or move through and in areas where people wouldn’t think of looking for them or where they were not known and when they came to areas that had police presence, they thought they were being looked for and had been found, and they hid.

Stuart says, ‘I did take mostly backstreet routes, you know, in terms of avoiding contact with anything and everyone....’ Katie says, ‘I walked past a place that had loads of police cars…I couldn’t let them see me because I thought if they do they’ll bring me back and I didn’t want to come back. I tried to walk like it wasn’t me so I wouldn’t be recognised.’

Conclusion

The thematic analysis has demonstrated several patterns (themes) whose occurrences are common in the majority of the missing person cases. These themes- family disputes and problems, wellbeing concerns, not wanting to be found, doubts and guilt and how the disappearance decision is reached- are a significant reflection of the findings of the journal report. The journal, for examples, gives its findings on the most common locations from which people disappeared, how they behaved while in the process, their spatial behavior (the distances they covered), how long they went missing and the places where they were found.

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