The state board tasked with creating policing standards in Ohio voted Wednesday to set new expectations for law enforcement agencies investigating missing persons reports.
The Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board unanimously voted to make changes recommended by Gov. Mike DeWine's missing persons working group in May. The working group was created in response to The Dispatch's VANISHED investigation, which published in November.
The board's action sets new minimum standards that law enforcement must follow in order to gain accreditation via a program launched in 2024, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety. Law enforcement agencies will be required to create written policies for investigating missing persons cases, and those policies must include details about how their departments will enter and remove information in criminal justice databases; criteria for alerting the public of a missing person, and follow-up responsibilities for departments and officers.
Law enforcement agencies are also expected to have missing persons policies in place for adults suffering from mental illnesses and those suffering from Alzheimer's disease or dementia, according to the Ohio Department of Public Safety.
Along with the changes, the board plans to develop a card or "one-pager" that officers can follow when they're in the field conducting missing persons investigations, said Nicole Dehner, executive director of the Ohio Office of Criminal Justice Services.
"While an agency may have a 12, 15 or 20-page policy, we know that's not real life when they are out in the field," said Dehner, who chairs the board. "So we want to give them a tool for that as well."
The Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board was created in 2015 to set uniform standards regarding use of force, hiring, and recruitment at law enforcement agencies across Ohio, according to the state. Its goal was to ensure accountability and to instill greater public confidence in law enforcement.
The missing persons policies are now part of an accreditation program created in 2024 that the board administers. As of February, 10 agencies had completed the accreditation process. An executive order DeWine issued establishing the accreditation program says it was to roll out initially to 10 agencies before opening eligibility to Ohio's other law enforcement offices. Ohio has about 900 law enforcement agencies.
The changes are just the latest action taken by state leaders in response to The Dispatch's VANISHED investigation, which found police rarely used every tool at their disposal to bring missing Ohioans home.
One of those tools — the National Missing and Unidentified System — is underutilized by law enforcement agencies, which failed to enter hundreds of names into the federal database that's helped to solve more than 46,000 cases, The Dispatch found. The Dispatch compiled its own database of Ohioans missing for more than a year who had not been submitted to NamUs.
After the investigation published, Gov. Mike DeWine appointed a missing persons working group to examine The Dispatch's findings. The group on May 27 issued its final recommendations, which included a call for multiple state law changes.
House Bill 217, also known as the FIND Act (Finding and Identifying with NamUs Data), has already had two hearings in the Ohio House. If passed by both the House and Senate and signed by DeWine, it would require Ohio law enforcement to submit reports of missing persons to NamUs within 30 days after they disappeared.
Sponsored by State Reps. Christine Cockley, D-Columbus, and Kevin Ritter, R-Marietta, the bill would make Ohio the 16th state to require reporting to NamUs, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The bill remains in the House's public safety committee and still needs to be passed by the full House before making its way over to the Ohio Senate for consideration.
Dispatch investigative reporter Max Filby can be reached by email at [email protected]. Find him on X at the handle @MaxFilby or on Facebook at @ReporterMaxFilby.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Ohio board sets new standards for police searching for missing persons
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