Governor DeWine shares recommendations from Ohio Missing Persons Working Group

Governor Mike DeWine and others met on Tuesday to announce the final report of the Ohio Missing Persons Working Group, including some of its 18 recommendations for law enforcement agencies and families of missing persons.

The report recommends "better information sharing between law enforcement agencies, improve communication between investigators and families, increase training and public education and comprehensive support for youth", said by Governor DeWine at the conference.

Andy Wilson, Director of the Ohio Department of Public Safety, spoke during the press conference and shared some of the recommendations for legislative action.

"We think the General Assembly could put into the Ohio Revised Code a provision that allows law enforcement under certain limited circumstances, when we know somebody is missing or at high risk for death or serious physical harm, that we could seek an administrative search warrant,"

Wilson indicates that this would be a great help to law enforcement and helping families since in most cases, a search warrant must allege that there is a criminal act involved, which law enforcement doesn't always know if there has been a criminal act committed early on in the process.

According to Wilson, search warrants allow law enforcement to access phone records, internet records or social media records from the missing person's cell phone to help aid in the investigation of the missing person.

Another recommendation that Wilson shared related to increasing the penalty of those who take a child out of state or out of the county without having legal custody - called "interference with custody" and is a fifth level felony, classified as a low-level felony.

"We believe that if the General Assembly would just increase the penalty with respect to children who are taken out of the state, and then taken out of the country... we believe that not only would that have a deterrent effect... but it would adequately address the system from a justice point of view as well as giving the [custodial parent] a tool they need to get their child back."

One other recommendation that Wilson shared came from the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, outlining the hope that agencies, before destroying paper copies of missing persons cold cases, would digitize the files and send them to the Bureau of Criminal Investigation in case of a cold case unit coming along to look at the case.

Governor DeWine also spoke on several other recommendations that were outlined in the final report.

A news release that was sent out after the conference listed the following orders Governor DeWine issued to Ohio agencies, as stated in the release:

• The Ohio State Highway Patrol within the Ohio Department of Public Safety will automate the process of notifying specific law enforcement agencies of Endangered Missing Child Alerts.
• The Ohio Collaborative Community-Police Advisory Board within the Department of Public Safety's Office of Criminal Justice Services will create a law enforcement best practices guide on interacting with family members of missing persons.
• The Office of Criminal Justice Services will expand the Ohio Prisoner Extradition Reimbursement Program to include interference with custody cases.
• The Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services and the Ohio Department of Health will develop continued professional training to further educate the healthcare industry on law enforcement exemptions to the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act.
• The Ohio Department of Children and Youth, Ohio Department of Mental Health and Addition Services, Ohio Department of Job and Family Services and others will work with local law enforcement to develop a pilot program that utilizes advocates to support at-risk youth who regularly leave their homes or group home settings. 

"This is a kind of a blueprint of things that can be done that we think will, in fact, make a difference," said Governor DeWine during the conference regarding the final report.

A copy of the Missing Persons Working Group report can be read below.