California Missing Persons
The Missing and Unidentified Persons Unit in the California Department of Justice assists law enforcement and criminal justice agencies in locating missing persons and identifying unknown live and deceased persons through the comparison of physical characteristics, fingerprints and dental/body X-rays.
In California, a missing person is someone whose whereabouts is unknown to the reporting party. This includes any child who may have run away, been taken involuntary or may be in need of assistance. It includes a child illegally taken, held or hidden by a parent or non-parent family member (See California Penal Code Sections 277-280).
There is NO waiting period for reporting a person missing. All California police and sheriffs' departments must accept any report, including a report by telephone, of a missing person, including runaways, without delay and will give priority to the handling of the report.
Schools are part of the network to help find missing children, not only through notices required to be given to a public school district or private school within 10 days of a child's disappearance but also through use of our Missing Person Bulletin.
By making photographs of missing persons available, we seek to aid in the identification and recovery of missing persons. According to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, one in six missing children are recovered as a direct result of someone recognizing their photo and notifying authorities. We also offer resources on this web site for locating missing persons and safeguarding your children.
The following offers a summary of some of our programs. Further information is available by selecting the program categories on the left menu.
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