‘We Don’t do Measure and Quotes’: How agency responses criminalise and endanger the safety of children missing in care in New South Wales, Australia

This article presents qualitative data from interviews with 46 welfare and justice professionals to examine the criminalisation of children who go missing within the Out-Of-Home-Care (OOHC) residential environment. Participants had specific experience with children living in residential facilities, either through the direct provision of care services, the development of OOHC policy initiatives or through their role as law enforcement, legal or justice personnel. The research found that agency practices, which were designed to protect children, actually serve to conflate going missing with criminality, accelerating children’s involvement in the justice system and ultimately endangering children’s safety.