If somebody is missing, are the police the ones out searching?

AnalysisA search is a problem of organisation before it is a problem of effort. Somebody has to decide where to look, in what order, with which resources, and when to stop, and that decision has to be made by a body with standing and a duty to make it. Supplying the people who then walk the ground is a different job, and it does not have to be done by the same organisation.

The service states the boundary of its own responsibility precisely: "Police coordinates Category One searches (land, inland waterways, subterranean and close-to-shore)."

That other category belongs elsewhere. Category Two searches — aircraft, offshore, and emergency locator beacons — are coordinated by the Rescue Coordination Centre New Zealand rather than by the police.

The work runs through partner and volunteer organisations, including Coastguard New Zealand, the New Zealand Defence Force, rescue helicopter services, Amateur Radio Emergency Communications and New Zealand Land Search and Rescue. Officers in each district are trained as search and rescue coordinators, and the service manages nearly 2,000 land and marine incidents a year.

Coordination is the responsibility

The published role is to coordinate a category of search. It is not stated as an obligation to supply the people who search.

The responsibility is bounded by category

Land, inland waterways, subterranean and close-to-shore fall to the police. Aircraft, offshore and beacon incidents do not.

A different body holds the rest

A dedicated rescue coordination centre coordinates the second category. Two organisations divide one public expectation between them.

The searchers are largely volunteers

Coastguard, land search and rescue, amateur radio emergency communications and others supply capacity the police do not hold themselves.

And the coordinator role is distributed, not concentrated

Officers in each district are trained for it, which is a different arrangement from a single national team.

• Common belief: When somebody goes missing, the police do the searching.

  In practice: In the service researched here the police coordinate a defined category of search, and much of the searching capacity is supplied by partner and volunteer organisations.

• Common belief: The police are responsible for all search and rescue.

  In practice: Category One searches are coordinated by police. Category Two — aircraft, offshore and emergency locator beacons — are coordinated by a separate rescue coordination centre.

• Common belief: Search and rescue is handled by one national police unit.

  In practice: Officers in each district are trained as search and rescue coordinators. The capability is distributed rather than held in a single team.

• Common belief: Volunteers assist the police as a supplement.

  In practice: The published description places named partner and volunteer organisations at the centre of how the work is carried out, not at its margins.

• Common belief: This page tells you what to do if someone is missing.

  In practice: It does not, and it is not written for that purpose. Anyone who needs help should contact their local emergency services.

One service, as it publishes itself.

• Police coordinate Category One — land, inland waterways, subterranean and close-to-shore.
• A separate rescue coordination centre coordinates Category Two — aircraft, offshore and beacons.
• Officers in every district are trained as search and rescue coordinators.
• Named volunteer and partner organisations supply much of the capacity.
• Nearly 2,000 land and marine incidents managed a year.
• Not researched: every other country, and how any search is conducted.

AnalysisA split responsibility is a public clarity problem as much as an organisational one: a family in the worst hours of their lives should not have to work out which of two coordinating bodies holds their case. Publishing the categories is what makes the division answerable, and it is also what allows anyone to ask whether the boundary sits in the right place.

• One service was researched — New Zealand Police. Which body holds search and rescue responsibility anywhere else was NOT RESEARCHED, and it differs substantially.
• How a search is planned, conducted or resourced was NOT RESEARCHED and is not described.
• How the category boundary is applied in a case that could fall either side was NOT ESTABLISHED.
• The relationship between the police coordinators and the volunteer organisations — who directs whom, and on what authority — was NOT ESTABLISHED.
• Nothing here is guidance for anyone reporting a missing person, or for anyone in difficulty. Emergencies are for local emergency services.

Related: maritime and marine policing, police command and coordination, and what a police unit is.