Slovenia hosted a digital conference on missing persons cases for PEN-MP officers on November 3, 2020. Law enforcement officers shared a missing person case in Poland and offered insight on the correlation between online grooming and missing children. Organizers hope the event will help different European countries to better connect when a missing person case crosses national boundaries. “We all know that law enforcement cooperation is of the utmost importance when it comes to missing person cases, not only nationally but also across borders,” said Mr. Jože Senica, Deputy Director General of the Slovenian National Police.
The Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP) in Europe has grown to include more than 80 members in 30 countries. The network is part of AMBER Alert Europe and recently added eight new law enforcement members from Bulgaria, Croatia, Germany, Greece, Hungary, Kosovo, North-Macedonia, and Serbia. The PEN-MP is the official European missing persons police network, consisting of police experts in the field of missing persons.
The PEN-MP is also connecting organizations in different countries on a project to analyze cold- and long-term missing persons cases. The network will work with different police academies and universities all over the world. Four disciplinary teams are now analyzing an attempted child homicide and long-term missing person’s case in Germany. More cases are expected to be analyzed in 2021.
AMBER Alert Europe attracted 50 law enforcement professionals from 22 countries to a webinar entitled, “Save the Missing Person First, Solve the Crime Later.” The September 30, 2020, webinar discussed weighing priories between pursuing a prosecution and finding a missing person. A second webinar is planned in the upcoming months.
The Finnish National Police have officially joined AMBER Alert Europe’s Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP). Finland joins more than 70 police experts from 24 countries working on missing person cases. PEN-MP was established to bring law enforcement officers from different countries together to recover missing persons quicker and more effectively.
The Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP) recognized International Missing Children’s Day by kicking off the #DontBeAnEasyCatch campaign that warns children about online predators. The prevention campaign features an animated video with prevention tips which has been translated into 10 languages and distributed in 23 countries—including the U.S. and Taiwan.
AMBER Alert Europe marked a number of important milestones for its goal of #ZeroMissingKids in its annual report for 2019. The highlights include:
• The organization’s Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP) was officially recognized by all member states of the European Union.
• PEN-MP appointed Damjan Miklič with the Slovenian Police Directorate as the new president representing the 60 police experts from 16 countries.
• The ‘Stay Safe With Simon’ campaign was launched to teach children how to protect themselves from being abducted.
AMBER Alert Europe also started partnerships with national police forces of Sweden, Bosnia-Herzegovina, and Lithuania, as well as with missing persons organizations in the UK and Spain. Find the report here.
Damjan Miklič, senior criminal police inspector specialist at the Slovenian Police Directorate, has been appointed as president of Europe’s Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP). The network consists of more than 50 law enforcement experts in the field of missing persons, specifically children, from 21 European countries.
All members of the European Union (EU) are officially recognizing the Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP) as the first and only law enforcement network for AMBER Alerts. At a meeting on October 18, 2019, a body of the Council of the EU identified the group as the single point of contact for missing person specialists for 21 EU countries. “Through the network, police officers across Europe know exactly who they should (contact) in another country at 3 a.m.,” said Frank Hoen, AMBER Alert Europe Chairman.
The United Kingdom Missing Persons Unit is now bringing information and investigation assistance to other European countries. The Missing Persons Unit is part of AMBER Alert Europe’s Police Expert Network (PEN-MP) and is now offering its national database to help find missing individuals and identify bodies without identification. UK officials are encouraging other law enforcement agencies to join the network.