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State of California Department of Justice
Rob Bonta
Attorney General
Attorney General
Through the Missing and Unidentified Persons Section, the California Department of Justice assists law enforcement agencies throughout the state in finding missing persons.
The Missing and Unidentified Persons Section maintains statewide files containing the dental records, photographs and physical characteristics of missing and unidentified persons.
Staff assist law enforcement agencies in locating missing persons and identifying unknown live and deceased persons through the comparison of physical characteristics, fingerprints, and dental/body X-rays. (See Sections 14200-14215 of the California Penal Code.)
The Missing and Unidentified Persons Section in the department's Division of California Justice Information Services, consists of the following four components:
The physical identification component compares reports of missing persons and unidentified persons against each other for possible matches. Possible matches can be made from comparison of physical characteristics such as hair color, eye color, height, and weight, or from comparison of other physical identifiers such as clothing, jewelry, scars, or tattoos.
Physical Identification staff also make inquiries into a variety of governmental and private data bases to find information which may result in the location of persons reported missing. Any information found is disclosed to the reporting law enforcement agency.
In 1979, California became the first state to implement a statewide Dental Identification Program to process dental records submitted by law enforcement agencies and coroners throughout California and other states. Staff classify, index, and compare dental records of missing and unidentified persons against each other for possible matches. If a possible match is made based upon dental records, the contributing agencies are notified.
The California Missing Children Clearinghouse (MCCH) maintains a toll-free telephone hotline (1-800-222-FIND) 24-hours-a-day, seven-days-a-week to receive information and inquiries regarding missing children. It relays this information to the appropriate law enforcement agencies. The California MCCH may also be reached at (916) 210-3119 or by Email at missing.persons@doj.ca.gov.
The MCCH works closely with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children to aid in locating children who have been abducted and taken out of California or brought into California. The MCCH publishes and distributes a monthly poster and quarterly bulletin featuring missing children and dependant adults throughout California. The posters and bulletins are distributed to all California police and sheriff's departments, California Highway Patrol offices, district attorneys' offices, public primary and secondary schools, private primary schools, hospitals, state agencies, road side rest stops, other missing children clearinghouses nationwide and other parties determined appropriate by the Department of Justice.
The MCCH provides, free-of-charge, fingerprint cards to agencies for voluntary fingerprinting of children. The impressions are used to aid in locating and identifying missing children.
The section also is involved with the Missing Persons DNA Database and emergency alert systems.
The Missing and Unidentified Persons Section (MUPS) also works closely with the Department of Justice Division of Law Enforcement’s Bureau of Forensic Services Missing Persons DNA Program (MPDP). The Missing Persons DNA Program compares DNA from unidentified persons and unidentified human remains with DNA from personal articles belonging to missing persons and DNA from relatives of missing persons.
The Missing Persons DNA Program provides the following services related to missing and unidentified persons investigations: Autosomal STR testing, Y-STR (Y-chromosome) testing, and mitochondrial DNA testing.
The DNA profiles from missing and unidentified persons investigations are uploaded to the FBI’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS) for searching and comparison with the DNA samples from missing persons cases throughout the nation, not just in California.
DNA samples related to a missing person or unidentified humans remains case should be submitted to the Missing Persons DNA Program through a law enforcement agency. All samples should be submitted with the appropriate Missing Persons DNA submission paperwork which can be found in the Missing Persons DNA collection kits. If you have questions or need assistance with a DNA collection or submission, please contact the Missing Persons DNA Program at: dnamissingpersons@doj.ca.gov or call (510) 620-3300.
The Missing Persons DNA Program services are provided at no cost to the public or to law enforcement agencies. The sole purpose of the program is to contribute to the effort of identifying missing persons. Parents and other relatives of missing persons are neither given an incentive to provide a DNA sample, nor will they be coerced or compelled to provide a sample. Further, DNA samples from relatives of missing persons are not searched against any criminal or offender DNA databases. They are only searched against the DNA samples from unidentified persons and unidentified human remains.