Missing People in the U.S.: Background information when reading What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

Missing People in the U.S.

This article relates to What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez

The number of active missing persons cases in the U.S. has declined steadily since 1997. This is due in large part to improvements in connectivity and communication, with cell phones and other handheld devices making it considerably easier to track a missing person's potential whereabouts. While this decline is cause for celebration, it is important to note that in the U.S. alone, around 600,000 people are reported missing annually. The great majority of these cases are resolved quickly, often within hours, but a few thousand remain unresolved each year. There are currently over 22,000 open missing persons cases in the U.S., according to the US Department of Justice's National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Author Claire Jimenez explores the impact the lack of closure resulting from a long-term missing person can have on a family in her novel What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez.

There are several factors that can increase a person's likelihood of going missing. Young people are known to be at higher risk proportionally, due to either running away or being victims of violence. Race can also dramatically increase risk. For instance, in the U.S., Black people make up around 13% of the population but about 34% of missing persons cases.

Location is another factor, with Alaska having by far the highest rate of long-term missing people per capita of all 50 states. The average falls at around 7.6 missing people per 100,000 of the population, but Alaska clocks in at a shocking 163 missing people per 100,000. It's thought this may be due in part to the state's sparse population density and harsh environment, but it's likely there are other issues at play as well. At 18%, Alaska is known to have one of the highest Indigenous populations of any state. Indigenous people – women and girls in particular – have been found to be at much greater risk of violence, murder and disappearance than the national average. Despite this, investigation and coverage of their cases is typically very low. In 2016, for example, 5,712 Native women and girls were reported missing, but the U.S. Department of Justice only logged 116 of them in its database, according to the Urban Indian Health Institute.

A phenomenon known as "Missing White Woman Syndrome" has been used to explain this disparity. Rooted in systemic racism, it explores the media and law enforcement's fixation with covering missing persons cases centered on young white women. This means anyone who falls outside of this bracket – most notably the BIPOC population – are far less likely to receive widespread media exposure and the resulting public interest, which drastically reduces the likelihood of their case being solved.

In Jimenez's novel, the titular Ruthy Ramirez comes from a working-class Puerto Rican family, and she is just 13 at the time of her disappearance. As a Latina girl, her case falls into precisely the category that tends to slip through the cracks. There is an unfortunate lack of specifics available on the number of missing Hispanic/Latinx people in America, both because victims' families may be less likely to report someone missing due to a language barrier, immigration status issue, or distrust of police, and because some organizations that collect such data group Hispanic and white people together. It is known that in Arizona, Hispanic and Latinx people make up less than a third of the population, but 48% of the reported missing persons. By giving voice to Ruthy Ramirez, her sisters and her mother, Claire Jimenez aims to humanize the missing people whose stories too often go unheard simply because of their racial or ethnic identity.

Filed under Society and Politics

This "beyond the book article" relates to What Happened to Ruthy Ramirez. It originally ran in March 2023 and has been updated for the February 2024 paperback edition. Go to magazine.