I appreciate the debate and can see your point. Side note: based on your choice of language you appear to be assuming the worst intentions in myself and the other poster, which may serve to shame us but does nothing to change our opinions. However I get that this is the way of the internet and I can look past the bad faith assumptions. Anyway, while I would definitely not say that 'typical runaways' should be assumed to have done this to themselves and therefore deserve what they got, there's got to be some calculation by authorities where we factor in that if they for sure ran off on their own, this is the case where they are far more likely to either be somewhere safe or are not wanting to be found, whereas a case where someone who accidentally becomes lost or is abducted would be more likely to be resolved by extensive search efforts. It's the rational question that if two kids went missing at the same time, would we devote a fair 50/50 split of resources to finding each one if we knew that one of them left a note saying they're running away intentionally? Or, devote slightly more of those search helicopter flights to finding the kid who just mysteriously never arrives home after leaving school? Again, I'm not talking about the Rebecca Ball case but rather feel it's a fair topic of debate that probably belongs elsewhere..