Cheryl Allsop

University of South Wales · Department of Criminology

Murders of missing people are relatively rare but are among the most complex of homicides to investigate. Sometimes risks are missed. Yet any delays in recognising homicide reduce the chances of solving it, impacting public confidence in the police, delaying justice, and allowing perpetrators to continue offending. This project is, to our knowledge...

In recent years, students in police academies and higher education institutions around the world have worked together to analyse cold cases including long-term missing persons cases in collaboration with investigators and prosecutors. In 2020, three European organisations, the Police Expert Network on Missing Persons (PEN-MP), AMBER Alert Europe an...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to suggest two things: first, that the scientific and technological developments and increased regulation that have shaped homicide investigations in England and Wales over the last few decades have provided today’s investigators with opportunities not available to their predecessors, and play a key role in solv...

Investigating Cold Cases: DNA, Detective Work, and Unsolved Major Crimes, analyses how long-term unsolved murders and unsolved stranger rapes are investigated years after the crimes were committed. The book examines how and why cold case investigations have become an established component of police investigative practice, the role of specialist exp...

This chapter provides an account of how the police seek to solve long term undetected homicides, shining a light on the opportunities and challenges faced by cold case review teams. The rationale for conducting cold case reviews is considered and a brief depiction of how they are conducted in the UK is illustrated. What becomes clear is that it is...

Over the past two decades ‘cold case review conferences’ have become an established component of how police forces respond to long-term unsolved major crimes. This article examines the place of cold case major crime reviews in UK policing in an age of austerity. In particular, it focuses on examining how police justify expending resource on these r...