Lorna Ferguson

Her work focuses on missing persons, policing, search and rescue, and victimization. She is particularly interested in police responses to missing persons and the realities of these cases beyond true crime, including police decision-making, repeat and cold cases, frontline response, families and loved ones, community involvement, and public understandings of crime and victimization. Dr. Ferguson has worked with numerous police services, search and rescue groups, communities, governments, practitioners, families and loved ones, and others across Canada and has contributed to national discussions surrounding police reform, missing persons policy, investigative practice, and emerging issues in policing technologies and artificial intelligence.

Her research has been published in leading journals including Criminology & Criminal Justice, Crime & Delinquency, Policing & Society, and Policing: An International Journal. She is the author and editor of eight books, including "Missing Persons: Beyond Serial Killers and Unexplained Disappearances," "The Wicked Problems of Police Reform in Canada," and "Police Search and Rescue Response to Lost and Missing Persons."

Learn more about her recent book, "Missing Persons: Beyond Serial Killers and Unexplained Disappearances," here: https://link.springer.com/book/9783032194558.

Current Research Areas: 

• Police and search and rescue volunteer responses to missing persons
• Missing persons, victimization, and public narratives beyond true crime
• Artificial intelligence, police technologies, and future policing
• Occupational stress for police and search and rescue volunteers
• Cold, long-term, and “sticky” missing persons cases

Selected Recent Publications:

Ferguson, L. (2026). Missing Persons: Beyond Serial Killers and Unexplained Disappearances. Palgrave Macmillan.

Huey, L., Ferguson, L., & Adam, I. (Eds.). (2026). Future Policing: Technology and Transformation. Routledge.

Huey, L., & Ferguson, L. (Eds.). (2026). Contemporary Topics in Criminology. Taylor & Francis.

Ferguson, L. (2026). Beyond Data Ceilings: Rethinking How We Understand Missing Persons. Evidence Base: Criminal Justice Research, Policy & Action.

Huey, L., Ferguson, L., Heffren, C., & Furlano, M. (2026). “We Are Not Ready for That”: Police Views on the Use of Generative AI to Create Public Security Threats. In L. Huey, L. Ferguson, & I. Adams (Eds.), Future Policing. London, UK: Routledge.

Huey, L., Heffren, C., & Ferguson, L. (2026). “The RCMP Trained Killer Horses”: Misinformation in Public Policing. In L. Huey, L. Ferguson, & I. Adams (Eds.), Future Policing. Routledge.

Ferguson, L., Huey, L., Kalyal, H., & Andersen, J. P. (2025). Functioning in the Hot Seat: Exploring the Competencies of Police Incident Commanders. Policing: An International Journal.

Huey, L., Ferguson, L., & Towns, Z. (2025). “Cops Need Doxxed”:  Releasing Personal Information of Police Officers as a Tool of Political Harassment. Crime and Delinquency.

Bennett, K., & Ferguson, L. (2024). Police Responses to Cold and Long-Term Missing Person Cases: A Comparative Study. International Journal of Comparative and Applied Criminal Justice.

Ferguson, L., & Eliasson, M. (2024). Gender, Age, and Victimization Risk Among Missing Person Reports. Journal of Victimology and Victim Justice.

Huey, L., & Ferguson, L. (2024). Offloading, Upstreaming, Defunding & Costing: Re-thinking Calls to Police for Absconding Social Work and Mental Health Clients. In T. Murray & E. Kirley (Eds.), Big Policing and Big Crime: Is It All About the Money? Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

Huey, L., Andersen, J. P., & Ferguson, L. (2024). “When You Own the Time, It's Seamless, But When You Don't, It's Horrific": Critical, Public Order and Major Incident Decision-Making in Policing. Policing and Society.

Ferguson, L., Elliott, M., & Kim, S. (2024). Examining the Connection Between Victimization and Missing Persons: An Application of Lifestyle Exposure Theory. Crime & Delinquency.