It is my opinion, that ANY Missing person, reguardless of age, race, past history of running away, drug abuse, etc. EVERY SINGLE PERSON who goes missing should have a LEGITIMATE police report filed.
If LE determines that the person is a runaway and an investigation should not ensue, or if the info is not released to the public, well, that's a different story (whether I agree, or not).
But I see absolutely NO REASON, for ANY missing person, EVER, ANYWHERE, to NOT be listed as missing with LE. There are far TOO MANY UID's out there waiting for someone to give them a name. Tawni should have been linked to a missing persons report right away after she was found. Almost no time or money would have been lost in filing an official report when Tawni went missing. But A LOT of time and money would have been saved in identifying her. Filing a report for every missing person, reguardless of details and circumstance would be beneficial to Law Enforcement, government funds, the missing, families of the missing, and our communities as a whole. The only people I could see this not benefiting, is criminals.