DOJ Announces $73 Million in Public Safety Grants During White House Tribal Nations Summit
The Department of Justice (DOJ) announced $73 million in grants to 85 American Indian and Alaska Native communities to help improve public safety and assist crime victims. The grants are meant to improve tribal justice systems and law enforcement, as well as improving child abuse investigations and domestic violence prevention.
The grants follow tribal jurisdictions request for better federal assistance and more resources to tackle missing Indigenous women's cases, as previously reported in FEDagent.
The Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS), who provides funding to tribes to improve law enforcement and tribal justice practices, expand victim services, and sustain crime prevention efforts and interventions, will streamline the funding.
Through the Tribal Victim Services Set-Aside, the Office of Justice Programs (OJP) has awarded more than $100 million to improve services for victims of crime in tribal communities in addition to CTAS funding. Additionally, the DOJ provided $6.5 million to the Office of Sentencing, Monitoring, Apprehending Registering and Tracking within OJP to assist Tribes in complying with federal law on sex offender registration and notification.
Just last month, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) published a report reviewing the federal response to missing and murdered Indigenous women. GAO reported that there is no centralized database that tracks all missing indigenous women, leaving them underrepresented in statistics. Moreover, tribal law enforcement agencies do not have to report missing people over 21 years of age, and widespread mistrust of law enforcement leads to underreporting.
According to the Bureau of Justice Statistics, more than four out of five American Indians and Alaska Natives have experienced violence in their lifetime. The statistic translates to nearly three million people experiencing stalking, sexual violence, psychological aggression, or physical violence from intimate partners.
To pursue justice for missing or murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, the Department of the Interior (DOI) established the Missing and Murdered Unit in April 2021. By coordinating law enforcement resources across agencies inside and outside Indian country, the new MMU unit helps investigate these cases.
The MMU is the successor to President Trump's Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaska Natives, also known as Operation Lady Justice, a joint operation between the DOJ and DOI, which expires on November 26, 2021.
On November 15, President Biden's directed the Departments of Justice, Interior, Homeland Security, and Health and Human Services to develop a strategy to improve Native American public safety and justice, as well as combat the epidemic of Indigenous people who are missing or murdered.