Weak reporting on missing, murdered Native women

Numerous police departments nationwide are not adequately identifying or reporting cases of missing and murdered indigenous women and girls as concerns mount over the level of violence they often face, according to a study released by a Native American nonprofit Wednesday.

The report from the Seattle-based Urban Indian Health Institute, the research arm of the Seattle Indian Health Board, was conducted over the past year amid worry in tribal communities and cities that Native American and Alaska Native women are vanishing in high numbers, despite limited government data to identify the full scope of the problem.

Senator Lisa Murkowski, a Republican from Alaska, joined other lawmakers and representatives of the Urban Indian Health Institute to review the report’s findings at a news conference in Washington. Its release comes as multiple bills at the state and federal level have been proposed to address the issue and improve data collection, including Savanna’s Act, which the US Senate Committee on Indian Affairs voted Wednesday to send to the full chamber for consideration.

The bill would expand tribal access to some federal crime databases, establish protocols for handling cases of missing and murdered Native Americans, and require annual reports on the number of missing and murdered Native American women.

“We simply don’t have a grasp of the extent of the problem we’re dealing with,” Murkowski said. “Making sure that we do not have these gaps in reporting is going to be a critical and important first step.”

The authors of the Seattle nonprofit’s report said they identified some 500 missing persons and homicide cases involving Native American women in 71 cities after reviewing data obtained through media reports and public records requests sent to police departments.

They reviewed cases dating back to the 1940s, though roughly two-thirds were from the past eight years, according to Annita Lucchesi, a cartographer and descendant of the Southern Cheyenne whose database of missing and murdered indigenous women in the U.S. and Canada was the basis for the research.

In total, she has a list of some 2,700 names. Of the cases included in the report on US cities, a quarter represented missing persons cases, and just more than half were homicides.

Researchers said they expect their figures represent an undercount, in part, because some police departments in cities with substantial Native American populations — such as Albuquerque and Billings, Montana — did not provide figures in response to records requests, or because Native American victims may have been identified as belonging to another race.

Police in Albuquerque and Billings did not immediately respond to The Associated Press’ requests for comment.

“What it does show is, yes, this is happening,” said Abigail Echo-Hawk, who is the director of the Urban Indian Health Institute. “But there has to be major changes to the way data is collected.”

Associated Press