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November 26, 2019

Barr Announces Plan to Address Crisis of Missing & Murdered Indigenous Women
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And Attorney General William Barr announced a nationwide plan to address
the crisis of missing and murdered Native American women on Friday,
during a visit to the Flathead Reservation in Montana, which has
suffered high rates of violence against Indigenous women and girls. The
Justice Department's new initiative would invest $1.5 million to hire
specialized coordinators in 11 U.S. attorneys offices that have a large
number of caseloads from Native American reservations. The coordinators
would be responsible for developing protocols to improve the response of
law enforcement in missing people cases. For years, indigenous activists
have been protesting the high levels of violence against indigenous
women and girls. Many have called for the restoration of tribal criminal
jurisdiction over non-Native Americans who commit crimes on tribal land.
This is Mary Kathryn Nagle, an attorney and citizen of Cherokee Nation,
speaking on Democracy Now!

Mary Kathryn Nagle: "In 1978, the United States Supreme Court took away
tribal criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. And as the United States
Department of Justice has reported, unfortunately, the majority of
violent crimes against our Native women are committed by non-Indians.
And so, that means that quite often our tribal governments, their hands
are tied because of the legal framework the federal government has put
in place."

Native American women experience some of the highest rates of murder,
sexual violence and domestic abuse nationwide, with several federal
studies showing that on some reservations indigenous women are killed at
a rate more than 10 times the national average.


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