MMIWP Legislation

Written by: Anua

Operation Lady Justice is a task force created by way of executive order 13898 in November 2019. The goal and purpose of this task force is the improvement of criminal justice regarding American Indians and Alaskan Natives who experience or have experienced violence. Operation Lady Justice is also known as the Task Force on Missing and Murdered American Indians and Alaskan Natives. The Task Force is CO Chaired by Merrick Garland and Deb Haaland. This task force conducts consultations regarding the aforementioned subjects, it develops protocols for these types of cases, it creates better ways for law enforcement to respond and share data, it also helps eliminate jurisdiction and disciplinary issues by creating a team with representatives from tribal law enforcement and the departments of Justice, and it creates and supplies public education regarding this epidemic. Another way that this Task Force helps address the issues of MMIWGP is by creating multi judiciary agreements which foster teamwork and unity among the various agencies which conduct law enforcement and justice. These agreements included state, federal, and local departments. Within its first year, the Taskforce created seven teams across the United States to investigate Cold Cases. These teams were stationed in Minnesota, South Dakota, Montana, Tennessee, New Mexico, Arizona, and Alaska. They also consulted multiple tribal leaders throughout 12 virtual meetings. These tribal leaders gave the following comments regarding MMIW: The need for a deep dive into the root causes of missing and murdered AI/AN, Improvement in interagency collaboration, Full funding for Tribal law enforcement, courts, social services, domestic violence shelters, victim services programs, domestic violence and sexual assault community organizations, and search teams, the need for publicly available data on missing persons and murder cases, Increased state and local training on Tribal issues including enforcement of Tribal court orders of protection, The need to establish a national alert system for adults similar to Amber Alert, Better federal communication with families and grassroots organizations, Tribal notification when a person goes missing, Programs to address intervention and prevention, Increased access to the Tribal Access Program (TAP) as well as increased availability for Amber, Ashanti and Silver Alerts in Indian communities. Additionally, volunteer engagement, regarding cold cases, was empowered by the task force and those community members were also supplied with workshops. Please contact OperationLadyJustice@usdoj.gov. For more information or questions and concerns. 

https://operationladyjustice.usdoj.gov/