§5704 Guidelines for Responding to Cases of Missing or Murdered Indians

Summary

The Attorney General must tell U.S. attorneys to make regional rules within 60 days after the required consultation finishes. The rules must cover cooperation between Tribal, Federal, State, and local police (including who enforces protection orders and each agency’s job), search best practices on and off Indian land, how to collect, report, analyze, and enter data about missing people and unidentified remains (and how to treat remains in a culturally respectful way), who will enter data if a Tribal agency cannot access databases, ways to improve response and follow-up, and how to ensure victims and families get culturally appropriate services. U.S. attorneys must create these rules with Tribes and partners such as the Department of Justice, FBI, Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian Affairs, Tribal/State/local law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, victim service groups, and Indian organizations. U.S. attorneys must put the rules into office policies no later than 1 year after October 10, 2020. Federal law enforcement agencies must also change their policies to match. Each year after the rules exist, the Attorney General will, when asked, decide if a Tribal, State, or local agency has adopted the rules. Within 30 days after those annual decisions, the Attorney General must publish on the Department of Justice website the names of agencies found compliant and the names of agencies with pending requests, and collect example guidelines as a resource. The Attorney General will use the National Indian Country Training Initiative to train and help Tribes and agencies, including using the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System. Tribes may send their own guidelines, and the Attorney General will post them in one central place on the DOJ website.