Missing Indigenous Persons

How NIJ and its NamUs Program Support Tribal Law Enforcement and Communities

NamUs is working to close data gaps related to missing indigenous persons, and to ensure that every tribal law enforcement agency knows about and can use the NamUs program to help resolve cases. The NamUs 2.0 database (accessible from namus.nij.ojp.gov) allows tribes to collect better data on their missing persons, and provides a tool for sharing and comparing case information across jurisdictional boundaries.

Data fields specific to tribal cases in NamUs include:

A missing person’s tribal enrollment or affiliation
Whether a missing person was last seen on tribal land
Whether a missing person’s primary residence was on tribal land

Trend data of American Indian/Alaska Native (AI/AN) missing person cases that were published in NamUs as of the first of the month is provided below (for example, March 1st at 12:00 am). Please keep in mind that NamUs is an operational database. The data displayed below reflect a snapshot in time. These data do not show unpublished cases that have yet to be vetted by law enforcement for publication purposes, nor do they reflect the number of cases that have been resolved and archived since the last data collection draw. The NamUs database is not a historical database. Please keep these issues in mind when using them. Additional statistics regarding these cases can also be found in the downloadable reports below.