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Tribal Justice and Safety Home

Savanna's Act

Overview

The Department is committed to fully implementing Public Law No. 116-165, Savanna’s Act.  Signed into law in October 2020, Savanna’s Act was a bipartisan effort to improve the federal response to missing or murdered indigenous persons (MMIP), including by increasing coordination among Federal, State, Tribal, and local law enforcement agencies. 

This page provides an overview of the Department’s ongoing work to implement this important legislation, including its:

For more information on the Department’s broader MMIP efforts, you can visit www.justice.gov/tribal/mmip. Please contact OTJ@usdoj.gov with any questions or for additional information about the Department’s implementation of this act.

Consultations and Listening Sessions

Consistent with Section 4(b) of Savanna’s Act, the Department of Justice has prioritized engagement with Tribal leaders and stakeholders in its implementation of the Act, including on ways to improve the relevance of federal data and to facilitate access to federal databases.

  • On June 17 and June 18, 2021, the Department of Justice, along with the Department of the Interior, held formal consultations with Tribal leaders to discuss how to improve Tribal data relevance and access to databases.  Read the invitation to Tribal leaders and the framing paper for those discussions. You can also read the Department’s final report on its consultations.
  • The Department of Justice conferred with Urban Indian Organizations and Tribal organizations over several sessions from July through September, 2021. Participating organizations included: the Association of Village Council Presidents; the National Congress of American Indians; National Council of Urban Indian Health; the Seattle Indian Health Board; and the United South and Eastern Tribes. The final report reflects input from these sessions.
  • In 2021, the Office on Violence Against Women (OVW) solicited input on improving access to local, regional, State, and Federal crime information databases and criminal justice systems as part of its Annual Government-to-Government Violence Against Women Tribal Consultation, and it will continue to include that topic in its annual consultations moving forward. You can find more information about OVW’s next annual consultation, scheduled for September 21-23, 2022, in Anchorage, Alaska.

Learn more about the Department’s consultations and listening sessions related to MMIP issues. 

Outreach and Trainings

The Department is committed to outreach and training to federal, Tribal, State, and local law enforcement officers.

Data entry

The Department has heard concerns from Tribal communities about how demographic data is entered into federal databases.  Consistent with Section 4(a) of Savanna’s Act, the Department now provides ongoing training opportunities to law enforcement agencies on how to record Tribal enrollment for victims in Federal databases.   

  • The Department is also responsible for creating and delivering the Criminal Jurisdiction in Indian Country (CJIC) training.  In 2021, more than 2,000 police officers received training through CJIC as a requirement to receive a Special Law Enforcement Commission from the Bureau of Indian Affairs.  Moving forward, the Department will use this class to directly address the need to accurately collect and enter into databases demographic information concerning missing persons and violent crime in Tribal communities. The next training will occur August 16-18, 2022.

National Missing and Unidentified Persons System

The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) is a national information clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases across the United States.  All NamUs resources are provided at no cost to law enforcement, medical examiners, coroners, allied forensic professionals, and family members of missing persons. 

Consistent with Section 4(c) and Section 5(e)(1) of Savanna’s Act, the Department is implementing a strategy to educate the public about NamUs, including by conducting specific outreach and offering trainings to Tribes, Tribal organizations, and urban Indian Organizations.  Find more information on these events. 

These efforts build on NamUs’s extensive work in recent years to increase outreach and awareness to Tribal communities and law enforcement outreach.  From 2018-2020, the Department held 49 training or outreach events specifically targeted to tribal audiences.

Federal Law Enforcement Guidelines

In her November 15, 2021 directive, the Deputy Attorney General identified the Department’s work to address missing or murdered indigenous person as “a priority for its law enforcement components.”  And consistent with Sections 5(a)-(c) of Savanna’s Act, the Department has directed each of its U.S. Attorney’s Offices with Tribal land to develop regionally appropriate guidelines for responding to MMIP cases.  The Department has also issued guidance to and conducted training with each of its 94 U.S. Attorneys’ Offices on how to develop these guidelines.   

U.S. Attorney’s Offices have held and are continuing to hold consultations with Federal, State, and Tribal partners in their districts to develop and refine guidelines tailored to their specific communities. The Department’s relevant law enforcement components are currently modifying their own protocols to incorporate the guidelines.  State, local, and Tribal law enforcement should contact their local U.S. Attorney’s Office for more information on the Department’s guidance.

Tribal, State, and Local Law Enforcement Guidelines

The Department encourages Tribal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to adopt their own guidelines for responding to missing or murdered indigenous persons. 

  • Section 5(c)(3) of Savanna’s Act allows Tribal, State, or local law enforcement agencies to voluntarily submit guidelines for responding to MMIP cases to the Department of Justice.  Under Section 5(d) of Savanna’s Act, by October 30, 2022, the Department will publish on its Tribal Justice and Safety website the name of each Tribal, State, or local law enforcement agency that submits MMIP guidelines for recognition. Agencies seeking Department review of their guidelines may submit them via email to USAEO.MMIP.LE.Guides@usdoj.gov.
  • Likewise, the Department will add those plans, as well as any plans submitted by Tribal governments under Section 5(f), to a JusticeConnect site on the Criminal Justice Information Services’ (CJIC) Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal (LEEP), which makes guidelines available as a resource to Federal, State, local, and Tribal law enforcement agencies.  Tribal, State, and local law enforcement agencies must have a LEEP account prior to accessing LEEP.  To apply for a LEEP account, go to the Law Enforcement Enterprise Portal and select the button titled "Apply for an Account" then “Go to LEEP.”  The application is in a format that can be completed and submitted electronically.  If you have any questions or require assistance with the application process, please contact the Membership Services Office via email (membership@leo.gov) or phone (888-334-4536, Option 7).
  • Sections 7(a) and (b) of Savanna’s Act allow the Department to offer grants to tribal governments, states, and units of local government for the purposes of developing and implementing MMIP protocols and training.  Specifically, the Act changed the allowable purposes of two Office on Violence Against Women grant programs – the Grants to Indian Tribal Governments Program and the Improving Criminal Justice Responses to Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking Grant Program.  Learn more about these grant opportunities here, and find the open solicitations here.
  • Consistent with Section 5(e)(1), the National Indian Country Training Initiative (NICTI) is also committed to provided training and technical assistance to law enforcement agencies as they develop guidelines for responding to MMIP cases.  Since Savanna’s Act passage, the NICTI has hosted numerous trainings to address issues connected to MMIP, including hosting with Operation Lady Justice the first-ever three-day national symposium on these issues in September 2021.

Data Collection, Access, and Reporting

The Department appreciates the importance of data collection, access, and sharing to better respond to missing person cases, as well as to understand the scope and causes of this crisis. 

  • Consistent with Section 6(a), beginning with its CY2022 Indian Country Investigations and Prosecutions report to Congress, the Department of Justice will start to include available statistics related to missing indigenous persons and murdered indigenous persons. 
  • Consistent with Section 6(b), the Department encourages all Tribal, State, and local law enforcement agencies to submit to it, to the fullest extent possible, all relevant information pertaining to missing or murdered indigenous persons collected by Tribal, State, and local law enforcement using the National Crime Information Center (NCIC) and the National Incident Based Reporting System (NIBRS). Section 7(a) and (b) of Savanna’s Act allows the Department to offer grants to tribal governments, states, and units of local government for the purpose of reporting MMIP data to the federal government.  Specifically, the Act changed the allowable purposes of two Office on Violence Against Women grant programs – the Grants to Indian Tribal Governments Program and the Improving Criminal Justice Responses to Domestic Violence, Dating Violence, Sexual Assault, and Stalking Grant Program.  Learn more about these grant opportunities here, and find the open solicitations here.
  • Consistent with Section 6(c), the FBI began in 2021 to include gender in its annual statistics on missing and unidentified persons published on its public website.   

Learn more about the Department’s MMIP-related databases and research. 

Updated March 31, 2023