Last November, Oklahoma Attorney General Gentner Drummond announced the state's first MMIP task force, or subcommittee. Since then, his office has hosted eight listening sessions in four locations with sizeable Indigenous populations across the state: Oklahoma City, Lawton, Durant and Miami.
Half of the sessions were with families and advocates. The other half were with criminal justice professionals. Many concerns and recommendations overlapped.
The report's authors write that four themes became evident in the listening sessions with families and advocates: victim blaming, bearing the burden of finding answers, inefficient communication with law enforcement, and a need for a centralized database to track MMIP cases.
The findings from the criminal justice listening sessions showed issues related to jurisdictional "checkerboard" challenges, DNA collection, training about MMIP laws and best practices, as well as more cross-deputization efforts.
The subcommittee suggested work on four issue areas based on priority.
- Improve data accuracy about MMIP cases in databases, including the National Missing and Unidentified Persons System, or NamUs, and the National Crime Information Center, or NCIC.
- Strengthen collaboration across jurisdictional lines to improve coordination and communication.
- Build a central hub to track and report cases, such as creating a hotline and website.
- Provide more resources for law enforcement agencies to increase their capacity to solve more MMIP cases.
The subcommittee will now focus on addressing those four priorities, which could include advocating for legislative changes, data systems improvement and more communication with stakeholders and those affected by the crisis.
They also voted to become a working group that is more collaborative, rather than a more formal task force. They recommended that the members of the working group be diverse — and include representatives from U.S. Attorney's Offices, the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, Bureau of Indian Affairs and the Oklahoma Office of Chief Medical Examiner — and complete cultural competency training.
A full list of subcommittee members and affiliated agencies is included in the report, shared on the Attorney General's website.
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