Washington State Patrol launched a missing Indigenous person alert system, hoping to address the crisis of missing Indigenous people, often women.
The bill creating the first-in-the-nation alert system was signed into law in March by Gov. Jay Inslee.
According to the Government Accountability Office, the number of missing and murdered Indigenous women in the U.S. is unknown because of reporting problems, distrust of law enforcement and jurisdictional conflicts. However, according to research by the National Congress of American Indians, Native American women face murder rates almost three times those of white women — and up to 10 times the national average in certain locations.
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