Tribal Community Response Plans Adopted

VFJ Executive Director Victoria Shanklin traveled to Dillingham and Unalakleet this month as part of the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Persons (MMIP) Working Group.

The group witnessed the historic signing of Alaska’s first MMIP Tribal Community Response Plans, aimed at finding lasting solutions to the state’s MMIP crisis. The plans are a guide for how a tribal community will build response capacity, collaborate with law enforcement, and provide other support in response to a report of a new missing or murdered Indigenous person. Adopting the new plans were Curyung Tribal Council of Dillingham and Native Village of Unalakleet.

“We were extremely honored to participate and look forward to more collaboration,” said Shanklin.

Dillingham, Unalakleet and Native Village of Koyukuk are three communities participating in a pilot project to develop culturally relevant plans on how a community will respond in the event a person goes missing or is murdered. This includes how and when to submit a missing persons report, what will happen during the response, who will lead the investigation, and the response structure. The plans also lay out training opportunities for volunteers.

The Curyung Tribal Council and Native Village of Unalakleet will conduct a table top exercise with the National Criminal Justice Training Center to pilot and practice their response plans. The goal is to create model response plans that other tribal communities across Alaska can use.

Alaska is one of six states developing response plans as part of the U.S. Justice Department’s MMIP initiative. The others are Michigan, Minnesota, Oklahoma and Oregon.

“The adoption of these plans marks a major milestone in finding lasting solutions to the MMIP challenge in Alaska,” said Acting U.S. Attorney, Bryan Wilson of the District of Alaska. “Over the last few months tribal representatives, law enforcement officials and victim service organizations have partnered together to design a plan that is right for victims and their families while remaining culturally sensitive and balanced with what the law requires.”