Abstract
Indigenous people across the United States experience disproportionately high rates of violence and relatedly high rates of murders and disappearances. This phenomenon has been coined the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples Crisis (MMIP), and as a state with one of the largest Indigenous populations, California also has one of the largest MMIP caseloads. While California has recently taken action towards combatting the MMIP crisis, these have been largely “reactive” steps aimed at bolstering law enforcement responses to already occurring MMIP cases. As it stands, there is a gap in solutions that have a “proactive” focus aimed at lessening the risk of MMIP cases occurring before they happen.
This Note will explore the complexities of the crisis in detail, including the widespread distrust of local law enforcement agencies within Indigenous communities and the prevalence of risk factors making Indigenous communities vulnerable to violence. It will also examine the “reactive” steps that California has taken thus far to combat the crisis. Following, this Note will examine California Assembly Bill 3099, one piece of legislation that has the potential to be a more “proactive” solution to the crisis. This Note will provide a tangible recommendation for achieving one of AB 3099’s explicit goals of improving communications between law enforcement and tribal communities. This proposed recommendation is to create paired response teams of local law enforcement and qualified, culturally competent professionals to improve day-to-day encounters with tribal communities, and, in turn, build trust within Indigenous communities and lessen the risk factors that make Indigenous individuals vulnerable to violence.
Recommended Citation
Hannah Marquis,
Tangible Recommendations to Execute California Assembly Bill 3099: A Proactive Approach to Combatting the Missing and Murdered Indigenous People Crisis,
58 Loy. L.A. L. Rev. 753
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Available at: https://digitalcommons.lmu.edu/llr/vol58/iss3/4
