Minnesota forms nation’s first state office on missing, murdered Indigenous people
Native American women make up less than 1 percent of the state’s population, but homicide rates for Native women were seven times higher than for white women between 1990 and 2016.
The state’s newly-passed public safety budget includes funding to create the first state office in the nation with a focus on missing and murdered Indigenous relatives. Forming the office was a recommendation of a task force focused on the same issues. The bill also funds a new task force on missing and murdered African American women.