How a racist law is causing more missing and murdered indigenous people in California
California has the fifth-highest number of missing and murdered Indigenous people cases in the country. How did we get here?
After passing Public Law 280 in 1953, Congress essentially washed its hands of funding law enforcement and criminal justice on tribal lands in six states: Alaska, California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon and Wisconsin. That meant much fewer resources for public safety and significant obstacles to preventing or resolving cases of missing and murdered Indigenous people in these states.