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UNO Researchers Join In Missing Persons Task Force

Carolyn DeFord poses with the missing persons poster for her mother, Leona Kinsey, who went missing in October 1999.
Dupe Oyebolu
/
StoryCorps
Carolyn DeFord poses with the missing persons poster for her mother, Leona Kinsey, who went missing in October 1999.

A New Mexico task force charged with addressing missing person cases involving Native Americans is teaming up with researchers in Nebraska on a data collection project. The goal of the federally funded effort is to better define the scope of what many experts and activists have referred to as a silent crisis. Officials say the work began last week. One of the challenges for policymakers across Indian Country has been the lack of a consistent and sustainable system for tracking cases and their outcomes. Researchers at the University of Nebraska-Omaha will be using a model first developed for that state to address data collection gaps across multiple law enforcement jurisdictions.