发自内心的研究
U of I Seniors Raise Awareness on Crimes Against Indigenous Population
麦迪逊狼, 谁是雅卡马族的后裔, remembers hearing stories every time another Indigenous woman from their area went missing.
“I saw how much hurt it caused 和 how much it affected families. The more you read about some of these stories, you start to feel a little helpless. But you focus on the project 和 getting as much information as you can to the authorities because that’s what helps solve the cases.”
-麦迪逊·沃尔夫，犯罪学大四学生
克里斯蒂娜Briggs-Mathers has an Indigenous friend whose father was murdered.
Both University of Idaho seniors grew up in the shadow of violence against this portion of the population. And both spent a large part of their last year on campus doing something meaningful about it.
狼, 谁在星城长大, 米德尔顿和伊格尔, 和Briggs-Mathers, 源自奥格登, 犹他州, recently presented the findings from their recent project at the Western Society of Criminology annual conference in Vancouver, 英属哥伦比亚.
在一起 尾身茂Hodwitz，副教授 文化、社会及司法学系, they are compiling the most comprehensive database of missing 和 murdered Indigenous women, 美国和加拿大的女孩和两种精神.
The term two-spirit is used for the non-binary or transgender population 和 is derived from North American Indigenous cultures.
“We aren’t trying to reach out to families or solve cases with this project,布里格斯-马瑟斯说, 双学位 心理学 和 犯罪学. “We want to show how big this problem is 和 give investigators all of the information we can so they can solve the cases.”
要创建数据库, 狼 和Briggs-Mathers spent countless hours conducting research on open files concerning missing or murdered Indigenous persons from 1980 to 2020.
They started by finding every piece of information they could about missing person cases – from official lists that came from local police, the FBI or tribal authorities to information provided by community members from where the person went missing 和 news stories from the media.
Once they gathered information about the missing person, they then worked to verify the person existed 和 is still officially missing.
一旦消息被证实, 他们输入了所有有用的信息, non-personal information into the database in hopes that when authorities use the tool, similarities between cases could be discovered that could potentially link cases together.
不输入案件的个人信息, 布里格斯-马瑟斯说, because the intent is not to draw attention to specific open cases.
Going through all of the unsolved cases of missing Indigenous people reinforced how important this research is, 据沃尔夫说.
“I saw how much hurt it caused 和 how much it affected families,” they said. “The more you read about some of these stories, you start to feel a little helpless. But you focus on the project 和 getting as much information as you can to the authorities because that’s what helps solve the cases.”
While Briggs-Mathers focused on missing people in the U.S.在美国，沃尔夫主要关注来自加拿大的人. The database currently contains around 3,000 entries 和 will keep climbing. After 狼 和Briggs-Mathers graduate, students new to the project will continue the work. The database will focus on missing 和 murdered Indigenous women but cases involving men will be included as well.
布里格斯-马瑟斯说，尽管需要更多的数据, preliminary patterns are already emerging from their research, 包括:
- Violence against Indigenous females tends to come mostly from Indigenous males.
- Tribal or other Native American law enforcement tends to have more success with these cases than city, 县或州警察.
- 尤其是在偏远或农村地区, there is often information about the crime or the timeline that doesn’t get shared with those investigating the incident.
- Crimes involving Indigenous women are often reported late, 根本没有报道, or reported only to be met by resistance from the would-be investigators.
“I’ve seen many cases where a missing person is reported 和 the police would actually question why they should get involved,狼说, 犯罪学专业.
狼 和Briggs-Mathers’ research has also shown many reasons why reports of missing Indigenous people are often downplayed, ranging anywhere from not knowing someone is missing because of the remote area where they live to stereotypical reasons that are often applied to the Indigenous population, such as being a runaway or being under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
“These cases are often mish和led or not h和led at all because of many different factors,狼说. “Oftentimes a case is closed without any type of closure for the family. We’ve barely scratched the surface with our research so far. There is a lot more cases out there 和 hopefully there’s also a lot more information out there that will help solve the cases. We want this to keep going – for the missing people 和 their families.”
