On Monday, April 23, 2018, Governor Ducey signed HB 2502, “The Officer Craig Tiger Act” in honor of his commitment to our community and the sacrifices of Phoenix Police Officer Craig Tiger and his family, which provides critical treatment of PTSD for public safety personnel. Highlights of the bill include 36 visits to a licensed treatment professional, time spent in treatment to be compensated, restoration of leave time used as a result of PTSD, and comprehensive study/documentation of PTSD claims/usage/denials.
The Department of Justice is committed to addressing the persistent violence endured by Native American families and communities across the country, including by working with Tribal nations to address the important issues of missing or murdered indigenous persons. The Department views this work as a priority for its law enforcement components. It also recognizes the broader public safety and public health concerns that underlie many of these cases and require solutions from across the Department’s components.
The Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) creates and supports comprehensive, cost-effective responses to domestic violence, sexual assault, dating violence and stalking. Since its enactment in 1994, VAWA programs, administered by the U.S. Departments of Justice (DOJ) and Health and Human Services (HHS), have dramatically improved federal, tribal, state, and local responses to these crimes.
The Department is committed to fully implementing Public Law No. 116-165, Savanna’s Act. Signed into law in October 2020, Savanna’s Act was a bipartisan effort to improve the federal response to missing or murdered indigenous persons (MMIP), including by increasing coordination among Federal, State, Tribal, and local law enforcement agencies.
Efforts to enact and reauthorize VAWA have included the groundswell of Native women who organized to engage tribal, state, and federal systems to hold governments accountable to address the lasting effects of colonization, namely the continued crisis of domestic and dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, trafficking and abductions and homicides, especially unsolved cases of American Indian and Alaska Native women.
The U.S. Department of Justice launched the Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information (TAP) in August 2015 and has expanded yearly to provide Tribes access to national crime information systems for federally authorized criminal justice and non-criminal justice purposes.