BILLINGS, Mont. – A recent report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Uniform Crime Reporting Program sheds light on the troubling rates of violent and sexual crimes against Native American women across the United States. The data, collected from the National Incident-Based Reporting System, spans from 2021 to 2023 and highlights alarming trends in victim and offender relationships.
The report reveals that murder victims were most frequently killed by unknown assailants, with intimate partners following closely behind. In cases of aggravated assault, intimate partners were the most common offenders, surpassing both unknown and known offenders. Sexual assault statistics showed that known offenders, including family members in some cases, topped the list, with unknown offenders ranking second.
An important aspect of the report is the location of these violent offenses. Residences were identified as the most common setting, with over 20,000 incidents occurring in homes. This makes a violent crime six and a half times more likely to happen in a home compared to other locations.
Charlene Sleeper, a local advocate for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Peoples, emphasized the significance of this data. She believes it will bolster efforts to secure grants and federal funding for programs addressing domestic abuse and substance use.
“Coming from the Indigenous perspective, when we go to tell our narrative a lot of times prior to people taking us seriously, the only way they would take us seriously is if we had reliable data and it really supports the narrative portion as far as that goes,” Sleeper said. “Our stories are very important and they are very truthful to us. It’s a lived experience that we are constantly dealing with in Indian Country.”
Sleeper also noted the potential for the data to open discussions about the impact of sexual assault within the Native American community, a topic often avoided or quickly dismissed.
“Sex crimes in Indian country is really serious and it’s something that we have necessarily approached in terms of the missing and murdered Indigenous movement,” Sleeper added. “Once people start examining this wound and seeing how often these incidents are taking place in the residence and between intimate partner violence and sexual assault violence is happening, within specific age ranges, it may have an impact on a scale that we weren’t anticipating just yet, but it’s a very powerful conversation but one that needs to be had.”
For those interested in viewing the full data from the special report, visit the FBI’s website: Violence Against Native American Women Data