Tragedy Spurs Minnesota Cop to Mount Indian Country Crime Database
Sgt. Bill Blake with the Minneapolis Police Department is striving to develop a database to better monitor crimes among Native Americans in the region. Called I-CARE (Indian Crime Awareness Research and Evaluation), the network would initially include a few tribes but would later expand to include all tribes in Minnesota and Wisconsin and eventually nationwide.
The aim is to provide tribes with a means of identifying trends and tracking criminals across different reservations.
The I-CARE project would incorporate the work of NALES (Native American Law Enforcement Summit), which Blake created after the murder of his daughter in 2003 in Wisconsin.
Blake says existing data collected the Bureau of Justice Statistics might not be accurate because data is collected by several methods, such as household surveys.
Blake and fellow Minneapolis officer Larry Loonsfoot anticipate receiving a two-year, $600,000 grant from the Justice Department to launch the I-CARE initiative, while Minneapolis Police Chief Tim Dolan hopes to provide computers, staff assistance, and space for the project.
Abstracted by the National Law Enforcement and Corrections Technology Center (NLECTC) from the Telegram and Gazette (02/07/07); P. B1; Lee, Brian.