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Tribes Get Funding Boost For Crime Victims

ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) — Roughly $133 million is expected to be made available to tribes to help Native American and Alaska Native crime victims who advocates say had been largely left out of a federal funding program for decades.

The appropriation for tribes is tucked into the $1.3 trillion federal spending measure that Congress passed last week. The omnibus bill overall has brought increases in funding for federal Native American programs and services this year, including many that not long ago faced the prospect of drastic funding cutbacks.

Juana Majel Dixon is the co-chair of a National Congress of American Indians taskforce on addressing violence against women. She says that for nearly two decades she and others have sought to have Congress set aside money for victim services in Indian Country under the Victims of Crime Act fund.