The National Missing and Unidentified Persons System (NamUs) is a national clearinghouse and resource center for missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases throughout the United States. NamUs is funded and administered by the

National Institute of Justice The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) is the research, development and evaluation agency of the United States Department of Justice. NIJ, along with the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), Bureau of Justice Assistance (BJA), Office of Juvenil ...

through a cooperative agreement with the

University of North Texas The University of North Texas (UNT) is a public research university in Denton, Texas. It was founded as a nonsectarian, coeducational, private teachers college in 1890 and was formally adopted by the state 11 years later."Denton Normal School, ...

Health Science Center's Center for Human Identification. NamUs resources are provided to

law enforcement Law enforcement is the activity of some members of government who act in an organized manner to enforce the law by discovering, deterring, rehabilitating, or punishing people who violate the rules and norms governing that society. The term ...

, medical examiners,

coroners A coroner is a government or judicial official who is empowered to conduct or order an inquest into the manner or cause of death, and to investigate or confirm the identity of an unknown person who has been found dead within the coroner's juri ...

, allied forensic professionals, and family members of missing persons. They include technology,

forensic Forensic science, also known as criminalistics, is the application of science to criminal and civil laws, mainly—on the criminal side—during criminal investigation, as governed by the legal standards of admissible evidence and criminal p ...

and analytical services, investigative support, and local, regional, and online training programs.

New York New York most commonly refers to: * New York City, the most populous city in the United States, located in the state of New York * New York (state), a state in the northeastern United States New York may also refer to: Film and television * '' ...

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York (state), New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the ...

Tennessee Tennessee ( , ), officially the State of Tennessee, is a landlocked U.S. state, state in the Southeastern United States, Southeastern region of the United States. Tennessee is the List of U.S. states and territories by area, 36th-largest by ...

New Jersey New Jersey is a state in the Mid-Atlantic and Northeastern regions of the United States. It is bordered on the north and east by the state of New York; on the east, southeast, and south by the Atlantic Ocean; on the west by the Delawa ...

and

Oklahoma Oklahoma (; Choctaw: ; chr, ᎣᎧᎳᎰᎹ, ''Okalahoma'' ) is a state in the South Central region of the United States, bordered by Texas on the south and west, Kansas on the north, Missouri on the northeast, Arkansas on the east, New ...

have passed legislation to include NamUs listings.

Services

* Database technology which provides a secure, easy-to-use, centralized online

database In computing, a database is an organized collection of data stored and accessed electronically. Small databases can be stored on a file system, while large databases are hosted on computer clusters or cloud storage. The design of databases ...

for information sharing, case management, advanced searching, and automatic matching tools to expedite case associations and resolutions. * Regional Program Specialists (RPSs) who hold

Department of Justice A justice ministry, ministry of justice, or department of justice is a ministry or other government agency in charge of the administration of justice. The ministry or department is often headed by a minister of justice (minister for justice in a ...

security clearances, vet all professional users and case data, assist with the collection of biometric information, provide NamUs training, assist with the coordination and implementation of missing person day events, and provide investigative support to missing, unidentified, and unclaimed person cases. * Fingerprint services to scan, classify, upload, analyze, and compare

fingerprint A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

information submitted to NamUs, including collaboration with the

Federal Bureau of Investigation The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic intelligence and security service of the United States and its principal federal law enforcement agency. Operating under the jurisdiction of the United States Department of Justice ...

(FBI) for searching unidentified decedent prints through the FBI's

Next Generation Identification Next Generation Identification (NGI) is a project of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The project's goal is to expand the capabilities of the Integrated Automated Fingerprint Identification System (IAFIS), which is currently used by law e ...

national database. * Nuclear and

mitochondrial DNA Mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA or mDNA) is the DNA located in mitochondria, cellular organelles within eukaryotic cells that convert chemical energy from food into a form that cells can use, such as adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Mitochondrial D ...

analyses through the University of North Texas Center for Human Identification's Missing Persons Unit. * Forensic odontology services to obtain, code, and upload dental information to NamUs. * Forensic

anthropology Anthropology is the scientific study of humanity, concerned with human behavior, human biology, cultures, societies, and linguistics, in both the present and past, including past human species. Social anthropology studies patterns of be ...

services through the Missing Persons Unit. * Analytical services to assist with locating indication of life for persons reported missing to NamUs, locating family contact information for DNA collections and next of kin death notifications, and locating/vetting tips and leads related to missing and unidentified person cases.

History

In 2003, the

began funding major efforts to maximize the use of DNA technology in the U.S. criminal justice system, including in the investigation of missing and unidentified person cases. By 2005, the institute expanded its efforts with the “Identifying the Missing Summit”, where criminal justice practitioners, forensic scientists, policymakers, and victim advocates defined major challenges in investigating and solving missing and unidentified decedent cases. As a result of that summit, the

Deputy Attorney General The Deputy Attorney General (DAG) is the second-highest-ranking official in a department of justice or of law, in various governments of the world. In those governments, the deputy attorney general oversees the day-to-day operation of the departme ...

created the National Missing Persons Task Force. It identified the need to improve access to information that would help solve missing and unidentified person cases. NamUs was created to meet that need. In 2007, the NamUs Unidentified Persons database was launched. The following year, the NamUs

Missing Persons A missing person is a person who has disappeared and whose status as alive or dead cannot be confirmed as their location and condition are unknown. A person may go missing through a voluntary disappearance, or else due to an accident, crime, ...

(MP) database was launched. In 2009, the two databases were connected for automatic case comparisons. In 2011, daily management of NamUs was transitioned to the University of North Texas Health Science Center, with continued administration and oversight by the National Institute of Justice. Management through the Center for Human Identification at the university enhanced NamUs's ability to facilitate DNA services and enhanced the quality and quantity of DNA information entered into NamUs. In 2012, an Analytical Division was added to NamUs. Also in 2012, the NamUs AFIS/Fingerprint Unit was created, bringing additional in-house forensic services to NamUs, including a collaboration with the FBI's Latent Print Unit to search all unidentified decedent prints through the Next Generation Identification system. In May 2018, NamUs 2.0 was released.

In popular culture

*NamUs was referenced in episode 12, season 12 of the TV drama ''

Criminal Minds ''Criminal Minds'' is an American police procedural crime drama television series created and produced by Jeff Davis (writer), Jeff Davis. The series premiered on CBS on September 22, 2005, and originally concluded on February 19, 2020; it was r ...

.'' The discovery of several sets of unidentified remains caught the attention of investigators seeking help from the FBI to solve the cases.Clemente, Jim. "A Good Husband." ''

''. Season 12, episode 12. 8 February 2017. Television.

References

External links

* {{authority control Missing people organizations United States Department of Justice Forensics organizations Law enforcement databases in the United States Forensic databases Person databases