Developed by the U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Justice Programs (OJP), the National Missing and Unidentified Persons Initiative (NamUs) is made up of two databases: one containing records on unidentified human remains and the other containing missing person’s reports. NamUs was created in response to the overwhelming need for a central reporting system for missing and unidentified persons cases. NamUs is a new resource for matching unidentified human remains with records of missing persons. The missing person’s database currently contains information on all of the States: missing person’s clearinghouses, medical examiner and coroner offices, victim assistance resources, and legislation related to missing persons and unidentified decedent investigations. The unidentified decedent database contains records on unidentified human remains and was initially created by the National Association of Medical Examiners (NAME). The ultimate goal is to have the two NamUs databases simultaneously search against each other for matches by 2009. Through NamUs, a diverse community now has a national resource. References