RAPID CITY, S.D. – The need to upgrade law enforcement on reservations across the country has been an issue for many years, but it took an Amnesty International report to underscore and bring national attention to the problems.
On some Great Plains reservations, with large and growing populations and vast acreages of land to patrol, law enforcement agencies are small, ill-equipped and grossly underfunded, tribal leaders and law enforcement officials claim.
The year 2007 brought most of Indian country’s law enforcement problems to a higher level. A number of congressional field hearings collected anecdotal and factual data that lay out some frightening statistics on domestic and sexual violence, drug and alcohol use, the rise of methamphetamine and gang activity – all within jurisdictions that have little authority over non-Indian perpetrators and too few investigators to arrest offenders.
The National Congress of American Indians, at its 64th annual meeting held in November, held workshops to discuss law enforcement. Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., and chairman of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs, created a concept paper that proposes ideas for legislation that will, according to Dorgan’s staff, be a high priority for next year’s Congress.
Tribal officials claim communication with other agencies is the key to proper law enforcement, and they want to see that effort improved. Many tribal leaders came to the NCAI meeting with similar suggestions: rescind Public Law 280, which gives the states criminal and civil jurisdiction over tribal lands; cross-deputize officers; and start the conversation to repeal the Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe decision, in which the Supreme Court ruled that tribal courts do not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians, and allow tribes more authority to arrest non-Indian perpetrators on reservations while at the same time allowing tribal courts the authority to prosecute non-Indians.
Law enforcement officials argue that technology and manpower are lacking to the point that agencies cannot offer enough clean evidence that would help federal prosecution. Therefore, many cases never make it to court and criminals are released.
Funding is the first and foremost topic brought up in many areas, and law enforcement is no exception. But to persuade Congress to loosen up the purse strings, data is necessary. Law enforcements claim, however, that collecting the data is difficult due to a lack of both officers and time.
Some officers have to travel hundreds of miles on reservations in the Great Plains to answer an emergency call, and one call can take up three-fourths of one officer’s shift. By the time some officers get to a crime scene, oftentimes it is contaminated. U.S. attorneys sometimes decline to prosecute cases because a case is not clean or properly developed. Declination of more than 70 percent of all cases from Indian country is the norm for all U.S. attorneys.
Training is another area that has been brought up in past years; but in 2007, it took on a more central position because training facilities are opening in the Great Plains, which is centrally located to a majority of tribes.
South Dakota has a new police officer training center, which was touted as a convenient location for tribal officers to receive training. A training facility also exists in North Dakota. However, the BIA does not certify any training that is not done at their facility in Artesia, N.M. Because of limited space at Artesia, the two facilities should be used, tribal law enforcement officials argue.
The AI report focused on domestic violence, which is included in Dorgan’s concept paper. Women who work with anti-violence organizations have brought up statistics and issues for many years, but the 2007 AI report finally brought the issue into the public arena.
Women’s health advocates want the IHS to perform rape testing, allowing both doctors other medical professionals to conduct the tests. Domestic violence training for offices is also needed. State domestic violence coalitions provide such training, but funds often are not available and officers are too few to leave a shift shorthanded.
Statistics related to violence against women are sketchy and most times not accurate, women’s health advocates claim. Rape on reservations is oftentimes not reported by the victim, which leaves the statistics that are used short of the real number of incidents. It takes the data to attract the funding.
”It comes down to funding. There is never enough money to succeed, just enough to fail. Indians are an easy mark and there is a drug epidemic and no money for treatment.
”Indian country is severely underfunded for health, education and law enforcement. We can pull ourselves up, but we need help and we all need to work together to solve the problems,” said Robert Cournoyer, chairman of the Yankton Sioux Tribe, at a field hearing on law enforcement.