Turtle Talk

Among other things, this case demonstrates some of the confusion going on in the courts about WHEN certain provisions of ICWA are required. Must there be a qualified expert witness at disposition hearings? What if the court makes a finding about returning a child to a parent at a disposition hearing? And finally, who is responsible for getting QEW testimony?

(The answer to the last one is the State. Not the tribe, not the parent, and it’s not waive-able [though that happens] since it’s the evidentiary burden of the State to have a QEW who agrees with termination or foster care.)

Registration for NAICJA Conference Now Open

Image August 20, 2015Kate Fort

Federal Grants Available for Tribal-State ICWA Programs

August 20, 2015Kate Fort

Here.

The purpose of this funding opportunity announcement is to support the creation of effective practice model partnerships between state courts and/or Court Improvement Program, state public child welfare agency and a tribe, group of tribes, or tribal consortia, including both the tribal child welfare agency and tribal court for effective implementation of the Indian Child Welfare Act (ICWA) of 1978 (Pub.L. 95-608).

Demonstration sites will be required to jointly develop protocols and practices to promote effective and timely:

– Identification of Indian children;
– Notice to tribes;
– Tribal participation as parties in hearings involving Indian children;
– Tribal intervention in dependency cases;
– Transfer of ICWA cases to tribal courts; and
– Placement of Indian children according to tribal preferences.

Partnership models must be co-created by states and tribes, jointly implemented, and designed to generate and capture clear, measurable outcomes such as:

– Compliance with identification methods;
– The number of Indian children identified;
– Length of time from removal or petition filed until identification is made;
– Number of notices sent;
– Length of time from identification until notice sent (state measure)
– Number of notices received (tribal measure)
– Length of time for tribal intervention or participation; (tribal measure)
– Number of cases in which a tribe intervenes; (joint measure)
– Number of transfers; (joint measure); and
– Number of Indian children placed according to tribal placement preferences (joint measure).

Assistant Secretary Washburn Announces a New Program to Assist Tribal Social Services Agencies in Placing Children in Safe Homes

August 19, 2015August 20, 2015Victoria Sweet2 Comments

Press release (copy here):

Assistant Secretary Washburn Announces a New Program to Assist Tribal Social Services Agencies in Placing Children in Safe Homes

WASHINGTON – Assistant Secretary – Indian Affairs Kevin K. Washburn today announced a new Bureau of Indian Affairs’ Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS) program to assist federally recognized tribal social services agencies seeking to place children in safe homes.

“The BIA-OJS Purpose Code X Program will provide tribal social service agencies with the information they need to protect the children they place into care in emergency situations when parents are unable to provide for their welfare,” Washburn said. “This program provides BIA law enforcement personnel with the ability to provide our social service agency partners with muchneeded information to help to make sure children requiring emergency placements will be placed in safe homes.”

The BIA-OJS Purpose Code X Program arose out of a 2014 working group formed by the Departments of Justice (DOJ) and the Interior (DOI) to identify sustainable solutions that provide tribes access to national crime information that addresses criminal and civil needs of tribes. The outcome of this collaboration was the BIA-OJS Purpose Code X Program and DOJ Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information (TAP) TAP will allow tribes to more effectively serve and protect their communities by ensuring the exchange of critical data.

Under the BIA-OJS Purpose Code X Program, BIA-OJS dispatch centers will be available to provide 24-hour access to criminal history records, so name-based checks can be done immediately. Protocols for operating under the new program are being developed by BIA-OJS and will be tested by a select number of tribes prior to a nationwide implementation of the program.

BIA-OJS obtained authorization to perform these name-based checks from the National Crime Prevention and Privacy Compact Council, an organization which has the legal authority to promulgate rules and procedures governing the exchange of criminal records for non-criminal justice purposes.

“The BIA Office of Justice Services and DOJ’s Office of Tribal Justice have made collaboration on improving tribal access to information a high priority over the last year, and I am grateful to the Compact Council for approving our request so quickly,” said BIA OJS Deputy Director Darren A. Cruzan.

OJS has also worked to improve tribal reporting to the Uniform Crime Report system and encouraged tribal participation in the National Data Exchange (NDEx) system.

All of these efforts underscore the importance of the exchange of information between law enforcement agencies to achieving public safety in all jurisdictions, including Indian Country.

The BIA-OJS’s mission is to address public safety concerns in Indian Country by funding law enforcement, correctional departments and tribal court services to the nation’s federally recognized tribes. It also coordinates emergency preparedness support on federal Indian lands by working cooperatively with other federal, state, local and tribal law enforcement agencies throughout Indian Country. The BIA-OJS operates the Indian Police Academy in Artesia, N.M., which provides training and professional development to BIA and tribal law enforcement personnel.

Visit http://www.indianaffairs.gov/WhoWeAre/BIA/OJS/index.htm for more information about OJS and its work.

For more information on TAP, visit http://www.justice.gov/tribal/tribal-access-program-tap.

Department of Justice Announces Program to Enhance Tribal Access to National Crime Information Databases

August 19, 2015Victoria Sweet1 Comment

DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE ANNOUNCES PROGRAM TO ENHANCE TRIBAL ACCESS TO NATIONAL CRIME INFORMATION DATABASES

Department of Justice Tribal Access Program (TAP) Will Improve the Exchange of Critical Data

Department of the Interior Companion Program to Provide Name-Based Emergency Background Checks for Child Placement

WASHINGTON – The Department of Justice is launching an initial phase of the Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information (TAP) to provide federally-recognized tribes access to national crime information databases for both civil and criminal purposes. TAP will allow tribes to more effectively serve and protect their communities by ensuring the exchange of critical data.

This initial phase of TAP was announced today in a meeting with tribes held during the 2015 Department of Justice/FBI Criminal Justice Information Services (CJIS) Division Tribal Conference in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

“Federal criminal databases hold critical information that can solve crimes, and keep police officers and communities safe,” said Deputy Attorney General Sally Quillian Yates. “The Tribal Access Program is a step forward to providing tribes the access they need to protect their communities, keep guns from falling into the wrong hands, assist victims and prevent domestic and sexual violence. Empowering tribal law enforcement with information strengthens public safety and is a key element in our ongoing strategy to build safe and healthy communities in Indian country. ”

“The FBI is pleased to participate in this initiative,” said Executive Assistant Director Amy Hess of the FBI’s Science and Technology Branch. “This will be a positive step for the tribal agencies to receive valuable criminal information and also for those same tribal agencies to submit criminal information at the national level. Through this partnership, information becomes richer and communities can become safer.”

TAP will support tribes in analyzing their needs for national crime information and help provide appropriate solutions, including a-state-of-the-art biometric/biographic computer workstation with capabilities to process finger and palm prints, take mugshots and submit records to national databases, as well as the ability to access CJIS systems for criminal and civil purposes through the Department of Justice. TAP will also provide specialized training and assistance for participating tribes.

While in the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 Congress required the Attorney General to ensure that tribal officials that meet applicable requirements be permitted access to national crime information databases, the ability of tribes to fully participate in national criminal justice information sharing via state networks has been dependent upon various regulations, statutes and policies of the states in which a tribe’s land is located. Therefore, improving access for tribal law enforcement to federal criminal information databases has been a departmental focus for several years. In 2010, the department instituted two pilot projects, one biometric and one biographic, to improve informational access for tribes. The biographic pilot continues to serve more than 20 tribal law enforcement agencies.

Departments of Justice and Interior Working Group

In 2014, the Departments of Justice and the Interior (DOI) formed a working group to assess the impact of the pilots and identify long-term sustainable solutions that address both criminal and civil needs of tribes. The outcome of this collaboration was the TAP, as well as an additional program announced today by the DOI’s Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) that provides tribes with national crime information prior to making child placement decisions in emergency circumstances. Under the BIA program, social service agencies of federally recognized tribes will be able to view criminal history information accessed through BIA’s Office of Justice Services who will conduct name-based checks in situations where parents are unable to care for their children.

“Giving tribal government programs access to national crime databases through DOJ’s Tribal Access Program for National Crime Information is a tremendous step forward towards increasing public safety in Indian Country,” said Assistant Secretary Kevin K. Washburn for Indian Affairs at the Department of the Interior. “The Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services’ Purpose Code X program provides a much-needed tool for tribal social service agencies when they must find safe homes to place children during temporary emergency situations.”

In the initial phase of the TAP program, the biometric/biographic workstations will be deployed to up to 10 federally-recognized tribes who will provide user feedback. This phase will focus on assisting tribes that have law enforcement agencies, while in the future the department will seek to address needs of the remaining tribes and find a long-term solution. The department will continue to work with Congress for additional funding to more broadly deploy the program.

The Department of Justice’s Chief Information Officer manages TAP.

“It is our hope that TAP can minimize the national crime information gap and drive a deeper and more meaningful collaboration between the federal, state, local and tribal criminal justice communities,” said Chief Information Officer Joseph F. Klimavicz for the department.

For more information on TAP, visit www.justice.gov/tribal/tribal-access-program-tap.

For more information about the Justice Department’s work on tribal justice and public safety issues, visit: www.justice.gov/tribal.

For more information about the Department of the Interior Bureau of Indian Affairs, visit www.indianaffairs.gov/