Tribal Law and Order Act

South Dakota Crime Report Authors Respond to Goldberg and Washburn

Matthew L.M. Fletcher

From ICT [the earlier post is here]:

Rich Braunstein and William Anderson

On July 28, distinguished professors Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn wrote an opinion piece in Indian Country Today [Vol. 28, Iss. 8] stating, ”It would be a mistake to accept the conclusions of the South Dakota study,” which is set to be published this winter in American Indian Culture and Research Journal.

We feel a response to that Perspective is needed to correct some of what Goldberg and Washburn wrote. Also, we, as two of the four co-authors of that study, would like to further challenge the community of interested academics, advocates and those generally concerned about American Indian criminal justice to continue to pursue reliable and context-sensitive research in this area.

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Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn Respond to S. Dakota AG

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From ICT:

Lies, damn lies, and crime statistics

By Carole Goldberg and Kevin Washburn

Are American Indians more often victims of crime than members of other ethnic and racial groups? Are most of the offenses committed against them committed by non-Indians, as opposed to members of their own group? Ever since the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics began issuing reports on this subject in 2000, the clear answer to both of those questions has seemed to be ”yes.”

Now the South Dakota attorney general and researchers at the University of South Dakota have challenged that conclusion, issuing a report that focuses on only one state but questions the Indian data nationally. Their challenge to the federal data is much too quick to dismiss the BJS findings.

Over the past eight years, the BJS, which is a component of the U.S. Department of Justice, has released some startling figures. Although American Indians are .9 percent of the total population, they represent 1.4 percent of all crime victims, a very significant overrepresentation. At least two-thirds of all crimes against Indians, and 80 percent of all sexual assaults, are committed by non-Indians.

Indian women, according to BJS data, are 2.5 times more likely than non-Indian women to be raped or sexually assaulted during their lifetimes.

These statistics have been difficult to ignore. Tribes and Native women’s groups have raised them before the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs in order to secure greater support for Indian country criminal justice initiatives. Amnesty International included some of those statistics in a much broader analysis of sexual assault of Indian women in the United States, and used case studies from Indian country to make their point.

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Written Testimony in Senate Hearing on Tribal Courts

Matthew L.M. Fletcher1 Comment

From the Senate Indian Affairs Committee site:

Panel 1
MR. W. PATRICK RAGSDALE
Director, Office of Justice Services
Washington, DC

Accompanied by: MR. JOE LITTLE, Associate Deputy Director, Office of Justice Services-Division of Tribal Justice Support, U.S. Department of the Interior.

THE HONORABLE ROMAN DURAN
First Vice President, National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA), Albuquerque, NM

THE HONORABLE JOSEPH FLIES AWAY
Chief Judge, Hualapai Indian Tribe of Arizona

MS DORMA SAHNEYAH
Trbal Prosecutor, Hopi Tribe of Arizona

THE HONORABLE TERESA POULEY
President, Northwest Tribal Court Judges Association, Washington

THE HONORABLE JOHN ST. CLAIR
Chief Justice, Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho Tribal Court, Wind River Reservation, Wyoming

NPR on Tribal Law and Order Act

Matthew L.M. Fletcher2 Comments

From NPR:

Native American women are far more likely to be raped than other women — and tribal officials say many incidents on reservations across the country go unreported and uninvestigated, NPR’s Laura Sullivan reported a year ago on All Things Considered.

The Justice Department estimates that 1 in 3 Native American women will be raped in her lifetime, and most victims who do report their assaults describe their attackers as non-Native. Legally, tribal authorities can do little to stop them. Chickasaw Tribal Police Chief Jason O’Neal told NPR in 2007 that “many of the criminals know Indian lands are almost a lawless community that they can do whatever they want.”

For the past year, the Senate has held hearings on reservations nationwide on how to stop the assaults. The resulting legislation, called the Tribal Law and Order Act, was introduced in the Senate on Wednesday by Byron Dorgan, a North Dakota Democrat, who is chairman of the Senate Indian Affairs Committee.

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