Excerpt from NALU May 29, 2009:
Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009
Last month, Senator Byron Dorgan (ND) and Representative Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin (SD) introduced the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009 (S. 797 and H.R. 1924.) As described in the Spring 2009 Indian Report, there is a public safety crisis in Indian Country. The Tribal Law and Order Act takes several positive steps toward establishing safety and security in Native American and Alaskan Native communities. The bill would create more effective communication among tribal, state, and federal authorities, and would address the need for tribal authorities to have more control over their own public safety concerns. FCNL will be working both to strengthen this legislation and to ensure its passage in the 111th Congress. Please urge your representative and your senators to cosponsor the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2009. For more information, see FCNL's Spring 2009 Indian Report as well asAmnesty International's report, Maze of Injustice.
Excerpt from NALU April 11, 2008: Current Native American News
Violence Against Women: Facts and Figures
Native American women experience the highest rate of violence of any group in the United States. A report released by the Department of Justice, American Indians and Crime, found that Native American women suffer violent crime at a rate three and a half times greater than the national average. National researchers estimate that this number is actually much higher than has been captured by statistics; according to the Department of Justice over 70% of sexual assaults are never reported. An Amnesty International report says that one in three Native women is raped. The majority of perpetrators are not Native men. For all other ethnicities, perpetrators and victims are most often from within the same ethnic group.
Though Native women have built momentum on these issues, Native communities have long lacked resources and authority both to assist women, and to apprehend and prosecute perpetrators.
The president's fiscal year 2009 (FY09) budget cuts the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) approximately 30% -- from $400 million in FY08 to $280 million. The president's level of proposed funding for this legislation falls far short of the $683 million in funds Congress authorized for this program. Native American woman, because they have so little access to other resources, were among the communities that benefited the most from this legislation. A cost-benefit analysis, cited in Restoration of Native Sovereignty and Safety for Native Women, indicates that VAWA's investment in violence prevention saved nearly $15 billion in net averted costs in its first six years alone, mostly in money that did not have to be spent on medical and mental health care.
Enhanced Law Enforcement
Without the authority to arrest non-Indians, "I can't protect my community, and that's just ludicrous," decried Tulalip Tribal Police Chief Scott Smith about law enforcement on the 22,000-acre Tulalip reservation, where the population is 80% non-Indian.
Ludicrous though the situation may be, Smith's law enforcement problems are the reality across Indian country, where the Supreme Court has dictated that, unless Congress determines otherwise, a tribe has no criminal jurisdiction over non-Indians. Indian lands are therefore seen by some non-Indians as safe havens in which to commit crimes from rape to speeding in cars. Indian and Alaska Native people, especially those in remote areas, live with the frightening consequences.
Seventeen Tulalip tribal officers are cross-deputized by Snohomish County Sheriff John Lovick and can now better protect all of their community. This local action to ameliorate a problem repeated across the U.S. may become a model until larger-scale resolution is achieved.
