SANTA ANA PUEBLO, N.M. – New laws have helped fix a legal system that left tribal communities especially vulnerable to violent crimes for decades, but challenges still remain, the top federal official for Native American affairs said Wednesday.
Kevin Washburn, the head of the Interior Department’s Bureau of Indian Affairs and a former University of New Mexico law school dean, delivered remarks at the start of a two-day meeting of about 75 law enforcement officials, U.S. Attorneys and federal prosecutors on how to improve public safety in Indian Country. The Justice Department is hosting the meeting this week at Santa Ana Pueblo, north of Albuquerque.
Washburn said the Obama administration’s efforts are unmatched in addressing criminal-justice issues in Indian Country, with the 2010 Tribal Law and Order Act and 2013 reauthorization of the Violence Against Women Act closing legal loopholes that often made reservations safe havens for violent offenders. Each of the measures gave tribes more authority to prosecute crimes within their jurisdictions.
Still, detention centers on reservations are understaffed, and jury trials for Native Americans can take place in federal courthouses sometimes hundreds of miles from an isolated reservation community where the crime occurred, Washburn said.
“That’s not the way it’s supposed to work,” he said. “That jury doesn’t express the outrage of the community; it doesn’t say anything about the community’s values.”
When he asked whether any of the attorneys at the meeting had prosecuted a case from a reservation at least 100 miles from the courtroom, nearly everyone raised their hands.
Numerous other pressing justice issues facing tribes also are beginning to be addressed, such as trying to improve defendants’ re-entry to reservation communities after serving their prison sentences.
In New Mexico, Isleta Pueblo has placed focus on a coordinated effort to reduce recidivism in the community. Police Chief Kevin Mariano said he would like to eventually see Justice Department funding specifically for a “re-entry officer” in his department at the pueblo and for other tribes across Indian Country.
He said he believed close to 50 percent of criminals who return to Isleta Pueblo after serving prison time go back into the system. He attributes that, in part, to a lack of resources for treatment programs for defendants while in custody and other preventative measures.
“We know we can’t arrest our way out of the crime,” said Mariano, chief of police for Isleta Pueblo. “So, how can we slow it down, especially with addressing repeat offenders?”