Violence and crime rage unchecked in Indian country, yet the federal government, the primary law enforcer on reservations, is investigating and prosecuting fewer violent felonies, and reducing financing for tribal courts and public-safety programs. That is a scandal. Timothy Williams reported in The Times last week that from 2000 to 2010 homicides on American Indian reservations rose by 41 percent, rapes by 55 percent, and arson and robbery doubled — even as crime rates fell sharply elsewhere in the country.
The Navajo reservation in the Southwest, with 180,000 people, had more reported rapes in 2009 than did Detroit, a city of more than 700,000, according to Justice Department data. Police forces on reservations, meanwhile, remain absurdly outmatched — only 30 tribal officers patrol the Fort Apache Indian Reservation, a swath of Arizona larger than Delaware.
The Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota covers about 3,500 square miles. It has 49 tribal officers now, nine fewer than in 2000.
Crime has been a problem on reservations for generations, because of federal neglect and lack of money, but also because of a spaghetti tangle of jurisdictions that hobble effective law enforcement.
A crime can be a federal, state or tribal matter, depending on where it is committed and whether the suspect or victim is Indian. Federal law limits the prison terms and fines tribal courts can impose. The Tribal Law and Order Act, signed by President Obama in 2010, was supposed to improve things by prodding the Justice Department to increase prosecutions and giving tribal police more authority to enforce federal laws. But those reforms required budget support that has not materialized. In the current Congress, a provision in the stalled Violence Against Women Act giving tribes more power to prosecute non-Indians for domestic violence and sexual crimes was removed by House Republicans. The worsening plague of crime in Indian country is a moral atrocity. The Obama administration and Congress need to keep the federal government’s failed promise to give tribes the resources they need to maintain law and order.
Lawlessness on Indian Land
