by S Wakeling · Cited by 78 — There are more than 75 medium-sized police departments in Indian Country, serving over half of the Native Americans living in reservation commu- nities subject
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U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice National Institute of Justice R E S E A R C H R E P O R T Policing on American Indian ReservationsStewart Wakeling Miriam JorgensenSusan MichaelsonManley Begay COMMUNITY ORIENTED POLICING SERVICES U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
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U.S. Department of JusticeOffice of Justice Programs810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 John AshcroftAttorney GeneralOffice of Justice ProgramsNational Institute of Justice World Wide Web SiteWorld Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.govhttp://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij
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Policing on American Indian ReservationsA Report to the National Institute of JusticeStewart Wakeling Miriam JorgensenSusan MichaelsonManley BegayFrancis X. Hartmann, Co-Principal InvestigatorJoseph P. Kalt, Co-Principal Investigator Program in Criminal Justice Policy and ManagementandHarvard Project on American Indian Economic DevelopmentMalcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard UniversityCambridge, MassachusettsJuly 2001NCJ 188095
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Winifred Reed and Phillis McDonald Program Monitors The National Institute of Justice is a component of the Office of Justice Programs,which also includes the Bureau of Justice Assistance,the Bureau of Justice Statistics,the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention,and the Office for Victims of Crime. Stewart Wakeling,Susan Michaelson,and Francis X. Hartmann are affiliates of Harvard UniversityÕs Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management; Miriam Jorgensen,Manley Begay,and Joseph P. Kalt are affiliates of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development. This research wassupported under award #95ÐIJÐCXÐ0086 from the National Institute of Justice,Office of Justice Programs,U.S. Department of Justice. All points of view expressed in this paper are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of the U.S. Department of Justice or Harvard University.
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iiiAcknowledgmentsThe authors wish to thank each of the tribes andtribal police departments that participated in this study for their generous help. Without the infor- mation they provided,the work would not have been possible. In particular,we wish to thank theConfederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of theFlathead Reservation,the Gila River Indian Community,the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation,and the Tohono OÕodham Nation for providing access to their police depart- ments,criminal justice systems,and other govern- mental units. Knowledge we gained from our time on site formed the core of our research.In addition to thanking the four tribal governments, we would like to express our appreciation to the people on each reservation who assisted us in so many ways:sharing information,offering guidance, telling stories,and helping us to get it right. These people included tribal leaders; elders and other community residents; department officials; depart- ment clerks and others who tolerated our many requests and questions; and,especially,the police chiefs,captains,and officers who spent many hours talking to us,giving us information,and allowing us to ride with them.We also thank the many individuals in police departments who took the time to complete the surveys. These questionnaires provided an impor- tant picture of policing across many departments inIndian Country. Officials in the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) Division of Law Enforcement Services also were extremely helpful. In particular,Ted Quasula (Chief, BIA,Division of Law Enforcement Services) and Brent LaRocque (Criminal Investigator,BIA,Division of Law Enforcement Services) talked with us at length,introduced us to people both on and off the reservations,provided documents,and supported our work throughout the course of the project. Their perspectives and knowledge of Indian Country were invaluable. We were fortunate to collaborate on the survey with Eileen Luna,assistant professor of American Indian Studies at the University of Arizona. Through this partnership,we were able to reach more tribes and gather more data than we would have been able to on our own. The authors received essential assistance from staffat the Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management:Mairgreg Agen,Stephen Brimley, Edward Gomeau,Gillian Thomson,and Melissa Weintraub. Their contributions,especially to the survey analysis and literature search,are woven throughout the final product. We are especially grateful to our funder,the National Institute of Justice (Office of Justice Programs,U.S. Department of Justice),for seeing the value in our proposed study. We hope and believe that their recog- nition of the need for research on Indian Country policingÑas evidenced by their support of this study and othersÑwill contribute to tribesÕefforts to improve policing,public safety,and the quality oflife in their communities.
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vExecutive Summary IntroductionThis study had two principal goals. The first was to take a broad look at policing in Indian Country in order to better understand the many arrangements for administering reservation police departments, develop an initial assessment of the challenges fac- ing Indian policing,and identify policing strategies and approaches that might be successful in respond- ing to the growing crime problem in Indian Country. The second was to evaluate the prospects for commu- nity policing in Indian Country. Could this strategy, which grew out of the experience of police depart- ments in urban settings,be usefully applied to the strikingly different cultural,geographic,and demo- graphic features typical of Indian reservations? This study is a first effort to characterize the variety of arrangements for reservation policing combined with a more comprehensive effort to better understand the operations of a limited set of representative depart- ments and their tribal contexts. MethodologyResearch for this study included several compo- nents. We began with a literature review and visits to several Indian police departments and the Indian Police Academy in New Mexico. We then distrib- uted a two-part survey to Indian police departments and undertook intensive site visits to four reserva- tions. The strategy for selecting study sites was to choose Indian nations that varied on as many rele- vant dimensions as could be captured in a small sample. The four nations selected were the Tohono OÕodham (in Arizona),the Gila River Indian Community (also in Arizona),the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation (in Montana),and the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation (in North Dakota). We studied these reservation departments and the tribal contexts in which they operate in order to gain a richer understanding of the diverse and complex ways in which Native communities cope with policing challenges. One caution is offered here and echoed in the work of other researchers and practitioners in Indian Country (for example,Elias 1998):All but the most basic and easily verified data must be interpreted carefully. For complex reasons,researchers must hold very loosely to data describing important dimensions of policing (including crime) in Indian Country. Policing in Indian Country: The Context In the mid-1990s,estimates of the non-Alaska serv- ice population (the number of Native Americans liv- ing on or very near reservations) ranged from 1.1 to 1.3 million (Indian Health Service 1997). This population is distributed across the more than 330 Indian nations in the continental United States.Indian nations exhibit an exceptionally wide variety of social and economic characteristics. One important additional type of variation is the substantial cultural diversity found among American Indian communi- ties. While ÒAmerican IndianÓis a single race catego- ry on the U.S. Census,members of one tribe can be as different from those of another tribe as citizens of Greece are from citizens of Vietnam. Even so,most Indian nations face severe social and economic problems. Despite new tribal opportunities and ven- tures,American Indians living on reservations have been and may remain the poorest minority in the United States (Kilborn 1992; Cornell et al. 1998; Pace 2000). More than 200 police departments operate in IndianCountry,serving an even larger number of tribal communities. These departments range in size from only 2 or 3 officers to more than 200 officers. The communities they serve are as small as the Grand Canyon-based Havasupai Tribe (with a population of only 600) and as large as the Navajo Nation (with a population of more than 250,000 and a land area larger than the State of Connecticut). The most common administrative arrangement forpolice departments in Indian Country is organizationunder the auspices of the Indian
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viioversight mechanisms,district-based organization, and other factors. Inadequate funding is an important obstacle to goodpolicing in Indian Country. Existing data suggest that tribes have between 55 and 75 percent of the resource base available to non-Indian communities. But the terms used in this comparison may underes- timate the resource needs of Indian Country depart- ments. The appropriate police coverage (police officers per thousand residents) comparison may notbe between Indian departments and departments serving communities of similar size,but between Indian departments and communities with similar crime problems. Given that the violent crime rate inIndian Country is between double and triple the national average (Greenfeld and Smith 1999,2), comparable communities would be large urban areas with high violent crime rates. For example, Baltimore,Detroit,New York City,and Washington, D.C.,feature high police-to-citizen ratios,from 3.9 to 6.6 officers per thousand residents (Bureau of Justice Statistics 1998).1Few,if any,departments in Indian Country have ratios of more than 2 officers per thousand residents.Crime Trends in Indian Country The threat of increasing crime,particularly violent crime,is especially worrisome because we know farless than we would like about crime in Indian Country. The lack of good data on crime in Indian Country stems from (1) issues of culture,geogra- phy,and economics unique to American Indian reservations; (2) the limited administrative and tech- nological resources available to tribal police depart- ments; (3) inadequate coordination between tribal and Federal agencies; and (4) management prob- lems common to both tribal and BIA police depart- ments. Even when it is possible to obtain accurate tribal-level data,the prevalence and character of crime vary widely from reservation to reservation. Our research suggests the following about the gen- eral prevalence,distribution,and character of crime on reservations: lThe overall workload of police departments in Indian Country has been increasing at a signifi- cant rate. In other words,the intensity and range of problems to which police departments in Indian Country must respond appear to be increasing.lAlthough many Native reservation residents live in rural,isolated areas,a significant percentage of reservation populations has settled in semiurban communities. Much,if not most,crime on reser- vations occurs in these fairly dense areas. lNotwithstanding the recent reports of dramatic increases in violent crime on reservations,espe- cially among youth,the crimes that most occupy police in Indian Country are directly or indirectly related to alcohol abuse. Alcohol-related crime is a deep and complex problem,whichÑby contrast to the problem of violent crimeÑhas received insufficient attention (and resources). The State of Policing in Indian Country The typical department that we describe is attempt- ing to cope with an increasing workload (a change driven by rising crime,increased police involvement in the social concerns that relate to crime,and greater community demands for police services) and is doing so with a quite limited resource base. In fact,this characterization only begins to capture the severity and complexity of the challenges to reserva- tion policing. Police in Indian Country function within a complicated jurisdictional web,answer to multiple authorities,may operate without strategic direction from their tribal governments,and often lack a sense of ÒpartnershipÓwith their service populations. In a review of one of the largest police departments in Indian Country,Naranjo and col- leagues (1996) both echo and expand on these con- cerns. They find thatÑ lPoor employee morale and high turnover result in a lack of well-qualified and experienced officers. lInadequate budgets,fiscal mismanagement,and even corruption create serious obstacles to the effective delivery of important police services and programs.lBasic departmental management is flawed. lUndue political interference in police operations inhibits the ability of the police to perform their duties in a fair and equitable manner and reduces the credibility of the police in the eyes of the community. Such findings have led many researchers,policy- makers,and police professionals to conclude that
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viiireservation policing is in crisis. In response,a num- ber of special reports,commissions,conferences, and blue-ribbon committees have grappled with the problems and have produced a wide variety of rec- ommendations and proposals. These include increas- ing funding,tightening management,clarifying ambiguous reporting relationships,and improving technology. Many of these responses are necessary to improve policing in Indian Country,but we are concerned that they may treat the symptoms,rather than the disease.In particular,we argue that many of the problems with policing in Indian Country,which subsequent- ly affect the quality of policing,are linked in impor- tant ways to Federal policy. Strong evidence points to longstanding,cumulative negative effects of Federal policy on the practice of policing in Indian Country. The historical record shows how Federal policy created a system that served the interests of the U.S. government and nontribal citizens and failed to promote the ability of Indian nations to design and exert meaningful control over their own policing institutions. Departments administered by the BIAare not agents of tribes but of the Federal Government and,as such,have limited incentive to look to the communities they serve for legitimacy orfor authorization of the police function. Over time,this arrangement has created a significant gap between tribal police and the communities they serve,a gap that is reflected in mismatches between police and community priorities and between police methods and tribal norms and values. We stress that when tribal members do turn to the police with problems,they encounter organizations with priorities that have been shaped by a model of policing that limits their attention to a narrow band of crime problems and police strategies. An emblematic example of this philosophy came from a high BIA official encountered on a site visit who stated,ÒLaw enforcement is law enforcementÓÑa claim that often exempts Indian police departments from adapting strategies,policies,and procedures to local needs. As a result,disputes,conflicts,and problems that police and citizens see as each otherÕs responsibility can continue to simmer and escalate into real crimes. In addition,as tribal members con- clude that the police are insensitive and unrespon- sive to community needs,their support for the police diminishes.Lessons From Research on EffectiveGovernance in Indian Country A substantial body of research suggests a road mapfor understanding and beginning to remedy the prob- lems with policing that are rooted in Federal policy. Beginning in the 1970s,a handful of Indian nations embarked on successful paths of social and econom- ic development. Research by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development indicates that the common denominator among these success- ful tribes was an effective governmentÑone that was capable of both determining and implementing the policy priorities of the community. One indicator of a tribal governmentÕs ability to make and implement effective decisions is whether or not it has increased control over its own institu- tions. Stability,the separation of powers,and competent,respected bureaucracies are further indi- cators of a tribal governmentÕs effectiveness. The research also indicates that an alignment between the form and powers of a governmentÕs contempo- rary institutions and the form and powers of its pre- reservation institutions is most likely to create this stability,respect,and legitimacy. An important lesson from this research is the effect of increased tribal control over tribal institutions. Only those tribes that have acquired meaningful control over their governing institutions have expe- rienced improvements in local economic and social conditions. The research has not found a single case of sustained economic development where the tribe is not in the driverÕs seat. While tribal-BIA relation- ships in thriving Indian nations range from coopera- tive to contentious,they are all characterized by a demotion of the BIA (and of other Federal agen- cies) from decisionmaker to advisor and provider oftechnical assistance. The general point is that self-determined institutions,ones that reflect American Indian nationsÕsovereignty,are more effective. This lesson has yet to be applied to Indian policing.Federal policies that regulate Indian policing have the twin effect of reducing tribal control and diffus- ing accountability for institutional performance. Tribes regularly blame Federal agencies for the poor state of policing in Indian Country; not only are the resources provided by Federal agencies inadequate,
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ixbut Federal policies are driven by a misreading of tribesÕreal needs and priorities. On the other hand, representatives of Federal agencies express skepti- cism about the ability and intention of tribes to develop and manage effective police departments. The very fact that power is shared between tribal and Federal authorities allows each to avoid their more appropriate roles and,thus,to perpetuate poorpolicing. The second relevant lesson for Indian policing from this research is the importance of cultural match. Aconsonance between present and prereservation institutional forms confers legitimacy on the meth- ods and outcomes of government decisionmaking and channels political energy in productive direc- tions. How do the dynamics of cultural match play out in practical terms? The police officer at Tohono OÕodham who aggressively confronts a suspect will have offended longstanding tribal norms and will have failed to draw on them in the service of obtain- ing the suspectÕs compliance. By contrast,the police officer at Turtle Mountain or one of the Lakota tribes who fails to confront a suspect is guilty of the same error. To the extent that the ethos of the organ-ization in which these officers work perpetuates such conflicts,both public support for and the effec-tiveness of the organization are diminished. It is, however,important not to be nai ve about the possi-bilities. There are no guarantees that prereservation institutions will be effective in a contemporary setting. If old forms cannot be adapted to modern problems,the challenge becomes to design new ones that both make cultural sense and work. The Possibilities for CommunityPolicing in Indian Country If the roots of the problems with Indian policing liein Federal policy,and if a road map for remedying these problems is provided by research showing how the effectiveness of other tribal government functions has increased,the question remains: How,exactly,can similar work be accomplished with policing? Community policing may be the answer. Commu- nity policing is a method by which communities lend their authority to the police enterprise,see their norms and values reflected in the police mission, and employ their considerable formal and informal resources to address crime. In turn,the strategy enhances the capacity of police to address crime and to help communities become strong,independ- ent,and resourceful. (We emphasize that communi- ty policing is not only a set of tactics,such as foot patrol,but also a process by which police partner with communities.) Indeed,the growing body of experience with and research on community polic- ing is remarkably congruent with the findings on effective governing institutions in Indian Country. Community policing gives rise to law enforcement institutions that have the characteristics cited above (self-determination and cultural appropriateness) and such institutions have the potential to substan- tiallyimprove public safety. Seen in this light, community policing provides a framework that tribes might use to design and implement Native approaches to policingÑapproaches that should improve the quality of policing in Indian Country and,rather than perpetuate an inappropriate Federal structure,enhance tribal nation building. Our earlier findingÑthat tribal citizens rely increas- ingly on their police departments to settle disputes, conflicts,and problems that police themselves do not consistently treat as legitimate crime prob- lemsÑreinforces the conclusion. The overarching lesson of community policing is that if reservation police were to pay attention to these problems,and if they were to use credible tribal approaches as remedies,they would become more effective prob- lem solvers,more respected by tribal citizens,and better able to prevent problems that might otherwise escalate. The first step in improving policing in Indian Country,therefore,is to systematically link commu- nity values to departmental values and to express these values in concrete operations. For any given Indian nation,the systems that animate and guide policingÑsuch as the organizational structures of the police department,tribal personnel and training systems,local management information and control systems,and departmental policies and proce- duresÑcan be linked to a vision of policing shaped by that nationÕs beliefs,priorities,and resources. The policies and procedures for dispatch offer a useful,concrete example of this nuts-and-bolts link- age between policing systems and tribal priorities. Depending on a dispatcherÕs assessment of a call,a local elder could accompany a responding officer;
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xin many instances,the officer might be there only to support the elderÕs authority (or vice versa). Such an effort would lend credibility to the modern police function while showing respect for important tribal traditions. Conclusions and RecommendationsTribes,with the support of the Federal Government, must reconsider the foundations of policing on American Indian reservations. The lessons drawn by tribes,academics,and policymakers from the research on and accumulating experience in community policing and the design of effective governing institutions in Indian Country provide the necessary starting points for tribes as they rethink policing. The same evidence and experience can productively inform the development of Federal policy. Significantly,we do not recommend that policymakers direct their full attention and resources to increasing funding for reservation police departments,developing specialized crime- fighting task forces,and improving technology. Without the core investment in Òrethinking polic- ingÓthat we describe,these efforts do not do enough to help Indian police departments and tribal communities address the problems they face. Similarly,we are not recommending that tribes reflexively resurrect dormant prereservation meth- ods of social control and policing,nor are we giving a blanket endorsement to restorative justice. The challenge is to create workable,nation-specific policing institutions and approaches informed by traditional customsÑbecause they lay the best foun- dation for improving safety,preventing crime,and promoting the practice of effective policing in Indian Country. Note1. These rates were calculated from 1996 data found in table 1.28 (p. 39) and table 3.118 (pp. 276Ð281).
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