Comprehensive Indian Resources for Community and Law Enforcement Project
The CIRCLE Project, with the assistance of federal, state, and private partners, helps tribal communities develop comprehensive planning and funding infrastructures to fight crime, violence, and substance abuse more effectively. The CIRCLE Project is based on two key principles:
- Local leadership is important in developing and implementing
efforts to control crime, violence, and drug abuse.
- A comprehensive approach (i.e., one that incorporates coordinated, multidisciplinary efforts) is needed to fight crime, violence, and drug abuse.
The CIRCLE Project complements and is supported by the federal Indian Country Law Enforcement Initiative (see endnote 3 for a description of this initiative). Central to the federal initiative and the CIRCLE Project is a commitment to improving the federal government’s work with AI/AN communities. The CIRCLE Project, in conjunction with federal agencies,4 serves tribes in three pilot sites: the Northern Cheyenne Tribe in Lame Deer, MT; Oglala Sioux Tribe in Pine Ridge, SD; and Pueblo of Zuni in Zuni, NM. Participating tribes receive special consideration for technical assistance and training related to strategy development and implementation, and they are eligible to apply for funding for law enforcement, tribal courts, detention facilities, and youth programs.
DOJ’s National Institute of Justice is overseeing an evaluation of the CIRCLE Project being conducted by the Harvard Project on American Indian Development at Harvard University’s John F. Kennedy School of Government in Cambridge, MA. A draft report for Phase I of the evaluation, which covers the first 18 months of the project, was submitted in spring 2002 and is still being reviewed. Phase II of the evaluation began in December 2002 and will address the subsequent 30 months.
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