Title: Policing on American Indian Reservations Series: Research Report Author: Stewart Wakeling, Miriam Jorgensen, Susan Michaelson, Manley Begay Published: National Institute of Justice, July 2001 Subject: Other issues in criminal justice: Native Americans 115 pages 295,000 bytes ------------------------------ Figures, charts, forms, and tables are not included in this ASCII plain-text file. To view this document in its entirety, download the Adobe Acrobat graphic file available from this Web site or order a print copy from NCJRS at 800-851-3420 (877-712-9279 for TTY users). ------------------------------ U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs National Institute of Justice Research Report Policing on American Indian Reservations Stewart Wakeling Miriam Jorgensen Susan Michaelson Manley Begay ------------------------------ U.S. Department of Justice Office of Justice Programs 810 Seventh Street N.W. Washington, DC 20531 John Ashcroft Attorney General Office of Justice Programs World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov National Institute of Justice World Wide Web Site http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/nij ------------------------------ Policing on American Indian Reservations A Report to the National Institute of Justice Stewart Wakeling Miriam Jorgensen Susan Michaelson Manley Begay Francis X. Hartmann, Co-Principal Investigator Joseph P. Kalt, Co-Principal Investigator Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management and Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development Malcolm Wiener Center for Social Policy John F. Kennedy School of Government Harvard University Cambridge, Massachusetts July 2001 NCJ 188095 ------------------------------ Winifred Reed and Phillis McDonald Program Monitors Stewart Wakeling, Susan Michaelson, and Francis X. Hartmann are affiliates of Harvard University's 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 was supported under award #95-IJ-CX-0086 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. 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. ------------------------------ Acknowledgments The authors wish to thank each of the tribes and tribal police departments that participated in this study for their generous help. Without the information they provided, the work would not have been possible. In particular, we wish to thank the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, the Gila River Indian Community, the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, and the Tohono O'odham Nation for providing access to their police departments, criminal justice systems, and other governmental 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; department 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 important picture of policing across many departments in Indian 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 staff at 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 recognition of the need for research on Indian Country policing--as evidenced by their support of this study and others--will contribute to tribes' efforts to improve policing, public safety, and the quality of life in their communities. ------------------------------ Executive Summary Introduction This 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 facing Indian policing, and identify policing strategies and approaches that might be successful in responding to the growing crime problem in Indian Country. The second was to evaluate the prospects for community policing in Indian Country. Could this strategy, which grew out of the experience of police departments in urban settings, be usefully applied to the strikingly different cultural, geographic, and demographic 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 departments and their tribal contexts. Methodology Research for this study included several components. We began with a literature review and visits to several Indian police departments and the Indian Police Academy in New Mexico. We then distributed a two-part survey to Indian police departments and undertook intensive site visits to four reservations. The strategy for selecting study sites was to choose Indian nations that varied on as many relevant dimensions as could be captured in a small sample. The four nations selected were the Tohono O'odham (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 service population (the number of Native Americans living 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 communities. While "American Indian" is a single race category 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 ventures, 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 Indian Country, 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 for police departments in Indian Country is organization under the auspices of the Indian Self- Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. Also known as Public Law 93-638 (PL 93-638), this law gives tribes the opportunity to establish their own government functions by contracting with the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA). Thus, "638ed" departments are administered by tribes under contract with the BIA's Division of Law Enforcement Services. Typically, a 638 contract establishes the department's organizational framework and performance standards and provides basic funding for the police function. Officers and nonsworn staff of these departments are tribal employees. Departments administered by the BIA are the second most common type of police department in Indian Country. Staff in these departments are Federal employees. For many years, patrol officers were under the line authority of the local BIA superintendent (each reservation has a BIA superintendent who oversees all or most of the BIA functions on that reservation), and criminal investigators were under the line authority of the BIA's Division of Law Enforcement Services. Recent changes have placed line authority for patrol under the BIA's Division of Law Enforcement Services as well. Less common are departments that receive funding under the auspices of the self-governance amendments to PL 93-638 and departments that are funded completely with tribal money. These arrangements grant tribes much more control over government functions than is permitted under 638 contracts. A number of tribes rely on State and local authorities for police services under Public Law 83-280, 67 Stat. 588 (1953). This law, passed as part of a larger effort to "terminate" American Indian tribes, gave a number of States the power to enforce the same criminal laws within Indian Country as they did outside of Indian Country. The typical department serves an area the size of Delaware, but with a population of only 10,000, that is patrolled by no more than three police officers and as few as one officer at any one time (a level of police coverage that is much lower than in other urban and rural areas of the country). In other words, the typical setting is a large area with a relatively small population patrolled by a small number of police officers; the superficial description is of a rural environment with rural-style policing. In fact, many reservation residents live in fairly dense communities, which share attributes of suburban and urban areas. Officers who work in Indian Country are almost always graduates of high schools and certified law enforcement training academies; a slight majority are Native American. Eileen Luna and Samuel Walker (1998) offer detailed statistical profiles of these departments. Therefore, our focus is on the core management challenges across the range of departments. While there are many more small departments (approximately 150) than medium-sized or large departments, they serve substantially fewer people--between 25 and 30 percent of all the citizens served by the BIA and tribally administered police departments in Indian Country. These very small departments have at most nine officers. Among the most important challenges facing these departments is providing around-the-clock police coverage to their communities. These departments rarely have more than one officer on duty at any time, and their officers often work without adequate backup. They are true generalists, working across numerous police and administrative functions. There are more than 75 medium-sized police departments in Indian Country, serving over half of the Native Americans living in reservation communities subject to BIA or tribal policing. These departments have from 10 to 50 officers. The key organizational attribute that distinguishes medium-sized departments from small departments is that it is theoretically possible for these departments to provide 24-hour police coverage, even though it may be quite difficult in practical terms. At the high end of the size range, departments can support some specialized activities; not only are some officers free to focus on standard patrol activities, but some may specialize in such areas as substance abuse and domestic violence. This transition signals a staffing level at which specialization can help a department focus on critical strategic issues. Two police departments in Indian Country--those of the Navajo Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe--have 100 or more officers. These departments serve about 15 percent of the residents of Indian Country and feature levels of organizational complexity not present in smaller departments. This complexity is driven by increased specialization, more elaborate oversight mechanisms, district-based organization, and other factors. Inadequate funding is an important obstacle to good policing 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 underestimate the resource needs of Indian Country departments. The appropriate police coverage (police officers per thousand residents) comparison may not be 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 in Indian 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).[1] Few, 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 far less 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, geography, and economics unique to American Indian reservations; (2) the limited administrative and technological resources available to tribal police departments; (3) inadequate coordination between tribal and Federal agencies; and (4) management problems common to both tribal and BIA police departments. 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 general prevalence, distribution, and character of crime on reservations: o The overall workload of police departments in Indian Country has been increasing at a significant rate. In other words, the intensity and range of problems to which police departments in Indian Country must respond appear to be increasing. o Although 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 reservations occurs in these fairly dense areas. o Notwithstanding the recent reports of dramatic increases in violent crime on reservations, especially 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, which--by contrast to the problem of violent crime--has received insufficient attention (and resources). The State of Policing in Indian Country The typical department that we describe is attempting 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 reservation 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 "partnership" with their service populations. In a review of one of the largest police departments in Indian Country, Naranjo and colleagues (1996) both echo and expand on these concerns. They find that-- o Poor employee morale and high turnover result in a lack of well- qualified and experienced officers. o Inadequate budgets, fiscal mismanagement, and even corruption create serious obstacles to the effective delivery of important police services and programs. o Basic departmental management is flawed. o Undue 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, policymakers, and police professionals to conclude that reservation policing is in crisis. In response, a number of special reports, commissions, conferences, and blue-ribbon committees have grappled with the problems and have produced a wide variety of recommendations and proposals. These include increasing 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 subsequently affect the quality of policing, are linked in important 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 BIA are not agents of tribes but of the Federal Government and, as such, have limited incentive to look to the communities they serve for legitimacy or for 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, "Law enforcement is law enforcement"--a 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 other's responsibility can continue to simmer and escalate into real crimes. In addition, as tribal members conclude that the police are insensitive and unresponsive to community needs, their support for the police diminishes. Lessons From Research on Effective Governance in Indian Country A substantial body of research suggests a road map for understanding and beginning to remedy the problems with policing that are rooted in Federal policy. Beginning in the 1970s, a handful of Indian nations embarked on successful paths of social and economic development. Research by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development indicates that the common denominator among these successful tribes was an effective government--one that was capable of both determining and implementing the policy priorities of the community. One indicator of a tribal government's ability to make and implement effective decisions is whether or not it has increased control over its own institutions. Stability, the separation of powers, and competent, respected bureaucracies are further indicators of a tribal government's effectiveness. The research also indicates that an alignment between the form and powers of a government's contemporary institutions and the form and powers of its prereservation 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 experienced 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 driver's seat. While tribal-BIA relationships in thriving Indian nations range from cooperative to contentious, they are all characterized by a demotion of the BIA (and of other Federal agencies) from decisionmaker to advisor and provider of technical assistance. The general point is that self-determined institutions, ones that reflect American Indian nations' sovereignty, 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 diffusing 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, but Federal policies are driven by a misreading of tribes' real needs and priorities. On the other hand, representatives of Federal agencies express skepticism 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 poor policing. The second relevant lesson for Indian policing from this research is the importance of cultural match. A consonance between present and prereservation institutional forms confers legitimacy on the methods and outcomes of government decisionmaking and channels political energy in productive directions. How do the dynamics of cultural match play out in practical terms? The police officer at Tohono O'odham who aggressively confronts a suspect will have offended longstanding tribal norms and will have failed to draw on them in the service of obtaining the suspect's 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 organization in which these officers work perpetuates such conflicts, both public support for and the effectiveness of the organization are diminished. It is, however, important not to be naive about the possibilities. 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 Community Policing in Indian Country If the roots of the problems with Indian policing lie in 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. Community 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, independent, and resourceful. (We emphasize that community 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 policing 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 substantially improve public safety. Seen in this light, community policing provides a framework that tribes might use to design and implement Native approaches to policing--approaches that should improve the quality of policing in Indian Country and, rather than perpetuate an inappropriate Federal structure, enhance tribal nation building. Our earlier finding--that tribal citizens rely increasingly on their police departments to settle disputes, conflicts, and problems that police themselves do not consistently treat as legitimate crime problems-- reinforces 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 problem 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 community values to departmental values and to express these values in concrete operations. For any given Indian nation, the systems that animate and guide policing--such as the organizational structures of the police department, tribal personnel and training systems, local management information and control systems, and departmental policies and procedures--can be linked to a vision of policing shaped by that nation's beliefs, priorities, and resources. The policies and procedures for dispatch offer a useful, concrete example of this nuts-and-bolts linkage between policing systems and tribal priorities. Depending on a dispatcher's assessment of a call, a local elder could accompany a responding officer; in many instances, the officer might be there only to support the elder's authority (or vice versa). Such an effort would lend credibility to the modern police function while showing respect for important tribal traditions. Conclusions and Recommendations Tribes, 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 "rethinking policing" that 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 methods 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 customs--because they lay the best foundation for improving safety, preventing crime, and promoting the practice of effective policing in Indian Country. Note 1. These rates were calculated from 1996 data found in table 1.28 (p. 39) and table 3.118 (pp. 276-281). ------------------------------ Contents Acknowledgments Executive Summary Chapter 1. Introduction and Overview Study Goals Organization of the Report Overview of Conclusions and Recommendations Chapter 2. Policing in Indian Country: The Context What Is "Indian Country"? Whom Do Police in Indian Country Serve? Who Polices Indian Country? The Criminal Justice System in Indian Country Summary Chapter 3. Crime Trends in Indian Country The Limitations of Indian Country Crime Data The Prevalence, Distribution, and Character of Crime on American Indian Reservations Chapter 4. Organization and Management of Police Departments in Indian Country Characteristics of Departments Serving Indian Country A Closer Look at Four Indian Police Departments Conclusions Chapter 5. Federal Policy and Policing in Indian Country The History of Reservation Policing The Contemporary Problem Research on Effective Governing Institutions in Indian Country Chapter 6. Conclusions and Recommendations Reprise of Research on Effective Governing Institutions The Possibilities for Community Policing in Indian Country What the Federal Government Can Do What Tribes Can Do Conclusion References Appendix A. Study Methodology Appendix B. Survey Respondents and Questionnaires ------------------------------ Chapter 1. Introduction and Overview Study Goals This study had two principal goals. The first was to take a broad look at policing in Indian Country to better understand the many arrangements for administering reservation police departments, develop an initial assessment of the challenges facing Indian policing, and identify policing approaches that might be successful in responding to the growing crime problem in Indian Country. The task was complex, especially because the research literature on policing in Indian Country is limited and the variety of policing arrangements and communities served is considerable. More than 200 police departments serve an even larger number of tribal communities. Most departments are administered by tribes, but some are administered by the Federal Government and some by State and local governments. They 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 the Puyallup Tribe (whose 104-acre reservation is part of greater Tacoma, Washington) 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). Our second goal was to evaluate the prospects for community policing in Indian Country. Could this strategy, which grew out of the experience of police departments in urban settings, be usefully applied to the strikingly different cultural, geographic, and demographic features typical of Indian reservations? Despite their differences, both urban areas and Indian nations face the task of building local capacity to address severe social and economic problems. To the extent that community policing provides an opportunity for communities to develop and employ their own resources, priorities, and values in the service of public safety, it might also help tribes solve their own problems. Therefore, we sought to understand whether some form of community policing might be appropriate in Indian Country. This was an exploratory study. It represents a first effort at characterizing the variety of arrangements for policing in Indian Country, while trying to gain an indepth understanding of the operations of a limited set of representative departments and their tribal contexts. This suggests a third goal: identifying important topics for further research. Given the limited research on policing in Indian Country, the variety of policing arrangements, and the considerable cultural and socioeconomic diversity across tribes, this study can offer only a limited understanding of the dynamics influencing the performance of police departments that serve reservation communities. For example, such topics as law enforcement under Public Law 83-280 (PL 83-280) and the complex problems of criminal jurisdiction and interagency cooperation require separate treatment; these important issues merit comprehensive research. Our primary intent is to provide useful data and guidance to police, policymakers, and tribal leaders. Therefore, this Research Report attempts to balance recommendations for further research with recommendations for near-term actions to address the most pressing concerns. A brief description of the study components can be found in the sidebar "Study Methodology." Appendix A contains a detailed description of the methodology. Organization of the Report This Research Report proceeds in four steps. First we develop the context of policing in Indian Country by introducing the wide variety of socio- economic, cultural, and political conditions that characterize Indian Country and by offering a brief overview of the typical Indian police department. Defining the context in both these ways helps to focus our analysis and our recommendations. Next we describe the crime problems to which these departments must respond, prefacing this description with a discussion of the difficulties in obtaining reliable and useful crime data from Indian Country. Our third step is to address problems of organization and management, beginning with a description of the range of departments in Indian Country and data on reporting structures, staffing, and funding. Specific examples from our site visits give a fuller picture of the primary management challenges that reservation police departments face. The severity of these challenges leads us to consider whether the resource constraints we found adequately explain the problems with policing. Finally, to better understand the problems faced by police departments and the tribal communities they serve, we look to the history of reservation policing and, in particular, to the impact of Federal policy. Overview of Conclusions and Recommendations A central conclusion of this analysis is that Federal policy has failed to promote the ability of Indian nations to design and exert meaningful control over their own policing institutions. Findings from research in Indian Country on the characteristics of effective governing institutions highlight this problem. The research indicates that governing institutions are more effective when they are self-determined and when they reflect, in a functionally meaningful way, a tribe's underlying cultural norms and values (Cornell and Kalt 1995, 1998). Research and experience in community policing are congruent with these findings. The community policing strategy, which involves embedding community priorities and values in the overall function of the police enterprise, enhances the capacity of police to assist communities (Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990; Kelling and Moore 1988). Together, the findings suggest that pursuing such a strategy would enable Indian communities to lend their authority to the police enterprise, see their norms and values (their culture) reflected in the police mission, employ their considerable formal and informal resources to address crime, and develop more effective policing institutions overall. The first step in improving policing in Indian Country, therefore, is to systematically link community values to departmental values and express these values in concrete operations. For any Indian nation, the systems that animate and guide policing--such as the policies and procedures of the police department, the organizational structures of the police department and overall criminal justice system, the tribal personnel and training systems, the local management information and control systems, and the tribal agencies that conduct strategic planning--can be linked to a vision of policing shaped by that nation's priorities, resources, and needs. These conclusions and recommendations do not address the full range of problems faced by Indian policing. Instead, they focus on a fundamental issue: The tribes, with the support of the Federal Government, must reconsider the foundations of policing on American Indian reservations. Policing in many parts of Indian Country occurs in an environment characterized by serious crime and deteriorating social conditions, a situation that has drawn the attention of politicians, police executives, tribal leaders, and researchers and that suggests that investments in improving policing are urgently needed. The heightened attention and concern are welcome. Policymakers are now thinking harder about how to protect tribal communities from crime and how to better support the efforts of tribal criminal justice agencies. But the very urgency to address violence, gangs, drug-related crime, and substance abuse in Indian Country may have a downside. It may push too quickly toward the conclusion that addressing the problems is simply a matter of obtaining better data on crime, increasing funding, and improving police management. However, these improvements alone are likely to have a limited effect on the ability of tribal communities and the police departments that serve them to independently address the substantial problems they face. Although our research indicates that these inputs are important, it also shows that they do not address the issue most central to effective policing in Indian Country: the challenge of designing Indian police departments as core institutions of tribal government. Thus, we believe that the first priority both for tribal leaders and communities and for law enforcement professionals, politicians, policymakers, and researchers should be to work together to rethink policing in Indian Country. Addressing the fundamental questions of policing will enable them to better understand the situation and develop the kinds of investments (e.g., data, money, technology, technical assistance) that will best serve efforts to improve policing. ------------------------------ Chapter 2. Policing in Indian Country: The Context What is Indian Country, and what do we mean when we refer to Indian reservations and Indian nations? Whom do police in Indian Country serve? What does the typical police department in Indian Country look like (especially, who polices Indian Country)? And finally, what are the basics of the criminal justice system in Indian Country? This section sets the scene for the discussions that follow. What Is "Indian Country"? "Indian Country" comprises the 56 million acres of land owned by Indian communities in the United States.[1] According to the BIA (1998a) there are more than 330 federally recognized Indian tribes in the lower 48 United States. Nearly all tribes have reservations, which are lands the United States "reserved for" tribes in treaties, statutes, or executive orders during the Euro-American western expansion of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries (BIA 1998b). Most of Indian Country is located west of the Mississippi River, but it also includes a number of reservations belonging to tribes in the East. Overall, Indians live on reservations in 34 continental States, and all reservations have some form of policing arrangement (BIA 1998b; Bureau of the Census 1993). Increasingly, tribes are referred to as "nations" to acknowledge their distinct political status vis-a-vis the U.S. Federal and State governments: Indian governments are not part of the Federal hierarchy but, instead, have a government-to-government relationship with the United States (Reno 1995). Under this arrangement, American Indians hold dual citizenship as citizens of both the United States and their Native nation. Because limitations on tribal authority do exist (for example, tribes do not float their own currencies or provide for their own defense), it may be more accurate to describe Indian nations as semisovereign, or "domestic dependent nations," as Chief Justice Marshall did in Cherokee Nation v. Georgia (30 U.S. (5 Pet.)1(1831)). Yet, while tribes control a narrower scope of policy than do such nations as Germany and Brazil, they have significantly more scope for policymaking than cities or even U.S. States. Indian nations adopt constitutions for their societies, write civil laws to regulate conduct and commerce within their territorial boundaries, and enforce those laws with their own judicial systems. In brief, modern tribes exercise substantial, but not complete, rights of self-determination and self-government. Whom Do Police in Indian Country Serve? In 1995, the BIA estimated a non-Alaska service population (the number of Natives living on or very near reservations) of 1.1 million. Other estimates are higher. Using data from the 1990 census and a historical growth factor, the Indian Health Service (1997) estimated a 1996 non- Alaska service population of more than 1.3 million, which would rise by more than 100,000 by the year 2000. These differences reflect difficulties in enumerating the reservation-based Indian population, the high birth rates that are typical on many reservations, and in some cases, in- migration. Improved economic opportunities are the primary cause of in-migration in the Indian communities where it is occurring, but such positive economic changes are the exception rather than the rule. In particular, the perception that Native Americans are generally enjoying increased prosperity as a result of the growth of the gaming industry is mistaken. According to the Government Accounting Office (1997), almost half of all gaming revenues earned in 1995 were generated by only 8 of the 184 gaming tribes. Thus, despite new tribal opportunities and ventures, American Indians remain the poorest minority in the United States. Those living in reservation communities, commonly characterized by severe unemployment (sometimes reaching 80 to 90 percent[2]) and the attendant social and economic symptoms of poverty, are the worst off of all (see, for example, Kilborn 1992). Important education and health outcomes also are poor. For example, as of 1990, the high school completion rate among reservation-resident Natives age 25 and over was 54 percent; the national rate for all races was 78 percent (Bureau of the Census 1993, 312, table 7; 1998, 158, table 243). Rates of alcoholism among American Indians are extraordinarily high, and even higher than for other minorities, who are themselves at increased risk of alcohol abuse (see, for example, Greenfeld 1998). Consequently, the rates among Natives of alcohol-related health problems--chronic liver disease, cirrhosis, fetal alcohol syndrome--are much higher than for other population groups. Indexes of social dysfunction, such as suicide and homicide, are also much higher than for either the general population or other minority populations; for instance, the suicide rate is almost triple that of the general population (Indian Health Service 1997). Even so, many Indian nations are experiencing significant countertrends. For example, through aggressive economic development and effective governance, unemployment among the Mississippi Choctaw fell from 80 percent in the early 1980s to virtually zero in 1996; average family income increased approximately sevenfold, to $22,000, during the same period (Bordewich 1996). The Gila River Indian Community was able to provide funding to more than 200 college students in the late 1990s, as opposed to only a handful earlier in the decade. This support will dramatically increase the percentage of community members who are recorded as college graduates in the next census.[3] In sum, Indian Country comprises a striking variety of economic and social conditions and characteristics. An important additional type of variation is the substantial cultural diversity found among American Indian communities. Although "American Indian" is a single race category on the U.S. Census, this grouping hides the fact that members of one tribe can be as different from members of another tribe as citizens of Greece are from citizens of Vietnam. Certainly, tribes' geographic dispersion is one source of diversity. Peoples sharing similar natural surroundings developed somewhat similar cultures and related languages; tribal subgroups then refined the common culture in distinct ways, which gave rise to a wide variety of cultures throughout Indian Country. One rough categorization of these differences separates the Indians of the continental United States into five cultural-geographic groups: o Farmers of the eastern forests. o Nomadic hunters of the plains and prairies. o Farmers and herders of the Southwest. o Seed gatherers of California and the intermountain Great Basin. o Ocean and river fishermen of the Northwest (Driver 1969; Waldman 1985). Another method for classifying Native Americans' cultural diversity is based on language. Early studies found more than 70 distinct linguistic families and isolates among some 250 North American Indian languages. However, with the extinction of some languages and reclassification of others, linguists now group most extant North American Indian languages into six primary families: o Eskimo and Aleut (Far North). o Algonquian (various tribes in the eastern forests, the Plains, and the Far West). o Athabascan and related languages (the Mackenzie-Yukon Basin, the Navajos in the Southwest, and some West Coast peoples). o Uto-Aztecan and related languages (the Great Basin and Rocky Mountains area, the Plains, and the majority of the Pueblos). o Chinookan and related languages (several scattered Far Western tribes). o Siouan and related languages (people in such disparate regions as the Northeast, the Southeast, the Plains, New Mexico, and northern California).[4] Languages within the six families display linguistic similarities, but in practice they are mutually unintelligible, a fact that reinforces cultural differences. Despite decades of suppression and English assimilation, Native language use may now be on the upswing.[5] Thus, the extraordinary cultural variation among historical Indian nations is, and should continue to be, an important distinguishing factor among modern Indian nations. Finally, the history and politics of place also contribute to distinct cultural identities. As reservations were created, members of several indigenous groups were sometimes assigned to one locality; conversely, members of some large indigenous groups were located on several land bases. Over time, the people of each reservation experienced unique struggles. These historical, geographical, and cultural-linguistic differences together support the proposition that the resident community of each of these 330- plus, unique "nations" is the most appropriate group to undertake policymaking and problem solving. Who Polices Indian Country? The array of administrative arrangements for policing in Indian Country is complex (see exhibit 1). Members of the police departments that serve reservation communities may be tribal, Federal, State, county, or municipal employees. Tribal or Public Law 93-638 Policing The most common administrative arrangement is for police departments to be organized under the auspices of the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975. Also known as Public Law 93-638 (PL 93-638), this law gives tribes the opportunity to assume responsibility for many programs previously administered by the Federal Government by contracting with the BIA (Canby 1998, 30-31). Thus, these police departments are administered by tribes under contract with the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services. Typically, a 638 contract establishes the department's organizational framework and performance standards and provides basic funding for the police function. Officers and nonsworn staff of 638 contract departments are tribal employees. Tribes have used the Self-Determination Act quite aggressively to acquire increased control of their police departments. In 1995, for example, 88 departments (nearly half of the non-Public Law 83-280 tribes) were administered under the auspices of PL 93-638. BIA Administration Departments administered by the BIA are the second most common type of police department in Indian Country. Staff in these departments are Federal employees and are part of a national, BIA-employed hierarchy of law enforcement officers. For many years, patrol officers were under the line authority of the local BIA superintendent (each reservation has a BIA superintendent who oversees all or most BIA functions on that reservation), and criminal investigators were under the line authority of the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services. Recent changes have placed line authority for patrol under the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services as well. In 1995, 64 departments (slightly more than one-third of the non-PL 83- 280 tribes) were administered by the BIA. Self-Governance Policing and Tribally Funded Departments By far less common than the types described above, but significant nevertheless, are departments that receive funding under the auspices of the self-governance amendments to Public Law 93-638 and departments that receive complete funding from tribal coffers. Like tribes with 638ed police departments, tribes with self-governance arrangements contract (except in this case, the terminology is to "compact") with the BIA to assume responsibility for law enforcement services that might otherwise be performed by the BIA. The primary difference between contracting under PL 93-638 and compacting under its self-governance amendments is that financing is through a block grant, rather than as payment for budgeted line items. These contractual requirements and funding mechanisms grant tribes much more control over government functions than is permitted under 638 contracts. In 1995, 22 Indian police departments (approximately 12 percent of the non-PL 83- 280 tribes) were administered through self-governance. Although tribes achieve a high degree of organizational freedom through self-governance compacts, tribes that fully fund their own police departments gain near-complete tribal control of their law enforcement institutions. Given resource constraints in Indian Country, however, only four of the non-PL 83-280 tribes had tribally funded departments in 1995. Public Law 83-280 Policing A number of tribes rely on State and local authorities for police services under Public Law 83-280, 67 Stat. 588 (1953). This law, passed as part of a larger effort to "terminate" American Indian tribes, gave California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, Wisconsin, and (later) Alaska the power to enforce the same criminal laws within Indian Country as they did outside of Indian Country. The law also "provided that any other state could assume such jurisdiction by statute or state constitutional amendment," and many did so (Canby 1998, 27; Barker 1998, 46-49). With the advent of the Federal policy of self-determination in the 1970s, some States retroceded policing responsibility back to tribes. Nonetheless, a significant number of Indian communities still rely on State and local police services, which usually are paid for by the surrounding, and generally larger, non- Indian community. The number of tribes subject to policing through PL 83-280 is fairly static and relatively large (for example, it includes many of the more than 100 tribes in California). We have excluded them from this study, which focuses on tribes that either police themselves or have a present opportunity to do so. Often, PL 83-280 tribes have rather small populations or limited land bases, characteristics that make self-policing much more difficult. We agree with other researchers, however, that, despite these constraints, PL 83-280 tribes should have an opportunity to determine the policing arrangement that best serves their members (Goldberg and Singleton 1998). The complexity of these issues merits separate, comprehensive treatment. Other Administrative Arrangements To this already complicated picture, we must add several more possibilities. First, tribes can contract with the BIA for individual police functions. Therefore, some departments will have a tribal patrol function and a BIA criminal investigation function. Second, an increasing number of departments include both tribally employed and BIA-employed patrol officers. The Community Oriented Policing Service (COPS) program[6] is one driving force behind this mix. Its grants provide funding for new local-level officers, who cannot be Federal employees. Thus, tribes that receive COPS grants but have BIA-administered departments have had to hire officers under tribal auspices. The Typical Department in Indian Country Despite the complexity of administrative arrangements, it is possible to construct a rough portrait of the typical police department serving Indian Country. This sketch is a step toward developing a general understanding of the context of policing in Indian Country. The data for this portrait come from the approximately 40 respondents to our survey of the 67 largest tribes (66 largest departments) located in the continental United States. The typical department is administered either by the tribe through a 638 contract or by the BIA. It has 32 employees (of whom approximately 9 are civilians, 6 are detention officers, 16 are police officers, and 1 to 3 are command staff). Given the around-the-clock nature of policing, the numbers imply that the typical department has only a few officers on duty at any one time. The sworn officers are high school graduates and graduates of certified law enforcement training academies. A slight majority are Native American. The typical department polices a reservation land area of 500,000 acres and serves approximately 10,000 tribal members.[7] Therefore, the typical setting is a large land area with a relatively small population patrolled by a small number of police officers, and the superficial description is of a rural environment with rural-style policing. In fact, substantial numbers of reservation residents live in fairly dense communities that share attributes of suburban and urban areas. Nonetheless, the figures are roughly equivalent to an area the size of Delaware, but with a population of only 10,000 that is patrolled by no more than three police officers (and as few as one officer) at any one time--a level of police coverage that is much lower than in other urban and rural areas of the country. The typical department has an operating budget of approximately $1 million per year, which also is less than its rural counterparts and much less than the typical urban police department. In keeping with this limited resource base, the facilities and equipment that support such a department are generally old: The department typically is housed in a building that is 20 or more years old and relies on a vehicle fleet that is at least 3 years old. The Criminal Justice System in Indian Country The components of the criminal justice system in Indian Country are similar to those of non-Indian communities throughout the country. The primary components are the judiciary, the prosecutorial and defense bars, the correctional system (including probation), and the police. However, the complex jurisdictional arrangements in Indian Country mean that for nearly every serious crime, the U.S. Attorney and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) have potential jurisdiction. This is markedly different from the situation in non-Indian communities: On reservations, Federal agencies play a potentially broad role in the operation of what is essentially a local criminal justice system. Although the arrangements may vary from reservation to reservation, three factors always come into play in determining criminal jurisdiction in Indian Country. These factors tend to narrow tribal jurisdiction and expand either State or Federal jurisdiction over a wide range of crimes: o Where the crime was committed. Only crimes committed in Indian Country, on trust land, fall under the jurisdiction of tribes. All crimes committed outside of Indian Country, even if they involve American Indians, fall under State or Federal jurisdiction. o Who committed the crime (Indian or non-Indian). For tribal jurisdiction, the alleged offender must be an American Indian. Sometimes, however, even Indians who are not members of the tribe on whose reservation the crime occurred may be exempt from that tribe's jurisdiction. Regardless of the nature of the crime or the location in which it occurred, non-Indians are not under the criminal jurisdiction of tribes. o What crime was committed. As a result of the Major Crimes Act of 1885 (18 U.S.C.A. section 1153) and the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968 (25 U.S.C.A. section 1302(7)), tribes have jurisdiction only over less serious crimes. Most serious crimes--including murder, manslaughter, arson, burglary, and robbery--fall under the jurisdiction of Federal authorities. However, some tribes have found ways to exercise increased authority over the investigation and adjudication of more serious crimes.[8] Other attributes of the criminal justice system in Indian Country that often are highlighted by experts in the field and are relevant to this discussion include the following: o Like police departments in Indian Country, other Indian Country criminal justice agencies suffer from major resource constraints (see Odum 1991). o Indian Country has a greater representation of nonprofessionals in the judiciary and the prosecution and defense bars than non-Indian communities do (see Melton 1998). o Indian Country has a severe shortage of jail space and correctional treatment programs, particularly with regard to substance abuse (Office of the Inspector General 1996). Summary The context for policing in Indian Country can be summarized as follows: o The communities served are aptly described as nations, and these nations exhibit an exceptionally wide variety of social, economic, and cultural characteristics. Even so, most Indian nations face severe social and economic problems. o Departments serving most residents of Indian Country are administered either by the BIA or by tribes through a contractual arrangement with the BIA. o Departments have limited resources with which to accomplish their mission. This is exemplified by the typical department, which patrols a large land area with a small number of police officers, works with older equipment and facilities, and depends on a relatively small operating budget. o The criminal justice system within which departments operate is similar to that of non-Indian communities, except for the stricter limits on tribal jurisdiction and the more prominent role of Federal agencies. Notes 1. Indian Country was defined by the U.S. Congress in 1948 (18 U.S.C.A. section 151) as "a) all land within the limits of any Indian reservation under the jurisdiction of the United States government, notwithstanding the issuance of any patent, and, including rights-of-way running through the reservation, b) all dependent Indian communities within the borders of the United States whether within the original or subsequently acquired territory thereof, and whether within or without the limits of a state, and c) all Indian allotments, the Indian titles to which have not been extinguished, including rights-of-way running through the same." See Canby (1998, 113-114). 2. See, for example, Bureau of Indian Affairs (1996). To be counted as "unemployed" in BIA's calculation of the unemployment rate, an individual must be seeking work. But given limited opportunities, many reservation residents may have given up the search. A calculation that includes these "discouraged workers" is probably more accurate than the standard calculation of the employment rate, which leads to unemployment estimates in the 80- to 90-percent range for some reservation communities. 3. Personal interview with the Director of the Gila River Indian Community Department of Education, October 29, 1998. 4. For example, see Driver (1969, 43-45), who bases his table on Voegelin and Voegelin (1966). 5. The Native American Languages Acts of 1990 (PL 101-477) and 1992 (PL 102-254) are examples of the renewed interest in Native language. These laws, which articulate a U.S. Government policy of protecting indigenous languages, were passed at the express request of Native groups. 6. The Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS) in the U.S. Department of Justice is "responsible for advancing community policing, including the hiring of 100,000 additional community policing officers" (quoted from the COPS Web page, http://www.usdoj.gov/cops/gpa/default.htm). 7. The average acreage calculation--based on survey data, not on the entire universe of reservations--excludes the Navajo reservation, which is atypically large. The average population estimate does not derive from survey data, but rather, was reported to us by members of the Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Enforcement Improvements. It may substantially overestimate the actual number of tribal members served by the typical department. Data from the U.S. Census, the Bureau of Indian Affairs Labor Force Survey, and the tribes themselves suggest that the figure may be as low as 6,000. The simple and unfortunate fact is that data on the Native population actually served by police in Indian Country are of limited reliability. Indeed, the range of difference reported here suggests that researchers and policymakers must be especially wary of "per capita" estimates (for example, policing resources per tribal member served) and of policy recommendations that depend heavily on these figures; they can be made to say many things. This issue is discussed in greater detail in chapter 4. 8. For example, tribal police and prosecutors sometimes charge alleged criminals with misdemeanors (over which Indian nations have jurisdiction) in addition to (or instead of) felonies (over which Indian nations do not have jurisdiction); this allows the community to keep the alleged criminal within the tribal system or seek some remedy, even when the Federal system is too overburdened to pursue prosecution. ------------------------------ Chapter 3. Crime Trends in Indian Country The Limitations of Indian Country Crime Data General Remarks In recent years, policymakers and law enforcement professionals have become increasingly concerned that crime, particularly violent crime, is increasing rapidly on American Indian reservations. (See, for example, Claiborne 1998; Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Improvements 1997; Mydans 1995; and "Why Does Violent Crime on Indian Lands Soar" 1997.) The problem is all the more worrisome because we know far less than we would like about crime in Indian Country (on the tribal, regional, and national levels) (Executive Committee 1997; Clark 1996b). Broadly, the lack of accurate data on crime in Indian Country can be attributed to the underreporting of crime. More specific reasons for the lack of accurate crime data include issues of culture, geography, and economics unique to American Indian reservations; the limited administrative and technological resources available to tribal police departments; inadequate coordination between tribal and Federal agencies; and management problems common to both tribal and BIA police departments.[1] Furthermore, even when it is possible to obtain accurate tribal-level data, multiple complex factors cause the prevalence and character of crime to vary widely from reservation to reservation, a fact that strongly cautions against using data from a few tribes as a basis for projecting overall trends. For example, during 1995 at least 15 homicides occurred on the Gila River reservation, a community with a robust economy and a population of approximately 10,000 (Clark 1996b). In contrast, the Oglala Sioux--a much larger tribe (40,000) that is plagued with serious social problems and a struggling economy--had only one homicide during a similar period. Equally dramatic contrasts can be found throughout Indian Country. Policymakers and law enforcement professionals frequently focus on the obstacles to formulating effective anticrime strategies (Luna 1998). While the information is useful, this focus tends to obscure much that is known about crime and its context in Indian Country--information that might be immediately useful to policymakers, law enforcement professionals, and tribal leadership. Therefore, although this report discusses the factors contributing to a lack of accurate data on crime in Indian Country, it also draws attention to what is known and what that information suggests about the strategies available for addressing crime on American Indian reservations. Reasons for Poor Crime Data in Indian Country The underreporting of crime on reservations occurs on two levels: between reservation citizens and their police agencies and between these tribal- level police agencies and such Federal agencies as the FBI and the BIA. On the first level, underreporting is attributable to cultural and demographic factors that are highly characteristic of Indian Country. The extensive research literature on underreporting of crime cites distrust of police, the shame or humiliation associated with certain kinds of crime, and fear of retaliation as strong predictors of underreporting (Skogan 1977; Wasserman 1998). These factors are unusually common in Native American communities. In many, there is a longstanding distrust of law enforcement authorities. On social, cultural, and even political levels, the issues of shame and fear of retaliation are also present. Tribal members underreport because of the shame associated with such crimes as child abuse, child neglect, and domestic violence; because of their fear that the (typically) small, intimate reservation community will be unable to protect those who report such crimes; and because close and complicated family and clan relationships among victims, offenders, and police officers discourage reporting.[2] Unfortunately, these causes of underreporting of crime are exacerbated by other characteristics of reservation life (see Silverman 1996). For example, geographic isolation from police departments and from tribal social service agencies heightens the fear of retaliation that victims of family violence may have and further discourages reporting. On some reservations, this fear is increased even more by a lack of ready access to telephone service in isolated or poor villages. Data from the 1990 Census show that "the majority of American Indian homes on reservations (53 percent) did not have a telephone." By comparison, only 9 percent of nonmetropolitan households in the U.S. population overall did not have a phone (Bureau of the Census 1995, 1). Finally, in those tribes where traditional means of dispute resolution and social norm enforcement have declined, but where new methods--like police intervention--are not readily available or are not viewed as legitimate or effective by the tribal community, many crimes may never come to the attention of police authorities.[3] The second level at which underreporting occurs originates with reservation police departments. Even if citizens report crimes or crimes are otherwise made known to police departments, data are either not collected or not forwarded to Federal agencies. Four problems, most of which are associated with the small size of typical police departments in Indian Country, play the greatest role in this level of underreporting: staff shortages and time constraints, limited data-collection capacities, competing Federal and local priorities, and problems with department administration and management. Because the small size of police departments in Indian Country places time constraints on staff, data collection is extremely expensive relative to the overall budget of the department. Police officers and other staff in the departments we visited referred to themselves as generalists and commented that the time needed for specialized administrative tasks competes with, and often loses out to, fighting crime and providing emergency services. When police officers also must serve as jail staff, as is the case in approximately 50 percent of all departments surveyed, their time is stretched even further. Simply put, because these small departments cannot afford to dedicate staff to any specialized function, the cost of data collection and analysis is much greater than it is for larger departments. Small departments serving small communities often lack systematic methods for collecting and analyzing crime data. Like other observers, we found that many Indian Country police departments do not have automated call management (i.e., 911 systems) and data collection and analysis systems; survey results suggest that approximately half of the departments lack them. In several tribes we visited, data regarding crime reports and arrests could be collected only by reviewing handwritten records, and even this level of effort was not always possible, because written records were not consistently maintained. There seem to be two reasons for the limited amount of automation--Indian police departments' scant resources, which have made the purchase of such systems prohibitively expensive, and the small size of typical reservation communities, which for many years did not require sophisticated call and data management capacity for adequate policing. As tribal populations and crime both increased,[4] Indian police departments suddenly found themselves far behind their larger, urban counterparts (and somewhat behind their comparable rural counterparts) in building such systems.[5] An additional complication, related to the problem above, is that even some departments with automated systems for data collection and analysis cannot maximize the benefits of these systems, since the departments do not have staff trained to use them to their full advantage. Even when data are collected, the reporting of data (and the referral of cases) by tribal departments to Federal agencies has been problematic. As recently as 1996, for example, one northern plains tribe reported no major crimes of any kind to Federal officials for several months--a precipitous and unlikely decrease over the previous period.[6] In large part, the problem arises because of competing local and Federal priorities, which means that individual Indian police departments have little or no incentive to report data on major felonies. Because the communities they police tend to be small and highly interconnected, officers already have a good sense of the prevalence of serious crimes, and it is difficult for them to see how an official compilation of data would provide any better information. Because Indian police officers spend so much more time on routine patrol activities than they do on the crimes covered by Federal reporting requirements, reporting may appear fairly unimportant to them. And, if tribal police think that Federal agencies give low priority to the prosecution of crimes that occur on reservations, they may believe that reporting serves no purpose.[7] Unfortunately, while the impact on individual tribes may be negligible, the failure to report or refer these serious crimes has important implications for understanding the prevalence and distribution of crime on regional and national levels. Such data might be very useful, for example, in understanding crime on reservations close to urban areas or near international borders where the illegal activity associated with urban gangs, drug trafficking, and illegal immigration might follow significant regional or national patterns.[8] Problems with department administration and management also stymie the collection and reporting of reservation crime data. Chapter 4 discusses these issues, but one example can illustrate how such problems (striking in their triviality but alarming in their frequency) work against the efficient collection of useful crime data. In this case, the many police districts in the department of a large plains tribe were required to submit incident report records to the department headquarters on a fixed date each month. Districts were notoriously late with their submissions, but the response was neither to modify deadlines nor to work with districts to improve reporting. Instead, late information was simply discarded.[9] As a result, this information was unavailable to the tribe and to Federal agencies for purposes of planning and management. The Prevalence, Distribution, and Character of Crime on American Indian Reservations Given the above constraints on developing a detailed, accurate analysis of crime trends, this section describes what the general prevalence, distribution, and character of crime on reservations suggest about the evolving role of police in Indian Country. Three factors appear most important. First, although it is difficult to accurately describe crime trends in Indian Country, the overall workload of police departments in Indian Country has been increasing at a significant rate. In other words, the intensity and range of problems to which police departments in Indian Country must respond appear to be increasing. Second, many Native reservation residents live in rural, isolated areas and the resources and technologies available to effectively police these areas are in short supply. These conditions tend to obscure the fact that many other Native reservation residents have settled in semiurban communities and much, if not most, crime on reservations occurs in these fairly dense communities. Crime in these areas may be amenable to well-developed, tested strategies adapted from urban contexts. Third, notwithstanding the recent reports of dramatic increases in violent crime on reservations, especially among youth, the crimes that most occupy police in Indian Country (as measured by calls for service, incident reports, and arrests) are directly or indirectly related to alcohol abuse. Alcohol-related crime is a deep and complex problem that--in contrast to the problem of violent crime--has received insufficient attention. The Increasing Workload of Police Departments in Indian Country The workload of police departments in Indian Country is increasing at a significant rate. General evidence of this trend comes from our survey data, brief site visits, and four intensive site visits. Specific evidence is given in exhibits 2-5, which approximate the increase in calls for service, incident reports, and arrests from the Tohono O'odham Nation, the Three Affiliated Tribes of the Fort Berthold Reservation, and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation. The Tohono O'odham data (exhibits 2 and 3) show an average annual increase between 1994 and 1996 of more than 20 percent in incident reports and nearly 30 percent in arrests. During that period, not only the overall pressure on the department increased, but also the workload of individual officers because the number of sworn officers remained relatively constant. The Three Affiliated Tribes' data (exhibit 4) show an average annual increase in arrests of more than 30 percent between 1992 and 1994. As at Tohono O'odham, this led to an increased demand for service from individual officers, since the increase in calls for service and arrests outpaced the expansion of the Fort Berthold department staff.[10] The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes' data (exhibit 5) show an average annual increase of 15 percent in calls for service and 45 percent in cited offenses from fiscal year 1992 to fiscal year 1996. Several new officers were hired in fiscal year 1995, but again, not in proportion to the additional workload. Anecdotal evidence suggests that these workload increases are partly due to increases in serious crime and emergencies on reservations. But other simple explanations should not be overlooked. For example, unlike many smaller Indian police departments, the Tohono O'odham department has a 911 system; the community's growing reliance on 911 is a strong contributing factor to the increase in calls for service. These systems may be a broader cause of the increased workload we observed across Indian Country. As Indian police departments implement automated call management, they may be experiencing the surge in high-priority calls and heightened demand that urban departments experienced when they established 911 systems (Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990). For the Confederated Salish and Kootenai department, the large increase in demand from fiscal year 1994 to 1995 occurred as a result of "retrocession," by which the State of Montana ceded control over reservation policing to the tribe. (This change is discussed in greater depth in chapter 4.) While this was a fairly dramatic increase in tribal control, in which a tribe subject to the authority of PL 83-280 regained its former rights, other Indian nations also are increasing their jurisdictional sweep, largely through cross-deputization agreements. Thus, another simple cause of Indian police departments' increased workload is increased authority over the offenses committed within reservation boundaries. Yet, there is good reason to believe that the increased workload in Indian police departments is not simply the result of rising serious crime and emergencies, the greater availability of 911 services, or expanded jurisdictional rights. It also appears that communities are placing new demands on police departments to respond more frequently and more rapidly to a broad range of problems. Many researchers have asserted that tribal communities have become less and less reliant on traditional methods of problem or conflict resolution and more reliant on the police (for example, Nielsen 1996; Royal Commission on Aboriginal Peoples 1996). Our observations support this conclusion. For example, at Tohono O'odham, not only has the demand for police services increased, but, in recent years, there has also been a steady increase in the tribal advocates' caseloads;[11] by 1996, each of the 10 advocates handled approximately 500 cases per year, an estimate that does not include the cases handled by private attorneys and other legal services providers on the reservation. Similarly, defense advocates at Gila River reported that they stopped accepting traffic cases (misdemeanor violations of tribal traffic laws) in the early 1990s because so many more serious cases filled their dockets. The Geographic Distribution of Reservation Crime The argument is often made that the unique demographics and geography of Indian Country require uniquely rural approaches to crime prevention and control. In general, however, researchers and police professionals have found that such strategies are not as well developed as those for urban areas (Weisheit, Wells, and Falcone 1995). Most rural strategies leave unsolved the problem of how to provide adequate police coverage to widely spread communities (for example, Cordner 1994). Police professionals in Indian Country often describe how a single call from an outlying area of a large reservation can take an officer out of service for several hours, perhaps even a full day. That creates a serious coverage problem for departments in which only one to three officers are on duty at any one time. Conversely, it is often underemphasized that while many reservation residents live in isolated rural areas, a significant number have settled in semiurban townships and villages, and much, if not most, crime on reservations occurs in these more densely populated areas. At Tohono O'odham, for example, half of the reservation's population of 14,000 lives in Sells, Arizona, but considerably more than 50 percent of the incidents that officers initiated or responded to in 1995 and 1996 took place there. In addition, officers estimated that of these calls, the majority originated in two relatively small U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) neighborhoods known as the "rentals," while another 18 percent originated in a small urban area near the city of Tucson. At Fort Berthold, approximately 1,500 of the almost 2,000 arrests made by the police department in 1994 were made in the relatively densely populated New Town district, an area that is home to 50 percent of the reservation's total population. Gila River police officers also identified the HUD rental developments in Sacaton and St. Johns as high-crime/frequent-call areas, and officers at Flathead identified a crowded trailer park in one small reservation town as a particularly troublesome site. In such areas, police quite possibly could use strategies developed for urban areas effectively and efficiently. In addition to their semiurban character, these neighborhoods exhibit numerous and unmistakable signs of decay and abandonment that invite crime (Wilson and Kelling 1982). This is not from the casual disorder that may be a cultural variant and not necessarily a reliable indicator that an area has in some significant way been abandoned by local residents and authorities. As noted above, crime in the town of Sells on the Tohono O'odham reservation and in the towns of Sacaton and St. Johns on the Gila River reservation is most prevalent in rundown public housing areas that share many attributes of urban public housing developments. At Tohono O'odham, the rentals contrast dramatically with a nearby immaculate and orderly village, Big Fields, in which very little crime occurs; tribal police officers reported that they rarely patrol Big Fields, simply because crime is so low there and, in any event, residents "look out for each other." In a HUD housing development on the Flathead reservation, crime and disorder dropped precipitously when residents mowed lawns, cleaned up the neighborhood, and reported illegal or suspicious activities to police. These results are similar to results in urban neighborhoods when residents take an active stand against physical disorder, abandonment, and decay. Again, strategies that have proven useful in urban areas also might be applicable to dense reservation housing areas. In sum, analysis of the geographic distribution of crime on reservations suggests that useful means of addressing crime in urban areas--strategies such as community policing, which have led to interventions like Boston's Operation Ceasefire, and other fruitful problem-solving approaches, such as those that have led to the eradication of open-air drug markets--are underused or at least undertested in Indian Country. Indeed, such approaches might have particular promise in reservation housing projects, since their limited size and population might permit police to more easily develop detailed and expert knowledge of key community characteristics, which is vital for successful problem solving. Alcohol-Related Crime in Indian Country In spite of recent reports of dramatic increases in violent crime in Indian Country, particularly youth violence (Clark 1996a; Goldblatt 1998; Weyerman 1998),[12] the crimes that most occupy police in Indian Country are directly or indirectly related to alcohol abuse (Gossage and May 1998; Indian Health Service 1997). Identifying alcohol abuse as a leading problem in Indian Country is not new, and the "finding" may sound trite. But this conclusion was stated by tribal members, tribal leaders, and tribal police officers, and we are simply reporting it here. In particular, the conclusion that alcohol-related crime is the leading crime problem in Indian Country is based on evidence from our surveys and site visits. Across all survey responses, for example, the constellation of crimes that were directly related to alcohol abuse (such as driving under the influence (DUI), the sale of alcohol to minors, and drunk and disorderly conduct) or were indirectly related to alcohol abuse (such as domestic violence, child abuse and neglect, and assault) constituted the leading category of calls for service, incident reports, and arrests. Also, the great majority of police officers and administrators, tribal leaders, and community members who were interviewed cited alcohol abuse as the single biggest challenge facing their departments and communities. The commanding officer at Fort Berthold, for example, estimated that 90 percent of his department's calls for service were driven by some form of alcohol abuse. Similarly, an acting commanding officer at Gila River estimated that 98 percent of calls there were alcohol-related. While it did not focus on reservation residents but on American Indians overall, a recent Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) study provides additional evidence of these claims. Analysis of victimization data shows that "American Indian victims of violence were the most likely of all races of victims to indicate that the offender committed the offense while drinking." Also, "the 1997 arrest rate among American Indians for alcohol-related offenses was more than double that found among all races," although drug arrest rates were lower than average (Greenfeld and Smith 1999, vi-vii). Alcohol abuse is a difficult problem, and police involvement is only one part of the solution to alcohol-related crime. Community members realize this as well. For instance, the director of the Gila River Indian Community Department of Social Services expressed a belief that a comprehensive community strategy for combating alcohol abuse was the only way that further inroads could be made against crime and other social problems associated with alcohol abuse. Members of the Gila River Youth Council reported that they helped found a local Boys and Girls Club so that young children living in homes where alcohol abuse was common could have more positive role models. In other words, tribal community leaders acknowledge the need for broad-based and creative solutions. Yet it is also the case that police departments in Indian Country are not organized to deal most effectively with alcohol-related crime. For example, although many departments have drug task forces, largely funded through Federal programs, these focus on "harder" drugs than alcohol. Among the Salish and Kootenai, for example, drug task force officers focused on methamphetamine, which was being transported and marketed via the reservation, but largely to non-Natives. Site visits found no evidence of similar comprehensive planning and deterrence programs that deal with alcohol-related crime. If such programs exist, they are rare. Perhaps more so than other crime categories, alcohol-related crime reflects an entire nexus of social problems and, as the director of social services at Gila River attested, it requires broad solutions. However, at one site we visited, when asked for directions to the Department of Social Services, police department officials provided directions to a building that the agency had not occupied for a year. The lack of basic connections to such a vital partner as Social Services signals that the police are not organized to respond to the dire problem of alcohol-related crime. Notes 1. The problem of data collection with regard to criminal justice issues and agencies in Indian Country is widely noted by researchers and policymakers. See, for example, Elias (1998). 2. Many of these problems are not unique to Indian Country but are common to the small, tightly knit communities of rural areas across the country. See, for example, Weisheit, Wells, and Falcone (1995). 3. See Judicature 79(3)(1995), a special issue entitled "Indian Tribal Courts and Justice," especially, Ada Pecos Melton, "Indigenous Justice Systems and Tribal Society," 126-133. 4. We note again that tribal populations are growing at a much faster rate than the overall U.S. population (see Indian Health Service 1997) and that some reservation communities report the return of tribal members as a result of improved economic opportunities. Some interviewees also speculated that there was a relationship between return migration and crime; they posited that, having lived away from the stabilizing influence of culture and extended family, returning members had an increased predisposition to crime. 5. Of course, the lack of automated call management and data collection systems is not unique to Indian Country. Whether or not a police department has such a system is determined to a significant degree by the size and location (urban vs. rural) of the department. Virtually all the departments serving U.S. cities of 50,000 or more have some kind of 911 system, but in 1993, only 70 percent of the departments serving communities of fewer than 10,000 had one (or used an existing system in partnership with a local law enforcement agency, such as a sheriff's department or the State police), and that percentage decreases further with the size of the community served. The situation is similar with regard to computerized data management. While nearly all the departments in the country that serve populations over 10,000 have a data management system, in 1993 only 39 percent of the departments serving communities smaller than 2,500 had one (Reaves 1996). In this context, the lack of 911 systems in Indian Country seems less dramatic, but the point remains that without methods for systematically collecting and analyzing crime data, Indian police departments will tend to underreport crime. 6. Interview with Ted Quasula, chief of the Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Law Enforcement Services, December 1997. 7. On the other hand, Federal agencies complain that tribes do not refer cases in a timely manner (thus, evidence is not fresh and witnesses are difficult to locate or their memory has faded) or that preliminary preparation of the cases has not been adequate. Both the tribal and Federal problems are widely reported. See, for example, the Native American Subcommittee, House Interior and Insular Affairs Committee (1997). 8. These reporting problems exist not only between tribal and Federal law enforcement agencies, but also between tribal criminal justice agencies. For example, in several of the systems we studied in depth, the juvenile division of the tribal courts compiled data on juvenile crime but did not regularly pass it on to the tribal police department--either because the police never asked for it or because the police department rarely used the information for planning purposes. 9. Problems with this department were widely reported in Indian Country Today. See, for example, Roach (1997) and Melmer and Roach (1997). Also see the report by Naranjo et al. (1996). 10. Since 1996, both departments have significantly expanded, in part due to COPS funding. While new staff have improved these departments' response to the increased demand for police services, the rapid personnel expansion has created significant organizational challenges. Furthermore, the fact that COPS funding has a sunset clause means that many departments in Indian Country will once again be vulnerable to this increase in demand. 11. Tribal advocates provide free legal services to tribal members. 12. Also, the President's budget for fiscal year 1999 included specific appropriations to combat crime on Indian lands: $51 million for "20 FBI agents and 26 attorneys to enhance investigations and prosecutions by attacking violent crime and gangs, establishing the Indian Tribal Courts Program, and creating a New Drug Testing and Intervention Program" (quoted from "DOJ Seeks 4.4% Raise for FY99" 1998). ------------------------------ Chapter 4. Organization and Management of Police Departments in Indian Country This section examines the ways in which police departments serving American Indian reservations are organized and managed to respond to crime. We begin by adding depth and detail to the description of police departments provided in chapter 2, including a fuller account of their budgetary resources. Then, using both the perspective provided by our survey and specific data from the departments we studied intensively, we examine the organization, strategic planning systems, organizational technology, and personnel systems that Indian police departments employ in their efforts to address crime. While we frequently allude to the ways that the Federal and tribal governments support the police function, a more comprehensive discussion of their roles is reserved for the next chapter. Characteristics of Departments Serving Indian Country Earlier, we presented a brief profile of the typical department to focus our analysis and recommendations; we complete this picture with a description of the variation found in the more than 200 tribally and BIA-administered police departments in Indian Country. Luna offers a detailed statistical profile of these departments; another is being developed by the COPS office (Luna 1998; Luna and Walker 1998; Wood 1998). Therefore, while we offer some basic statistics, this section focuses on the core management challenges across the range. These management challenges are as follows: size, administrative arrangements, staffing and personnel, facilities and equipment, and funding. Size Small departments. These departments have at most nine officers, usually fewer. While there are many more small departments (approximately 150) than medium-sized or large departments, they serve substantially fewer people: between 25 and 30 percent of the citizens served by BIA and tribally administered police departments in Indian Country. Among the most important problems facing small departments is the challenge of providing daily, around-the-clock police coverage to their communities. Rarely is more than one officer on duty at any time. As a result, officers often work without adequate backup and common events (such as an officer's illness or need to testify in court) can substantially reduce or eliminate the availability of police services. The officers working in small departments are true generalists, as they work not only across different police functions but also in administrative and support functions. They may serve as dispatchers, investigators, patrol officers, detention officers, and custodians. During site visits, we even observed patrol officers in these small departments preparing food for detainees and sentenced inmates. In the not-so-distant past, tribal police sometimes served as prosecutors.[1] Organizational charts for departments of this size do not adequately reflect the variety and complexity of the work their officers perform. Medium departments. These departments have between 10 and 50 sworn officers. There are more than 75 medium-sized police departments in Indian Country, serving roughly 60 percent of the Native Americans living in reservation communities subject to BIA or tribal policing. The typical department we describe in chapter 2 is medium-sized and, therefore, gives an apt indication of the management challenges these departments face.[2] The key organizational attribute that distinguishes medium-sized departments from small departments is that a minimum of one or two officers are on duty at all times. That is, it is theoretically possible for these departments to provide 24-hour police coverage, even though it may be quite difficult in practical terms. At the low end of the size range, in terms of the demands made on staff members to perform a wide range of duties, the departments face challenges similar to those of the small departments in Indian Country. At the high end of the size range, the departments can support some specialized activities; not only are some officers free to focus on standard patrol activities, but others may specialize in such areas as gang violence, substance abuse, and domestic violence. This transition may signal that there is a staffing level at which specialization can enable a department to focus on critical strategic and planning issues, a focus that is not possible if officers and command staff must respond to a wide range of demands. In recent years, many medium-sized departments have experienced significant growth in staff, primarily through grants from the Office of Community Oriented Policing Services (COPS). For example, the Three Affiliated Tribes department almost doubled in size. A few other tribes have been able to augment police staffs with their own resources. One of our site-visit tribes, the Gila River Indian Community, used gaming profits to double the size of its patrol staff, from approximately 18 to 38 officers. Large departments. These departments have more than 50 sworn officers. The two largest departments in Indian Country--those of the Navajo Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe--have 100 or more uniformed officers. Together these two departments serve approximately 15 percent of the nearly 1.4 million residents of Indian Country. The police functions of both the Navajo Nation and the Oglala Sioux Tribe operate under a 638 contract. The large departments feature levels of organizational complexity not present in small and medium-sized departments. Increased specialization, more elaborate (but not necessarily more efficient) oversight mechanisms, and district-based organization are some of the factors that drive the complexity. Surprisingly, however, some of the primary management challenges that large departments face are similar to those in smaller departments. For example, for many years, the Oglala Sioux Tribe's Department of Public Safety (OSTDPS) had approximately 85 officers spread over nine districts, and each district had its own local command staff. While district-based organization had some positive aspects, it also created a high ratio of command staff to sworn staff. As in small departments, demands on OSTDPS's patrol staff to perform a wide range of duties, many unrelated to the patrol function, were considerable. Similarly, despite the overall size of the department, OSTDPS's district- based organization presented a formidable challenge in providing adequate police coverage over the entire expanse of the Pine Ridge reservation. In recent years, challenges such as these, as well as the problems of managing a large department in a large, highly politicized community, have put tremendous pressure on the largest police departments in Indian Country. Administrative Arrangements The two most common department types are those administered by the BIA and those administered by tribes under 638 contracts. These classifications appear straightforward, but the complexity of organizational and administrative arrangements is significantly increased by the following factors: o The variety of administrative arrangements for policing in Indian Country. As discussed in chapter 2, 638 and BIA departments are only the primary administrative possibilities. o The split in line authority for the investigative and patrol functions between different divisions within the BIA. Until very recently, the BIA's Law Enforcement Division, headquartered in Albuquerque, had line authority for criminal investigation (that is, line authority was placed at the national and regional levels), while BIA superintendents at the reservation level had line authority over other police functions, including patrol, dispatch, and detention (that is, line authority was placed at the local level). In a handful of cases, one function was under a 638 contract and the other was provided by the BIA. o The presence of both Federal and tribal sworn officers in many departments administered by the BIA. In BIA departments, officers hired by the BIA are Federal employees. However, many tribes have also hired tribal officers to supplement the limited number of BIA positions. Despite these factors, it is possible to describe the general reporting arrangement between tribes and the departments that serve them. When the department is administered by the BIA, the reporting relationship is mediated by the BIA. That is, the BIA, not the tribe, has direct supervisory responsibility over the department's executive. (In practical terms, however, tribes wield considerable power over many decisions regarding department policies.) When the tribe administers the department under a 638 contract, the reporting relationship between police departments and the tribes they serve is not mediated by an outside party. This direct supervision may be exercised in a variety of ways: Oversight might be provided by tribal executives (variously known as tribal chairs, presidents, and governors), by elected legislative committees, or by other appointed bodies. An often difficult oversight issue arises in departments that employ both Federal and tribal officers.[3] The usual approach in these departments is for tribally funded officers to be supervised by the BIA police department command staff through a formal agreement with the tribe. Because of the implications this arrangement has for department management, it should not be regarded as a "paper" complexity. First, the dual authority structure allows compensation, training, and equipment inequities, which are likely to lead to personnel and management problems. In our survey, for example, tribes frequently reported that the salary and benefit packages of tribal officers tend to be less attractive than those of BIA officers, who, as Federal employees, are eligible for more generous Federal packages.[4] These differences may create an incentive system that results in a group of officers with inferior capacities. When tribal officers have been hired with COPS program funds, the problem worsens.[5] Because the COPS program does not provide training or equipment funds, some tribes have expressed reluctance to make these kinds of investments in officers who, due to the time limit on COPS grants, may be with their departments for only a few years. Second, the dual authority structure may create a group of officers who have a stronger loyalty to the tribal government than to their BIA managers. In the dynamic political context of Indian Country today, this division of loyalties may be problematic. During intense political conflicts, for example, disputants have ordered tribal officers to arrest or detain Federal officers and vice versa. Staffing and Personnel In general, the sworn officers in Indian police departments are high school graduates (in our survey, 100 percent) and graduates of certified law enforcement training academies (85 percent). Although the figures are comparable to those for non-Indian departments across the country, department leaders frequently noted that such figures mask important deficiencies in the qualifications of current police personnel, as well as serious problems with recruiting qualified officers. (In fact, departments ranked problems with recruiting and training qualified applicants as among the most serious they faced.) For instance, more so than in non- Indian communities, required background checks turn up issues that disqualify prospective officers from service. In a few cases, the percentage of graduates from law enforcement academies was substantially lower than 85 percent. It is likely that these departments included large numbers of newly hired officers--often, these additions were made possible with COPS funding--who had not yet had an opportunity to attend a law enforcement academy. Unusually large numbers of new hires can result in considerable waiting periods for available slots at nearby city, regional, or State police training academies. Two-thirds of the officers in the departments we surveyed were Native American, and 56 percent were members of the tribes they served.[6] In Indian Country, where issues of culture and sovereignty are pronounced, the fact that, on average, only half of the members of a given police force were also members of the tribal community they served may be an important issue for further examination. A more critical finding is that only 13 percent of the police officers serving Indian Country spoke a language native to the community they served, although this figure may mask important regional differences. For example, many officers serving the Navajo Nation are native speakers, while it is exceedingly rare for officers serving reservations in North Dakota to speak an appropriate native language. Most of the approximately 33 percent of officers who were not Native American were Caucasian, but in some areas, particularly the Southwest, Hispanics predominated. Twelve percent of the police officers in the departments we surveyed were women. A final, important observation is that many departments we visited and surveyed had additional assistance from local ranger programs. These programs are not part of the Federal model; that is, they are not a generic component of Indian police departments, and rangers are not generally formal staff members of a department. Instead, the programs are locally generated, quasi-official components of reservation criminal justice systems. They appear to have evolved where coverage needs or community concerns required additional service that the police department itself did not provide. In some cases, rangers provide services driven by the rural character of reservations, including range and wildlife management. In these cases, their function is close to that of fish and game officers. In other cases, their services are only indirectly tied to the rural features of reservations and are driven more by regional crime issues, such as illegal immigration and drug smuggling on the Tohono O'odham reservation and criminal trespass on the Gila River reservation. In these instances, rangers also assume some responsibilities of Federal law enforcement agencies. Because of the programs' extremely local origins, rangers' roles and responsibilities vary from tribe to tribe, although in every case the presence of rangers obliquely increases the personnel resources of their local police department. Facilities and Equipment During site visits, we saw substantial evidence that the physical resources supporting Indian police departments and their employees were either inadequate or designed in a manner that made them impossible to use efficiently. For example, while the square footage of police facilities reported by police departments participating in our survey is on a par with national averages and recommendations, the space is neither well designed nor in satisfactory condition to support police activities (see also Kaestle 1989; Pilant 1995). In most cases, waiting rooms for the public are rare, areas that staff can use to write reports are cramped or nonexistent, and amenities for officers (such as lockers and changing facilities) are virtually nonexistent. Computer capabilities are outmoded, deficient, or absent. Many vehicle fleets are at least 3 years old. Indeed, most of the facilities we inspected were so old (the typical building is 20 or more years old) and in such poor condition that they could not adequately support a modern, progressive police department. Finally, as has been widely reported elsewhere, jail and detention facilities are also inadequate (LeBeau 1998; Office of the Inspector General 1996). In our survey, almost two-thirds of all departments reported that their jail and detention space was overcrowded. At most sites we visited, the jail facilities were too small, poorly designed, or in poor repair. Funding Although several recent research and policy efforts have cited limited funds as a formidable problem for police departments in Indian Country (including Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Enforcement Improvements 1997), assessing the degree of inadequacy of these resources is somewhat complicated. While we generally agree that a lack of funding presents an important obstacle to good policing in Indian Country, we also found that available data were sometimes inadequate and sometimes pointed to multiple, conflicting conclusions.[7] In the discussion below, we use three reference points--officers per 1,000 residents, dollars spent on law enforcement per capita, and dollars spent per employee--to provide a fuller understanding of the resources available to departments in Indian Country (see exhibit 6). o Officers per 1,000 residents. This index compares police coverage in Indian Country to coverage in non-Indian communities, both rural and urban. Our survey findings essentially support the U.S. Department of Justice estimate that the ratio of police officers to residents in Indian Country is 1.3 per thousand (Executive Committee 1997, 6). However, the assertion that this ratio represents half the level of police coverage in comparable non-Indian communities is not consistently supported across data sources. For communities of less than 10,000 population, the FBI (1997) reported 2.9 officers per 1,000 inhabitants in 1996, but other Federal data contradict this estimate. For example, the BJS census of State and local law enforcement agencies indicates that the 1996 ratio hovered between 1.8 and 2.0 in predominantly rural States like South Dakota, North Dakota, and Montana (Reaves and Goldberg 1998, 4).[8] o Law enforcement dollars per capita. This figure provides an index of the total financial resources available to the community to provide law enforcement services. The Indian communities responding to our survey spent approximately $83 in public safety funds on each resident. In contrast, non-Indian communities with populations between 10,000 and 25,000 spent approximately $104 on each resident. If Indian Country compares best to communities at the lower end of this range, it might be assumed that the difference is overestimated, but even for smaller non- Indian communities (with population 2,500-10,000) the figure is $101 (Reaves 1996, 7). o Dollars spent per employee. This provides an index of the "support" employees, particularly officers, receive in terms of salaries (and perhaps in terms of equipment, facilities, and training) and the ability of the tribe or department to pay salaries sufficient to recruit and retain highly qualified officers. We found that tribes spend significantly less per employee than their non-Indian counterparts. The average operating expenditure per employee for the tribes responding to our survey was approximately $36,000, compared with approximately $43,400 for non- Indian departments serving communities of between 10,000 and 25,000 residents (Reaves 1996, 7). The national average is even higher.[9] Direct data on officer salaries provide additional information. Our survey responses suggest that pay for officers in medium-sized to large tribes is higher than for the smaller Indian police departments described by Luna and Walker (1998) but slightly lower than the pay that entry-level officers receive in communities of comparable size ($21,200 to $24,600) (Reaves 1996, 8). The salaries of officers in Indian police departments are also highly variable. The range in our sample was as low as $13,000 and as high as $32,000.[10] Some observers believe that tribes inflate the salaries they report in such surveys, but it is unclear why tribes would want to present evidence of a large resource base while arguing vigorously for increased funding. In summary, existing data suggest that tribes have between 55 and 80 percent of the resource base available to non-Indian communities. But, for three important reasons, we believe the terms used in this comparison may underestimate the actual budgetary needs of police departments in Indian Country. First, and most important, the appropriate police coverage (police officers per thousand residents) comparison may not be between Indian departments and departments serving communities of similar size, but between Indian departments and communities with similar crime and social problems. Given that the violent crime rate in Indian 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 and attendant social problems. Such communities--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, 39, table 1.28; 276-278, table 3.118). This comparison suggests that the resource differential between Indian and non-Indian departments is significantly greater than the above estimate. Second, a particularly important factor in providing police coverage in Indian Country--the immense size of many western reservations--is not reflected in the above estimates. On reservations where the area patrolled is large and the tribal community widely distributed, it is necessary to account for the distances that must be traveled to provide adequate police coverage. Service calls in remote areas of all four reservations we studied intensively could occupy a police officer for half a day or longer, especially in inclement weather. Making police officers as available in Indian communities as they are elsewhere would require resources above and beyond those necessary to rectify the differences noted in this discussion. Finally, the ratios fail to recognize that capital budgets for policing are exceedingly uncommon in Indian Country. The absence of capital budgets is particularly significant for large western reservations. The great distances that police must travel increase the need for facilities and technology (such infrastructure as substations and sophisticated communications technology) that improve the ability of police to serve large areas and are appropriately financed through capital budgets. Frequently, operating budgets appear to be the only means available to departments to finance and support infrastructure (we were unable to confirm this through a review of police and tribal budgets, however). This shortfall, invisible in the ratios given above, leads to a problem cited earlier in this section: The facilities and technology that support Indian Country police officers are often in poor repair or otherwise inadequate. Furthermore, capital budget deficiencies extend to other components of the criminal justice system, and they also have a direct negative effect on the quality of policing. Detention facilities and the services such facilities often support, such as alcohol-treatment programs, are an instructive example: Both are wanting (see LeBeau 1998). Thus, officers who attempt to develop a proactive response to a household where alcohol abuse generates repeat calls for service (for child neglect or domestic violence, for example) often must substitute a brief stay in an overcrowded, outdated jail for alcohol treatment. The result is an uninterrupted demand by that household for police services. In sum, the investment necessary to put the physical infrastructure of Indian Country criminal justice systems on par with their non-Native counterparts is substantial. A Closer Look at Four Indian Police Departments The Indian Country police department described thus far is one that is attempting to cope with an increasing workload in terms of both community demands and crime, and is attempting to do so with a significantly limited resource base. In fact, this characterization does not capture the severity or complexity of the challenges to policing in Indian Country. This section strives to complete the picture by providing contextual detail. It describes pressing problems with the operation, organization, and management of police departments in Indian Country through profiles of the departments and tribes we studied in depth. Briefly, we find that although many problems occur on the level of day-to- day operations (for example, poor direct supervision, poorly developed policies and procedures, poor pre- and inservice training), the most prevalent problems point forcefully to an additional and more significant issue: police departments serving Indian nations face critical institutional design challenges. The descriptions that follow highlight how the problems Indian police departments face are tied to the ways in which these departments relate to the communities they serve and to the fact that tribes have yet to recreate the police function in terms of their specific needs, priorities, and resources.[11] The discussions introduce the remainder of this report, which considers more fully the issue of the institutional design of police departments serving Indian reservations. We preface these profiles by noting that the tribes and departments described have made and are making remarkable progress. In response to the problems described below, the Tohono O'odham Nation has remade its department. Likewise, by investing tribal government resources in policing, the Gila River Indian Community has taken significant steps toward building its own police department, one that can serve its community better. The Flathead department is among the best managed departments in Indian Country, and Fort Berthold's efforts with regard to community policing are among the most ambitious. Tohono O'odham Nation The first tribe we studied intensively was the Tohono O'odham Nation, in extreme south central Arizona. Located in the arid, but beautiful, Sonoran Desert, the Tohono O'odham reservation is characterized not only by the desert landscape but also by seasonal monsoons and towering mountain ranges. The Nation is among the largest in the United States, consisting of almost 2.9 million acres, an area about the size of Connecticut.[12] The size, landscape, climate, and population distribution present many contrasts to typical urban policing; for example, some residences in remote areas can be reached only by horseback and may not be accessible at all during monsoons. The reservation shares approximately 80 miles of border with Mexico and the international border actually splits the Nation. A significant number of tribal members live in Mexico and move freely across the border. Tribal enrollment is 17,500; approximately 14,000 of these members live on the reservation. The seat of the Nation's government and its population center is the town of Sells, with approximately 7,000 residents. The Tohono O'odham Nation is relatively unassimilated; native language use and other evidence of the retention of tradition are high. Tribal gatherings and meetings strongly reflect important cultural attributes of talking things out and reaching consensus. Traditional tribal ceremonies are well attended. The Nation's chief executive and legislative council are popularly elected. The primary political subdivisions are districts, with each of the Nation's 11 districts electing two representatives to the council. In addition, each district elects a district chairperson, whose role is roughly analogous to that of a mayor. Districts and villages play a substantial role in reservation life; the majority of tribal members we interviewed said they identified with their village first, their district second, and the Nation third.[13] The Tohono O'odham entered into a 638 contract to administer their police department in October 1982, which makes it one of the first tribes to acquire control over its police department from the Federal government. We first visited the tribe and observed the operation of its police department during the summer and early winter of 1996. The department had 55 positions for sworn officers, which made it, on paper, one of the largest Indian Country police departments; at that time, however, 20 (40 percent) of these positions were unfilled. In addition, the department had approximately 20 civilian employees and 11 detention officers. The department also had a large budget relative to most departments in Indian Country: $7 million in 1996, which was perhaps the highest in Indian Country regardless of the population served (and much more than a non- Indian department of comparable size). In sum, the department had a number of advantages: It existed amidst a relatively strong tribal culture that invigorated tribal norms and values, was backed by a lengthy period of direct tribal control of the police department, and had the support of a generous budget. Despite these advantages, crime on the reservation seemed to be increasing rapidly, turnover at the department's executive and staff levels was high, and the department's credibility was suffering from severe management problems. Although we emphasize that these were the problems in the Tohono O'odham department of 1996 and that the situation has improved dramatically since that time,[14] we choose to focus on the department as it was then because the challenges it faced are typical of the challenges that confront departments throughout Indian Country today. At the time of our first visit, a major cluster of problems for the Tohono O'odham police department concerned day-to-day operations. The acting chief, who had been with the department for more than 10 years, could not produce such basic documentation as personnel files and policy and procedure manuals, nor in the course of our many conversations could he recall with any degree of specificity recent modifications or revisions to department policies. This was also the case with the department's second in command. In addition, all of the patrol officers we interviewed stated that they could not recall using or being instructed to use departmental manuals, although they assured us the manuals existed. Casual attitudes regarding written policies and procedures are not unusual in the small departments we have visited, where important policies and procedures can be easily communicated in roll calls and other meetings or through informal channels. However, the officers we spoke with could not recall any regular practice of communicating and reinforcing departmental policies and procedures. The lack of attention to basic policies and procedures had a wide range of effects on a department's operation and on its relations with the community. Some were disturbing, but relatively minor; for example, families of some detainees and inmates were refused visits during regular visiting hours, but others were permitted visits during nonvisiting hours. We attributed much of this to an overcrowded jail that put tremendous pressure on detention staff. Some effects, however, were clearly more serious; interviews with representatives of other tribal criminal justice agencies (including those normally friendly to police) revealed that the failure to maintain and enforce departmental policies and procedures had severe consequences for both the department and the community. In the previous year, high-speed pursuits had led to tragic and (in the view of many tribal members and agency representatives) avoidable automobile crashes. Nevertheless, department representatives were unable to produce for review either old or new policies and procedures regarding high-speed chases. Interviewees noted that the lack of policies and procedures handicapped even the best-intentioned officers, who were forced to work without useful guidelines for critical police activities. Conversely, it was difficult to hold negligent officers accountable when clear standards were not in place. Our interviews indicated that this lack of accountability had seriously compromised the credibility of the department, not only among its criminal justice agency partners, but also with the tribal community. During subsequent visits we learned that these problems were not unusual, but were emblematic of department management and operations. As is the case with many departments in crisis, the number and extent of the problems had increasingly isolated the organization from the community (Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990). As the department became increasingly insular, its focus on crime problems became the product more of its own priorities than of those of the community. Interviews with members of the department and members of the community suggested a mismatch both between police and community priorities and between police and community perceptions of the role of police in community life. Police complained that tribal members were pressuring them to pay too much attention to such "low-level" problems as disputes between neighbors, school-age children, and family members--problems that formerly would have been settled at either the village or the district level. On the other hand, community members complained that police officers were concerned only with such activities as chasing bootleggers and drug smugglers. Community members often acknowledged that these and other conventional police activities were important--that they constituted "real" police business--but they also stated that they needed someone who would help them with their problems. This public frustration contributed to the growth of a popular but controversial quasi-official component of the criminal justice system: district-administered ranger programs. At the time of our first visit in 1996, several districts had already instituted such programs, and other districts were demanding funding from the tribal government to start them. The Tohono O'odham ranger program originally began by patrolling outlying villages and remote areas. Rangers described themselves as the eyes and ears of the police department; they were not permitted to interact with or detain potential suspects but functioned mostly to reassure residents that they were safe and to respond to the emergencies and needs of elderly or isolated residents. At Tohono O'odham, it may be that the dynamic driving the growth of the ranger program was similar to that driving the growth of private security services in non-Indian communities in the 1970s and 1980s (Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990, 47-50). The poor performance and increasing isolation of the police department precipitated a loss of market share to rangers, who were managed on the district level and were directly accountable to the district chairperson. In effect, rangers were seen as more responsive than police officers to the needs of residents. To some extent, the diminished credibility of the police department was both the cause and a result of the growing problem of recruiting and retaining qualified officers. As already noted, approximately 40 percent of the funded patrol positions were unfilled when we first visited. Historically, the ability of tribal candidates to complete certified police training academies had been limited. Prior to 1996, 40 to 90 percent of Tohono O'odham recruits failed to complete a certified training program (depending on the year or class of recruits).[15] Our interviews suggested that the problem that most plagued young recruits from the Tohono O'odham Nation was the inability to complete the academic modules of law enforcement certification courses.[16] Tribal and department leadership attributed this to a lack of well-developed study habits necessary to survive the highly regimented program. They also felt that many O'odham youth at the police academy were away from family and friends for the first time and that they were ill-prepared for this intense exposure to a new, sometimes hostile culture. In summary, the management issues that most plagued the Tohono O'odham department in 1996 were a lack of day-to-day attention to departmental policies and procedures, a disconnect between police and community priorities, and difficulties in recruiting and training officers. While the department has made tremendous strides toward resolving these problems, they are generally widespread in Indian Country. The Gila River Indian Community The second tribe we visited was the nearby Gila River Indian Community, which is located on 372,000 acres immediately south of Phoenix, Arizona, one of the fastest growing urban areas in the United States. Despite the proximity of Phoenix, however, the geography of the reservation is rural: Villages are spread across the reservation, and much of the desert land is accessible only by off-road vehicles. In 1994, the Gila River Enrollment Office counted approximately 11,550 enrolled members; in 1996, approximately the same number of Indians lived on the reservation itself, making it, population-wise, the fourth largest reservation in Arizona and sixth largest in the United States. Although the Gila River reservation was established by an Act of Congress in 1859, the ancestors of Community members have been residents of south central Arizona for hundreds of years. The group is formally called a "community" because members of two tribes call the reservation home: the Akimel O'odham ("the River People," formerly known as the Pima) and the Pee-Posh (also known as the Maricopa). The Akimel O'odham, the larger of the two tribes, is closely related to the Tohono O'odham ("the Desert People"), discussed above. The Community's proximity to Phoenix and other smaller cities (Chandler, Casa Grande, Coolidge) has both positive and negative ramifications. For example, when the Community entered the gaming business in the mid- 1990s, its access to a large urban market provided quick and enduring financial success. Profits from the gaming enterprise fund a significant fraction of tribal government operations and give Gila River opportunities that many other Native nations do not have. On the other hand, the Gila River Indian Community also suffers from many problems that are typically considered "urban," including youth gang involvement and a high rate of violent crime. In the mid-1990s, reservation crime rates caused Gila River to be known as one of the most crime-ridden Indian communities in the United States. The ready influence of non-Indian society has also led to a greater loss of tradition and cultural practices than at Tohono O'odham, although efforts are being made to revive traditions and language and, especially, to expose children to them. The Gila River Indian Community has an elected governor, lieutenant governor, and 17-member Community Council, as well as an appointed community manager. The seat of the Community government is Sacaton, a small town approximately 25 miles from central Phoenix. The reservation is divided into seven districts, each with an elected district leader, a district council, and a district service center coordinator. Like Tohono O'odham's, the Akimel O'odham culture emphasizes talking things out, a characteristic that is reflected in the many meetings held at all levels of tribal government. The police department at Gila River has a tumultuous history. When our research began in mid-1996, the department was a BIA department, headed by a BIA police captain (equivalent to a police chief in a municipal police department), who was responsible to an acting Pima Agency Superintendent in Sacaton. Although the tribe had run the department for a brief period in the 1970s, law enforcement was returned to the BIA, reportedly because some non-BIA sources of Federal funding were no longer available. In subsequent years, police captains came and went, with acting captains filling in the gaps. During the same period, crime at Gila River was increasing and becoming more violent, and the jail became known for its overcrowded, unsanitary, and unsafe conditions.[17] In response to the growing crime problem and fears that the BIA department had too few resources to meet community needs, the tribal government created two additional entities to provide law enforcement services--the rangers and the reserves. The rangers operated briefly in the 1970s and were reorganized in the 1990s under the auspices of the Gila River Indian Community Department of Land and Water Resources. The reason for this reporting structure was twofold: First, it acknowledged that one of the rangers' primary functions was to protect the natural and cultural resources of the Gila River Community; second, it was a way to work outside of the BIA to increase the police presence on the reservation. In practice, the rangers' job was to patrol and police the vast off-road areas of the reservation and cover for and back up regular police officers. While they carried a tribal commission to enforce tribal ordinances (all civil offenses), it was not unusual for them to encounter criminal offenses. In these situations, they held the offenders until BIA or county police arrived, confiscated weapons or property, transported or accompanied the offenders to the reservation boundary, or just asked the offenders to leave. Although the rangers' authority was sometimes questioned (usually by violators or off-reservation police), at the time of our initial visits, they had become a regular and accepted law enforcement presence in the Community. The reserves' role was somewhat different. They provided additional coverage to police officers and rangers who would otherwise work alone. This was backup that Community members deemed necessary, given the amount of crime and violence on the reservation. Reserves also provided security services at public events (especially dances), since police officers could not be spared routinely for those details. In addition to commissioning the rangers and reserves, the Community began a further effort to improve policing: It renewed attempts to 638 the BIA department. Initially, the tribal government assigned responsibility for the 638 process to the Law Enforcement Commission, a body whose original charge was to hear complaints by Community members against the police as well as concerns of police officers about their department. Commission members found their liaison and advisory roles to be clear-- but the 638 assignment was not. The Commission received a contract from the BIA to hire a consultant to assist with the process, and the consultant drafted a 638 application, but by late 1995, progress had broken down. The Commission felt it lacked appropriate administrative assistance from the tribal government for creating the necessary policies and structures to support the proposed police department. It wanted to hire a police chief, who would oversee the 638 process and thereby establish his own department. Others in tribal government wanted to hire a 638 consultant to handle the process. In the midst of this debate, pressure for improved policing became especially intense, and the Community government decided to invest some of its newly gained gaming income in the hiring of 20 tribal police officers--that is, officers who were hired and paid by the tribe, but incorporated into the BIA department and supervised by its captain. When we arrived in August 1996 for a second visit, authority, communication, and administration problems in the department were evident and, in some cases, growing. For example, a new BIA captain had just been assigned to Gila River, the acting Pima Agency BIA superintendent was about to be replaced by a permanent superintendent, and the 20 new tribal police officers were beginning to return from training and integrate into the force. While reporting structures and relationships were clear on paper, they were being tested in practice. The previous acting captain had reverted to his rank of sergeant. Communications from the captain down to the officers generally occurred in three ways: through the three sergeants, through memos placed in the officers' department mailboxes, or through memos pinned to the squadroom bulletin board. But at this point, there were no formal roll calls. Furthermore, officers who lived on the reservation took their cruisers home and started their shifts in their cars by radioing to the dispatcher, so that timely receipt of the memos was hit-or-miss. Administrative recordkeeping was in disarray,[18] and accountability within the department (from officers to sergeants and from sergeants to the captain) was weak. Although the new captain hoped to make some important changes in community relations (and knew that Gila River was likely to enter into a 638 contract), he felt that the administrative problems came first; he saw his first task as "grabbing hold administratively." Community perceptions were that the department was still in poor shape, although residents hoped that "their officers" would make things better. Most saw eventual tribal management as the only way to both solve the ongoing management problems and improve the quality of policing. Even so, 638 progress remained slow. By the time of our final visit in 1998, the tribe had removed the Law Enforcement Commission from the core of the process and appointed a five-person 638 committee to prepare the required application. The committee was headed by the assistant community manager and included a tribal attorney, the chairman of the Law Enforcement Commission, an economic development planner, and a program planner. In addition, a police consultant from San Jose was hired to work with the committee. Meanwhile, some change occurred at the department level, although new problems arose. The police captain who had arrived in mid-1996 was transferred from the Gila River Indian Community and replaced by an acting captain--a criminal investigator who would report directly to the BIA Phoenix Area Office, rather than to the Pima Agency Superintendent. The removal of the captain was not related to the 638 process; however, the continuing turmoil in the department and the need to prepare the department for tribal management occasioned the specific assignment of the criminal investigator to Gila River. He made substantial progress in putting the department in order. Procedures were more formalized than they had been, greater accountability was established, and preparations were made for the department and its personnel to shift from BIA to tribal administration.[19] Nevertheless, before the 638 application was accepted and departmental preparations were complete, the supervising criminal investigator was reassigned, purportedly because the Gila River planners objected to his BIA chain of command--reporting to the Area Office in Phoenix, rather than to the Pima Agency Superintendent in Sacaton. On August 10, 1998, the Gila River Indian Community, its 638 contract with the BIA in place, assumed managerial control of its police department. A member of the department, who had moved from BIA to tribal police earlier in the year and was then promoted to sergeant, was named acting police director while applicants for the permanent position were being considered. From at least the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s, police management at Gila River was driven by crises: personnel turnover, increasing crime (especially increasing violent crime), a sense of urgency to increase the size of the department, and pressure to develop a 638 contract. The series of short-term and acting BIA captains in the Gila River Police Department and the fractured 638 process were indicative of (and perhaps also a result of) a department in turmoil. Although Gila River's government responded decisively to the problems by hiring additional officers and building new facilities and, eventually, by developing a 638 contract, it did not focus on comprehensive or strategic planning. For Gila River (as for other tribes), the most opportune time to develop such capacities would have been during the 638 application process. Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes The Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes live on the Flathead Indian Reservation, which is located on 1.2 million acres in northwestern Montana (north of Missoula and south of Kalispell and Glacier National Park, in the Mission Valley).[20] Although the Tribes owned about 22 million acres in the early 1800s, many lands within the reservation were lost to homesteaders after the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855. The current land ownership pattern is best described as a checkerboard, although the Confederated Tribes have been aggressively repurchasing lands since at least the 1940s. The Tribes and tribal members currently own more than 51 percent of the land within the reservation's boundaries. Because of the history of homesteading, more non-Indians than Indians now reside on the reservation. The reservation population comprises approximately 18,000 non-Indians, compared with 4,100 tribal members and 2,000 other Indians. Another 2,700 enrolled members live off- reservation. This mix of tribal and nontribal residents creates an even greater jurisdictional complexity than exists on most other reservations. In addition to the State and tribal police, for example, four counties (Flathead, Lake, Missoula, and Sanders) and four municipalities (Hot Springs, Polson, Ronan, and St. Ignatius) operate their own law enforcement agencies within the reservation boundaries. The governmental seat of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, including its police department, is in Pablo. The governing body of the Confederated Tribes is the Tribal Council, which includes 10 members from 8 districts. The Council chairperson, who is elected from and by the 10 members, is the Tribes' chief executive, although the Council also hires an executive secretary to oversee many government departments, including Law and Order (the police department). The BIA had a strong presence on the reservation until the mid-1970s, but today its presence and influence are extremely limited. For example, the Salish and Kootenai police department operates under a self- governance compact (see chapter 2), an arrangement in which BIA involvement is minimal. At the time of our visits in mid-1997, the police chief had been with the department for 25 years. He first joined as an officer (one of only four) and 4 years later was promoted to chief. Ten years later, the department still had only six officers. In 1986, in the wake of local protests over water rates, the department hired five more officers. Just before the 1994 retrocession agreement (described in greater detail below) was implemented, another five officers were hired. As of 1997, the department included 17 sworn positions (including 2 vacancies): 11 patrol officers, 2 investigators (one of whom was on detail to a regional narcotics task force), 2 sergeants, 1 lieutenant, and 1 police chief. All sworn officers, except the drug task force officer, were tribal members. The department also included 13 civilians--5 jailers, 6 dispatchers, 1 clerk, and 1 cook-- among whom there was considerable overlap of duties and job sharing. For example, the clerk was once a dispatcher-jailer in the department and sometimes still filled in as dispatcher, jailer, or cook; in addition, because she had been trained to interview child victims of sexual abuse and female victims of domestic violence, she could assist both the police department and social services in their investigative duties. Also, some of the civilians had attended the police academy. In contrast to most of the other facilities we visited, the Salish and Kootenai police headquarters and jail were exceptionally clean and orderly. Nevertheless, the police chief was concerned about poor conditions for the inmates: They were isolated in their cells, had little to do, rarely saw the light of day, and had only occasional access to a very small exercise yard. Meals were delivered to cells because there was no common area in which the inmates could gather. However, managers of the Salish and Kootenai facility were not struggling with overcrowding,[21] poor sanitary conditions, or violence. In general, the Tribal Council and tribal administration have strongly supported the police department, evidenced in part by departmental budget allocations. Although most of the department's funding comes from the Tribes' BIA funds (in 1997, $1,228,686 came from BIA funds and $11,546 directly from the Tribes), the virtue of compacting (as opposed to contracting) is that the tribal government sets budget priorities and allocates funds. The police department, like other departments, submits its budget request to the tribal government. Then, the Confederated Tribes' Office of Administration and Budget creates an overall tribal budget, the Council approves allocations, and financial officers disburse funds. According to the police chief, fiscal year 1997 was the first year in which the department received less than it had requested. By most accounts and by our own observation, the Salish and Kootenai police department is a well-run, professional department. The department is well connected to the tribal government for oversight purposes, has been increasing in size consistent with community needs, boasts an extremely competent and generally well-liked staff, and is concerned about the traditional problems under its purview. Yet, we also observed that, institutionally, the department has been struggling to respond to several opportunities for improving the already high quality of policing it has offered the community. For example, the department installed a new computer system, Swift Justice, shortly before the site visits began in 1997. It provides officers with report-writing software, which allows new incident data to be immediately incorporated into the system, links the data with jail and dispatch information, and offers improved storage and reporting functions. While department personnel were generally pleased with the transition to the new system and its capacities, both officers and prosecutors missed the traditional access to paper reports for reviewing cases. Prosecutors, in particular, suffered from the limited information flow. They had been accustomed to learning about cases promptly by looking through a basket of reports as they (the prosecutors) passed through the police department, but the new computer system, to which the prosecutors were not linked, eliminated these hard copies. Nevertheless, the new system allows the department to produce incident reports, monthly and annual reports, and other analyses more quickly and efficiently than it had before. The department clerk manages the system, creating the reports and providing technical assistance to the officers. It is unclear, however, whether the available statistics are used by the chief or others to determine or change departmental strategy. In other words, opportunities for better institutional linkage between the police department and the prosecutors office and for improved strategic planning may have been bypassed. The retrocession agreement is a second example of challenges faced by the department. Signed by the State of Montana, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and all the jurisdictions (except Lake County) within the reservation boundaries,[22] the agreement cedes "exclusive jurisdiction over misdemeanor crimes committed by Indians" back to the Tribes.[23] This right had been withdrawn from the Confederated Tribes under the provisions of PL 83-280 (which subjected many Indian nations to the criminal misdemeanor jurisdiction of the States). Retrocession engendered a flood of new police activity. Calls to the department nearly doubled between 1993 and 1996, from 4,109 to 7,049. To its credit, the Salish and Kootenai department adjusted well to its increase in size and activity level, as well as to the new jurisdictional rules. Salish and Kootenai officers reported (and we observed) that they worked well with officers from the other jurisdictions, even the Lake County deputies (although on an administrative level, Lake County and the Confederated Tribes did not have a warm relationship).[24] Even so, the retrocession agreement continues to implicitly challenge the department to move beyond reliance on rapid-response policing to rethinking its strategy and role in the community. Another challenge was noted at the time of our site visits. Although the department had been running smoothly, both community members and the Tribal Council were starting to ask for a new police strategy--they were explicitly asking the department to become more involved in and establish better relationships with the community. In July 1997, as part of the budget process, the Council sent memoranda to all departments, specifying its expectations. According to the police chief, the Council always had asked departments to write a list of goals as part of the budget process, but this was the first time that the Council had given a return list of expectations. For the police department, the Council requested the following: o A focus on community law enforcement work, rather than traffic enforcement.[25] o A focus on community relations, to build trust and relationships. o Presence at tribal and community activities. At the same time, some communities were asking for more police presence and involvement. One community at the southern end of the reservation, Arlee, had been experiencing vandalism and other crimes by juveniles, including a bank robbery. Its residents were asking that individual officers be responsible for specific geographical areas, rather than "running from community to community." Some tribal members even suggested that officers live in the specific communities they policed. At an Arlee community meeting in August 1997, the community learned that it would get a resident officer--not by departmental design but by the fortuitous relocation of a new officer. This officer had retired from a police department in another State, owned land in Arlee, and had just been hired by the Salish and Kootenai department. At the meeting, he expressed his intention to be available to the Arlee community--in the schools, at community activities, and in the neighborhood crime watch group. He also challenged a Lake County deputy sheriff who attended the meeting and lived in Arlee to do the same (according to residents' private comments, however, this deputy sheriff had not been, and was not likely to be, either visible or responsive to their requests). Although the tribal officer could not promise to be the neighborhood patrol officer (the police department had said it could not give any community its own officer), he did take the initiative to commit himself to an ongoing relationship with his community, one that would take him beyond his working hours to bring the presence of a concerned police officer into the neighborhood. We found it notable that a police officer, especially a new one, felt free to make this commitment; he was stepping outside the bounds of Confederated Tribes police practice but must have felt that his chief would support him. Although the Salish and Kootenai police department is responsive, stable, and generally well respected, at the time of our site visits, it was facing new challenges. Most striking were the Council's expectations, which seemed to reflect community concerns and suggested the need for a new policing strategy. With the encouragement of the Council and the community, the department was poised to use these new challenges as an opportunity to think strategically and develop a policing style even more tightly bound to the Tribes' institutions, priorities, values, and needs. Three Affiliated Tribes The Three Affiliated Tribes (the Mandan, Hidatsa, and Arikara) live on the Fort Berthold Reservation in west-central North Dakota. Tribal membership is approximately 10,000, of whom 4,000 live on the reservation. The Tribes have developed a modest gambling enterprise, but poor economic conditions predominate. The geography of this area presents a striking contrast to the desert landscapes of the Tohono O'odham and Gila River reservations and the mountainous vistas of the Flathead reservation: The Fort Berthold Reservation occupies approximately 1 million acres of softly rolling wheat fields and prairies. About 11 percent of the reservation is covered by Lake Sakakawea, which was formed by the Garrison Dam in the early 1950s. The lake not only split the reservation, but also drove the Tribes from the fertile, protected banks of the Missouri River to the surrounding windblown prairie. In the summer, heat encourages residents to take advantage of the cool lakeside, but in winter, long periods of extreme cold and blizzards can slow travel and isolate residents. In brief, the size of the reservation, its geography, and the seasonally intemperate weather complicate the provision of police coverage. The sheer size of the reservation and the presence of the lake mean that a single routine service call to an outlying community can occupy an officer for a substantial period. Poor winter weather can isolate individual residences, and even entire communities, for days at a time. At the time of our site visits (in 1996, 1997, and 1998), the Three Affiliated Tribes police department was a BIA-managed "split" department, comprised of BIA officers and tribal officers funded through COPS grants. Indeed, leaders of this well-managed department have relied on COPS officers to play a critical role in assisting the department in addressing its steadily increasing workload. For example, the increased police coverage these officers provide helped the department head off a threat by the political leadership in an outlying community to organize its own independently administered police department. The need for COPS officers correctly implies that the department has a limited resource base (its 1998 budget was $1 million). Hiring tribal officers is one of many adjustments the department has made to cope with its lack of resources (most of the other adjustments affect police operations). Remarkably, these supervision and resource challenges did not deter the Three Affiliated Tribes department from developing and using policies and procedures for essential police practices (such as background checks of new officers and standardized disciplinary procedures). In fact, at the time of our most recent visit, the department was developing new policies and procedures for a community-oriented bicycle patrol in its most concentrated population center, New Town. Department leadership was eager to build on such practices to better address crime in a proactive manner. Even so, and even though the community exhibited a higher level of satisfaction with its police department than was present at other sites, there was little congruence between the department's conception of its role in the community and the community's conception of that role. In interviews, tribal members consistently focused on their desire for police to employ methods built on tribal values and culture; they felt that police could play a powerful role in preserving and extending tribal values and culture and that, in doing so, the police could more effectively address crime. In this way, tribal members seemed to be pressing police to expand their mission beyond fighting crime and to become an institution equally concerned with maintaining and contributing to social order. The notion may have come to mind--and seemed immediately logical-- because of the existence of a traditional society with precisely that purpose. Almost every tribal member we interviewed brought up the Black Mouth Society, an association of wise and courageous older males who played a central role in maintaining social order during pre- and early reservation life (Bowers 1992; Gilman and Schneider, 1987). One elder, now in her 90s, recalled that as a child she was warned that if she didn't behave, her relatives and neighbors "would tell the Black Mouths." She recalled that a warning was almost always enough.[26] In contrast, most members of the police department saw their role primarily in conventional law enforcement terms. Officers talked regularly about responding more quickly and efficiently to such problems as gangs, violence, and substance abuse. More to the point, the department was organized and managed to address these conventional problems. This is to be expected in the context of an apparently rapidly growing crime problem and substantial political pressure to respond to it. Indeed, the Three Affiliated Tribes' police department had the strongest orientation to proactive strategies that we were able to identify in the course of our study. But department leadership said they were caught between standard crime control tasks and community demands to devote increased resources to prevention, a dilemma made more acute by the department's limited resource base. When we asked departmental and tribal representatives why they had not entered their police function into a 638 contract, they frequently replied that the Tribes did not want to get into the "law enforcement business." Conceived of in this way, policing was not a function that the Tribes' political history and culture had prepared them to adopt. Policing was seen as a necessary accommodation to modern reservation life, rather than as a means of maintaining social order through the assertion of tribal values and culture (the role played by the Black Mouth Society). Given that the current 638 contracting process does not invite a consideration of the police function in these terms, but focuses instead on ensuring the provision of a standard menu of police services, it is not surprising that departmental and tribal leaders did not view 638 as an opportunity to reconsider the fundamental role of police in community life. Of course, there were other reasons department members did not fully support the possible transition to tribal management. While they recognized that their current approach to law enforcement distanced them from the community, they also asserted that in the volatile political context of tribal life, Federal employment gave them the job security they needed to perform their work in an independent, responsible manner, without the threat of political reprisals. Such dynamics were evident in a heated dispute overheard between two officers who were trying to decide which one should arrest a prominent tribal official: Should it be the BIA officer, a Federal employee, who was in danger of only social reprisals for arresting the official, or should it be the COPS-funded officer, a tribal employee, who would be in danger of not only social reprisals but also economic ones? Nonetheless, department leaders predicted that the question of tribal involvement in the "law enforcement business" would come to the fore in the near future. Tribal leadership already objected to BIA plans to shift line authority for policing away from the local agency to the regional level (to the regional BIA Law Enforcement Division). They felt that the loss of local control alone might push them to 638 their police function. If COPS funding was also eliminated (resulting in a loss of police officers) and crime problems were ongoing, the Tribes' reluctance to actively invest in law enforcement would certainly be tested. In sum, the Three Affiliated Tribes face a challenge common to communities in Indian Country--reconciling policing with indigenous means of social control. The next challenge is to redesign police departments as core institutions of tribal government. As at Flathead, community members' requests for a different style of service presents an opportunity to seize these challenges. Conclusions In the view of many researchers, policymakers, and police professionals, reservation policing is in crisis. In addition to the examples we describe, a thorough audit of one of the largest police departments in Indian Country, performed in 1996 by the BIA's Division of Law Enforcement Services, supports this assertion. The audit identified problems that were similar to-- and in some cases more severe than--those we found: o Poor employee morale and high turnover resulted in a lack of well- qualified and experienced officers. o Basic departmental management was flawed (for example, there was little effective direct supervision of officers and investigative practices were poor). o Inadequate budgets, fiscal mismanagement, and even corruption created serious obstacles to the effective delivery of important police services and programs. o Undue political interference in police operations inhibited the ability of the police to perform their duties in a fair and equitable manner and reduced the credibility of the police in the eyes of the community. o These and other problems created widespread and serious community dissatisfaction with the police (Naranjo et al. 1996). A number of special reports, commissions, conferences, and blue-ribbon committees have grappled with the problems that police departments in Indian Country face and, in response, have offered a number of recommendations and proposals. These include increased funding, tightened management, clarified reporting relationships, and updated technology (see Executive Committee 1997; Silverman 1996). Many of these responses are necessary to improve policing in Indian Country, but they may treat the symptoms, rather than the disease. Our research, particularly the information gathered through the case studies, suggests that many of the problems with Indian Country policing have more fundamental, institutional roots than the "typical fixes" take into account. Further, we argue that these problems do not originate in the contemporary administration of policing by tribes. Rather, they originate in the history and current administration of Federal Indian policing policy. To better understand this proposition, we turn next to an extended discussion of the foundations of policing in Indian Country. Notes 1. Interview at Mescalero Apache, March 1996. 2. As noted, the typical department has approximately 32 employees, 16 of whom are sworn officers. It serves a large land area with a relatively small population, which is located in both rural areas and more densely populated, "semiurban" communities. Like most departments in Indian Country, the typical department works with a limited resource base. It is administered either by the tribe through a 638 contract or by the BIA. 3. Approximately 40 percent of all BIA-administered departments in our survey reported that they employed both tribal and BIA officers. 4. The Gila River Indian Community was a prominent exception to this finding. Before the police department was 638ed, tribal officers' salaries were higher than those of BIA officers due to a 20-percent salary increase given to all tribal employees in September 1996. Federal retirement benefits had not been matched, however. 5. The grants were designed to facilitate the implementation of community policing and, as such, were naturally directed to local police departments. Therefore, Federal agencies, such as BIA police departments, cannot apply for COPS funding, and the new officers must be tribal employees. 6. We note, however, that these numbers are moving targets. As tribes continue to pursue 638 contracts and self-governance compacts, departments will fall under tribes' member-preference guidelines, and the percentages of officers who are Native and who are tribal members will rise. 7. Indian Country population estimates cause many of the problems. For example, Federal figures for 1993 indicate that departments serving communities with populations of 10,000 to 25,000 had an average budget of $1.6 million dollars (Reaves 1996, 7). In the mid-1990s the typical department in Indian Country served a population of approximately 10,000 residents and had a law enforcement budget of $1 million--or approximately 60 percent of a comparably sized non-Indian community's budget. (When inflation is taken into account, the difference is even larger.) As we note when describing the typical department, however, 10,000 may be an overestimate of the average service population. Then, appropriate budget comparison changes quite dramatically: If the population of the community served by the typical reservation police department is closer to 6,000, the comparable non-Indian community's budget is $540,000, which suggests that Indian communities have relatively generous budgets. Furthermore, the ratio of officers to citizens jumps from 1.6 per 1,000 population (16 officers serving a community of 10,000) to 2.7 per thousand (16 officers serving a community of 6,000); this figure is substantially higher than that of non-Indian communities of comparable size. Indeed, among the four sites we studied intensively, the ratio of officers to citizens was 3.3 per 1,000 resident tribal members. Despite these concerns about the effect of population estimates on per capita resource calculations, the discussion in this section relies on the population estimate of 10,000--not only because it is supported by recent important policy pieces in the field (especially the Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Enforcement Improvement's "Final Report"), but also because it is appropriate to draw attention to the lack of reliable service population data. Moreover, higher population estimates may account for the fact that restricting the "community served" figure to resident tribal members ignores the many individuals who (1) live off but work on the reservation, (2) travel through the reservation for purposes of business or pleasure, (3) live seasonally on the reservation, or (4) are full- time but nonmember or non-Native reservation residents. 8. It is worth noting that this figure (the 1.8-2.0 ratio) includes both State and local sworn officers. When State police officers are excluded, the ratio drops to between 1.0 and 1.6 officers per thousand population. We believe the appropriate staff comparison should include State officers, however, since small, rural, non-Indian communities benefit from the services of city, county, and State police. 9. Theoretically, a low "dollars spent per employee" estimate could reflect tribes' conscious choice to maximize police coverage instead of hiring fewer officers and allocating increased funding to critical support functions (management information systems, training, improved equipment). Indeed, we speculate that the large size of the areas policed, as well as the social and political dynamics unique to Indian Country, compel tribes to focus on coverage rather than on support functions. For example, the political pressure outlying reservation communities create as they agitate for increased police services seems to result in more police officers rather than fewer but better-equipped and better-supported officers. However, the fact that both "officers per 1,000 residents" and "dollars per employee" are lower within Indian Country than without suggests that resources are truly deficient and not only for tribes that have chosen to fund personnel instead of support functions. 10. The median ($21,000) falls below the average, but not so far that the figures in the highest range could be said to skew the average, making it unrepresentative of salaries overall. 11. It is often claimed that the rural setting and small communities typical of Indian Country generate a sort of informal community policing approach that grows out of officers' close relations with citizens and the multiple demands these close relationships generate. But although officers might know more about the citizens and neighborhoods they serve than their urban counterparts, and might occasionally be called upon to perform duties outside of those normally carried out by their urban colleagues, the department itself is not necessarily organized and managed to effectively respond to (and draw on) tribal values, priorities, and resources. 12. Most, but not all, of the Nation's land holdings are contiguous. The 10,000-acre Gila Bend Reservation is northwest of the reservation and is the site of the Nation's casino operation. The 71,000-acre San Xavier Reservation lies to the east near Tucson. Twenty-acre Florence Village lies north of the reservation, near the city of Florence. The distribution of land holdings also complicates police coverage. 13. Although most traditional mechanisms of social order were focused on the local level, the organization of the police department was centralized. This made it difficult for the department to distribute its staff in a manner that might facilitate leveraging these community resources. To some extent, the same could be said of the Gila River Indian Community and its department, which is discussed in the next section. 14. We attribute the improvements not only to new departmental leadership but also to strong support for improved policing on the legislative and executive levels of tribal government. 15. This estimate is based on interviews; no data to support this assertion were available, mostly due to a lack of personnel records. 16. A related problem at that time was that many members of the force had less than 12th-grade reading, writing, and math skills. 17. At the time of the initial site visits, Gila River was planning to build a new Justice Center, which would include new adult and juvenile detention facilities. On May 1, 1998, the Community celebrated the ribbon cutting for the state-of-the-art juvenile facility (though it would not be occupied for some time, due to staffing difficulties). On December 4, 1999, the dedication ceremony was held for the main criminal justice facility. 18. Although the dispatchers' logs and the incident reports that officers did complete were filed in an orderly fashion, officers did not always turn in reports. Also, in at least one department report to the BIA, the numbers did not match other data department leaders had provided (e.g., number of homicides), nor were they internally consistent (the number of crimes cleared sometimes exceeded the number of crimes reported). 19. One useful, but short-lived, byproduct of his preparations for 638ing arose from the inventory he conducted on the vehicle fleet. During the inventory, officers could not take their cruisers home at the end of each shift, so they needed to report to headquarters to begin their next shift. This allowed each shift to start with a roll call, improving day-to-day communication. However, it was expected that as soon as the inventory was complete, officers would once again be able to take cruisers home, and the roll calls would end. 20. With the Hell Gate Treaty of 1855, 12 Stat. 975, three groups were consolidated onto the Flathead Reservation: "Flatheads," Pend d'Oreilles, and Kootenais. The Flatheads and Pend d'Oreilles are both Salish peoples, with similar languages but somewhat different cultures. The Kootenais are a non-Salish people, with both a different language and a different culture. 21. At the time, official detention capacity is 20, but the daily average for adults was 12. 22. Cover memorandum on the "Memorandum of Agreement Between State of Montana, Flathead County, Lake County, Missoula County, Sanders County, City of Hot Springs, City of Ronan, Town of St. Ignatius and the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Nation," dated October 12, 1994, notes Lake County's decision not to sign. Additionally, the city of Polson, the county seat of Lake County, entered into a separate agreement with the Tribes, but Lake County also declined the opportunity to enter into a similar special agreement. 23. "Memorandum of Agreement," above. 24. At least some of this respect arose from the fact that Flathead officers usually attended the state police academy, where they received the same training as all the other officers--an equivalence that facilitated both cooperation and cross-jurisdictional activities. 25. Much police concern and attention is given to traffic problems on U.S. Route 93, which bisects the reservation from north to south. At the time of our visits, the only limit on speed during the day (except in business districts) is that motorists drive in a "reasonable and prudent" manner; the road is generally only one lane in each direction; cars are turning onto and off of the road as it changes from high-speed to commercial district; and the highway serves local residents, commuters, truckers, and tourists alike. DUIs are a tremendous problem, and fatalities are not uncommon. Traffic- related activities deflect a great deal of police time from other problems. 26. Interview with Cora Baker, May 1998. ------------------------------ Chapter 5. Federal Policy and Policing in Indian Country This section examines the history of reservation policing and how that history interacts with current Federal policies to influence the effectiveness of tribal police. A core issue that emerges is the inadequacy of Federal policy to promote the ability of Indian nations to design and exert meaningful control over their own policing institutions. This failure is sharpened when contrasted with findings from research in Indian Country on the characteristics of effective governing institutions: Governing institutions are more effective when they are self-determined and when they reflect, in a functionally meaningful way, a tribe's underlying cultural norms and values. Indeed, self-determined institutions are more likely to provide this match between institutional design and citizens' jointly held social, cultural, and political expectations and values. The History of Reservation Policing When the reservation system was established in the early 1800s, law enforcement was mostly provided by Federal troops, whose responsibilities reflected the U.S. Government's interest in limiting Indians' ability to interfere with the economic pursuits of non-Indian settlers. For example, soldiers were responsible for maintaining levels of order sufficient to prevent violent activity from spilling beyond reservation boundaries,[1] for enforcing the laws and policies that restricted tribes to reservations, for prohibiting a wide range of traditional activities that were viewed as immoral or criminal, and for overseeing the rationing of food and other supplies. (It was not until passage of the Major Crimes Act in 1885 that crimes whose effects were not felt outside of reservation boundaries--that is, crimes by Indians against Indians--drew the official attention of the Federal Government.) In short, Indian communities were policed by the military arm of a colonial government (Barlow 1994; Peak 1989; Wachtel 1980, 13). Official U.S. Government permission for Native Americans to participate in the policing of reservations was first granted in the 1860s. Over the next 20 years, a wide variety of policing arrangements evolved: About one- third of all reservation police forces consisted primarily of tribal members; others included a mix of tribal members, Indians from other reservations, and non-Indians (Knepper and Puckett 1995). Significantly, Native representation on these police forces should not be interpreted as a sign of increased control by tribes over their own affairs. The U.S. Government, not tribes, supervised a majority of the forces, and police continued to act in its interest. Indians themselves viewed the Native Americans on these forces as agents of the U.S. Government, and the officers were required to emulate non- Indians. They "were expected to set an example by wearing white man's attire, cutting their hair, practicing monogamy and taking an allotment. Their duties included determining whether a fellow tribesman was working enough to merit his sugar, coffee, and tobacco rations" (BIA 1995b, 24). Indeed, as one U.S. Indian agent is reported to have remarked, "The police are looked upon as the common foe, and the multitude are bitterly opposed to them" (Hagan 1980, 49-50). Furthermore, one reason tribal members were favored as police officers by the U.S. Government was that they were more adept in dealing with traditional leaders than were Federal troops (Meissner 1995). In this sense, the increased representation of Native Americans on reservation police forces was motivated primarily by the tactical advantage their knowledge and experience provided the Federal Government in maintaining an orderly reservation system, rather than by a recognition that tribes should be accorded increased rights to self-determination (Barlow 1994; BIA 1995b; Hagan 1980). The historical record regarding reservation policing from the turn of the century through the 1950s is limited. The General Allotment Act of 1887[2] transferred nearly 90 million (of an original 138 million) acres of Indian land to State and Federal jurisdiction, and by the 1920s most reservations had only one or two officers. The number swelled briefly during Prohibition, but with the end of that era, the budget for and number of reservation police dropped once again (Deloria and Lytle 1983). In 1956, for example, the ratio of police to residents on Indian reservations was 2 per 5,000 compared to a ratio of 10 per 5,000 in the country as a whole (BIA 1995b, 64). The BIA organized this small nucleus of officers into the first modern reservation police forces (Wachtel 1982, 112). During the first 60 years of the 20th century, tribes themselves supported at least some of the law enforcement presence on reservations. Even so, the support was grudging. For example, many accounts of reservation life during the period allude to the role of reservation police in forcibly removing children from their families and sending them to Federal boarding schools, which were infamous for their hostility to Native culture. We received firsthand accounts of these activities in our research at the Fort Berthold and Flathead reservations; the phenomenon is also documented in research literature (Gilman and Schneider 1987). During the late 1960s and the 1970s, Indian activism (including the occupation of BIA offices in Washington, D.C., and the siege of Wounded Knee), drew new attention to the problems of crime on reservations. This attention generated efforts to increase funds for policing and to professionalize police departments and other components of the Indian criminal justice system. In this period, the number of police in Indian Country increased significantly and Congress appropriated funds to establish the BIA Law Enforcement Academy (BIA 1975). These changes had two important results for Indian police management and policy-- results with long-lasting implications. First, efforts to organize and manage the rapidly growing police presence in Indian Country were based on the "professional" model of policing, the dominant approach to nonreservation (municipal) policing in the 1960s and 1970s (BIA 1975, 83, 91). Second, the influence of the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services over reservation policing greatly increased. The professional model is characterized by a centralized organizational hierarchy (with military-style ranks and structure), insulation between the police and community and political leaders, and a narrow focus of the police function on crime fighting (and away from other problem solving). The activities of police operating within this model include preventive patrol by automobile, rapid response to centrally dispatched calls for service, and crime control through the apprehension and incapacitation of offenders (Kelling and Moore 1988). In part, the professional approach evolved as a result of new technology. Automobiles, two-way car radios, dispatch capabilities, and early computers made it possible to respond to emergencies. But the professional approach was also a reaction to the "political" policing that had previously dominated in America's cities, in which police were so closely linked to neighborhoods and local politicians that they were virtually an adjunct to local political machines.[3] Police operating within the political model were thoroughly integrated into neighborhood and community life, knew neighborhood residents, understood community norms and customs, and were able to rely on community connections in providing services, preventing crimes, and solving crimes; however, the approach had substantial downsides. Intimacy with the community, closeness to political leaders, and a decentralized organizational structure gave rise to numerous forms of corruption. As a result, architects of the professional model sought to reform policing by severing the close link between police and citizens and insulating the police from political pressure. In combination with new technology, this new attitude about what police officers should be doing led to the elimination of neighborhood foot patrols and the demise of personalized responses to community crime and safety problems. As noted, the second important result for reservation police policy and management was the growing prominence of the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services. During the long period from the turn of the century to the early 1960s, responsibility for reservation policing had (by virtue of neglect) fallen to the tribes and, to a lesser extent, a variety of Federal entities. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, however, law enforcement services rapidly came under the authority of the BIA. Both the increased presence and the professionalization of police on reservations were driven by the BIA through a series of requests to Congress for increased funds. Consequently, it secured and institutionalized primary control over Indian police policy and management (Wachtel 1980). As a result of these two factors, not only did tribes have less direct control over general police policy, but because of the influence of the professional model, Indian communities were also further distanced from the police departments serving them. In fact, these factors preserved the legacy of police as an occupying army--Federal agencies imposed both the design and administration of policing on Indian nations with little regard for indigenous mechanisms of social control, just as they had in the late 19th century. The Contemporary Problem Ironically, at the same time that the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services was growing in prominence and the professional model of policing was in ascendance, the movement toward sovereignty was the dominant political force in Indian Country. During the late 1960s and early 1970s, Indians worked intensively to acquire increased levels of self- determination and self-governance. As a result of their advocacy, tribal governments acquired the power to legislate, regulate, and adjudicate public policy on their reservations. Tribal governments came to include more powerful legislatures and courts; to possess taxation, economic development, and environmental regulatory authority; and to provide infrastructure and public services (Cornell and Kalt 1993, 7; O'Brien 1989, 197-254). In large part, tribes acquired increased control of these governmental functions through PL 93-638, the Indian Self-Determination and Education Assistance Act of 1975, which, as noted above, allows tribes to contract with the Federal Government to regain management control over programs otherwise administered by the BIA and other Federal agencies. Policing services were not exempt from this movement. But despite PL 93-638 (and the accelerated pace at which tribes are contracting with the U.S. Government to deliver their own police services), police policy in Indian Country is still driven, both directly and indirectly, by Federal agencies rather than by tribes. This arrangement has advantages. For example, employees of departments that are still managed by the BIA are Federal employees and, as such, are provided with job security, livable salaries, competitive retirement packages, and protection from undue political pressure in the uncertain political environment typical of many tribes. These benefits and protections help attract qualified candidates to the field and help police officers carry out their duties. Another advantage of Federal involvement is the provision of free training for police officers and criminal investigators at the BIA police academy in New Mexico, training that has improved the overall quality of policing in many reservation departments. The improved quality of criminal investigation under the leadership of the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services is yet another benefit. Nonetheless, U.S. Government policy has created a number of problems for policing in Indian Country--in departments under both BIA and 638 contract administration. Multiple Lines of Authority Decrease Accountability and Create Tribal Capacity Vacuums A key aspect of the BIA management structure is control over policing, which occurs through two separate administrative paths (illustrated in exhibit 7). The first path governs the patrol function of BIA police departments. Patrol officers are supervised by the department's commanding officer (usually a police captain). Until recently, this officer was supervised in turn by the local BIA superintendent, who was responsible for policing and all the other BIA programs run through the agency[4]--and so on up to the highest levels of BIA administration in Washington, D.C. (Now, BIA police captains report directly to the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services, which is headquartered in New Mexico.) The second administrative path governs the investigative function, over which the department's commanding officer does not have line authority. Instead, line authority for this function lies directly with the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services. Neither path allows supervision by or accountability to representatives of the tribal community. This complicated management structure has several implications: o Until recently, the patrol and investigative functions in the same police department were under the authority of different departments within the BIA. o BIA police departments' commanding officers do not have line authority over their own criminal investigators. o Authority and accountability for BIA police management and policy are diffused among many individuals and bureaucratic entities (although policy changes have made the group less diffuse than before). The justification for placing both patrol and criminal investigation under the authority of the BIA Division of Law Enforcement Services is sound: Supervision of both functions is within a single division of the Bureau that has substantial expertise in law enforcement. However, the arrangement is not without difficulties. Local BIA police captains still do not have line authority over their criminal investigators. Many tribal leaders and BIA superintendents we interviewed were concerned that the Division of Law Enforcement Services seated in New Mexico might know less about and be less responsive to tribal needs, resources, and priorities than the superintendents. Furthermore, the arrangement is roughly analogous to having city police departments supervised by State or Federal authorities-- a degree of external control that is contemplated only in those rare instances when a police department is either so corrupt or so poorly managed that it must be placed in receivership. In sum, the potential for accountability problems persists. The complexity of the overall management structure also requires tribes to exert political pressure and build their cases for new policies with a wide variety of overseers. We found that tribal criminal justice planning bodies often allocated more of their limited resources to lobbying oversight agencies (to getting authority) than they did to exercising authority in the service of sound strategic planning. Thus, even when tribes devote increased energy to policing, this energy is not used efficiently to develop effective police departments. Another result is that even those tribes intent on improving policing have difficulty knowing where to start, which political players to engage to further tribal aims and how to address the many substantive planning challenges. As described in chapter 4, this was a problem for the Gila River Indian Community as it pursued a 638 contract. Both of these results are examples of tribal capacity vacuums. Jurisdictional Complexities Prevent Strategic Planning The Major Crimes Act of 1885, which places jurisdiction for most serious crimes with Federal agencies, also works to diffuse authority and accountability for criminal justice policy and management in Indian Country. The Act arose from the Supreme Court's decision in Ex parte Crow Dog (109 U.S. 556 (1883)). In Crow Dog, the Supreme Court held that the U.S. District Court of South Dakota lacked jurisdiction over a Sioux Indian who already had been punished by his tribe for killing another Indian. Congress, which considered the punishment far too lenient, responded to the Supreme Court's decision by quickly passing the Act. As its title implies, the Major Crimes Act granted the Federal Government jurisdiction over a number of crimes committed on Indian reservations, including murder, kidnapping, rape, and robbery. It now also covers arson, assault, maiming, larceny, receiving stolen property, manslaughter, attempted homicide, conspiracy to commit murder, and statutory rape (U.S. Code, Title 18). Besides the obvious loss of sovereignty, an important implication of Crow Dog is that the development of comprehensive, tribally driven crime strategies--such as those relating to serious youth violence, drug-related crime, child abuse, domestic violence, or sexual assault--now depends on shared priorities or the sustained attention of Federal agencies, since so many of these crimes fall under Federal jurisdiction. Not only must tribes engage the BIA in developing responses to crime, they must also engage the FBI, the U.S. Attorney's Office, and the Federal courts. When control of policy and management is so divided, tribes feel they have neither the opportunity nor the obligation to develop their own approaches to policing. The 638 Process Diverts Tribes From the Consideration of Community Priorities and Goals Theoretically, the 638 contracting process should provide tribes with the opportunity to design police departments and implement policing procedures that are well matched to tribal needs, resources, values, and priorities. In practice, however, this has not been the case, and examples of tribes that have used this opportunity to carefully consider the police function are exceedingly rare, for several reasons. First, as detailed above, tribes enter the process without adequate planning capacities and, therefore, are unable to use 638 planning as a means of furthering their own goals. Second, the contracting process is focused on implementing policing on the most basic level. From the Federal Government's standpoint, the contract must address basic operational, organizational, and personnel issues and must provide a stream of funding to support these functions, so that the core police services once provided by the BIA can now be provided by the tribe. But neither the contract process nor the contract itself focuses on building planning capacity on the tribal level, strategic planning on the departmental level, or systematically considering tribally driven criteria (such as resources, needs, values, and priorities) in designing a department that functions as a core institution of tribal government. These issues were clear impediments in two of the communities we visited. As noted above, over the course of 3 or 4 years of planning, Gila River Indian Community's government had charged several bodies with the planning task for contracting, including the Law Enforcement Commission and, finally, a special planning committee headed by the assistant community manager. Concordant with the Federal Government's focus on operational, organizational, personnel, and funding issues, these groups had few, if any, members with policing expertise; saw the 638 contract primarily as a stream of funding to acquire, rather than as an opportunity to plan how the Community itself hoped to be policed; and did not provide for an ongoing strategic review of the department's progress toward Community goals. Similarly, the Three Affiliated Tribes' government had long declined to enter into a 638 contract, largely because they did not see the 638 process as an opportunity to regain traditional methods of social control, but rather as a means of entering "the law enforcement business." Federal Management and the Influence of the Professional Model Discourage Community Partnership While the lack of planning capacity hampers the development of effective police institutions, the continued control of police policy and management by the Federal Government (for tribes with BIA departments) and the lingering effect of the professional model of policing (for tribes with departments under 638 contracts) generate a more fundamental flaw in policing in Indian Country. To better understand this flaw, we consider the underlying philosophy of policing in a free society. Specifically, communities grant police tremendous power--the power to detain, to arrest, and even to use deadly force. Communities do this because they rightly place a high value on what police do in protecting freedom and keeping communities safe. This is a contract between communities and police (Goldstein 1977). But Native American communities have not participated in designing their own police institutions and then consented to be policed by those methods. Departments administered by the BIA are not agents of tribes but of the Federal Government and, as such, have no incentive to ask the communities they serve for legitimacy or for authorization of the police function. Even those departments operating under self-determination contracts adopted--as a byproduct of the contracting process--the organization and methods of the professional era of policing. They look primarily to the law and to external professional standards for authorization, rather than to the community. This 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. Several examples may illustrate what this means. The first comes from Tohono O'odham, where we found that one of the most successful strategies for reducing youth violence was formulated by the local Drug Abuse Resistance Education (D.A.R.E.) officer.[5] This program had an especially productive, though unintended, result. It gave the D.A.R.E. officer an opportunity to simply talk with students. To an outsider, the long meetings and discussions typical of the Tohono O'odham can seem unproductive, but for the D.A.R.E officer, this culturally appropriate activity helped him build strong relationships with youth. In fact, many of the tribal members we spoke with described the ideal O'odham officer as one who simply talked--talked with people to understand their motivation for committing crimes, to find a solution to problems, and to quietly but firmly persuade those involved to implement that solution. Significantly, however, few members of the police department looked on this activity as falling within the definition of "real" police work, although they pointed to interventions the D.A.R.E. officer had developed as among the most effective crime prevention strategies present on the reservation. Because vestiges of the professional model of policing determined Tohono O'odham police officers' methods, the fact that this officer's approach to problem solving had a strong fit with tribal norms and values had gone largely unrecognized. At the Flathead reservation, several communities had called upon the police for an increased presence, in one case to control drug marketing and in another to prevent cars from speeding along the side roads on which children walked to school. In the first instance, residents used 911 to complain about the drug-marketing activity, but the police response proved inadequate--a squad car either arrived on the scene too late or arrived only to break up a single deal, and these responses did not affect violator behavior. The local Indian housing authority finally addressed community concerns by hiring as a resident manager a tribal officer who had been detailed to the Federal drug enforcement task force. Besides prominently parking a police vehicle outside his home (which was near the usual site of drug-selling activities), the officer organized community meetings. The group of resident activists that emerged from these meetings organized a Neighborhood Watch, neighborhood cleanups, and a storage-shed building day. With these interventions, the community transformed itself from being the least desirable housing project on the reservation to one of the most desirable. In the second instance, community members also organized meetings, but they were more effective on the political level. Council members, the Tribal Chairwoman, and other members of the executive branch explicitly asked the police to become more involved in that particular town and with the community in general. In a Council meeting we attended, one Council member admonished the police chief, "We don't want you just picking up more people on Highway 93."[6] In discussions with us, the Chairwoman explained, "The Council would like to see more community involvement and partnership, so people don't just see [the police] in times of crisis. Instead of just traffic [enforcement], we'd like to see more focus on community participation--a presence in the community, talking to people, assisting them, [involving themselves] in education and community activities."[7] To their credit, the Confederated Tribes' police officers and police leadership told us both of these stories; however, they stressed that doing more to meet community requests for involvement was beyond their official function. Again, police responsiveness was constrained by the professional model of police work and by the fact that, customarily, Indian police departments are not organized and managed to turn to the community for authorization and direction. More generally, we found at most sites that tribal citizens rely increasingly on police and on the courts to settle disputes and problems that not so long ago might have been mediated by neighbors, elders, tribal leadership, or other traditional means. These problems--disputes between neighbors, family quarrels, abandoned and disorderly properties, and unsupervised youth--are more closely linked to the quality of community life than they are to conventional definitions of crime. Police cited the rapidly increasing burden on 911 systems as the product of this phenomenon, and tribal criminal and civil attorneys complained that their caseloads have ballooned beyond reason. On the one hand, police protest that the community demands that they solve too many problems that are not really crimes. On the other hand, citizens complain that police do not respond to the real needs of the community. It is probably unjust to blame such conflicting expectations solely on police policy. The erosion of traditional culture has also contributed to the problem. The mechanisms of social control that might be brought to bear on noncrime problems are simply fewer and weaker; thus tribal communities ask more of their police. Yet even this has a connection to Federal policy (although this time to broad policy objectives, not policing policy specifically). Through at least the 1960s, Federal procedures exacerbated the loss of cultural knowledge, discouraged community problem solving, and helped create an expectation that someone else should deal with difficult problems. For example, individuals with substance abuse problems were sent to off-reservation treatment centers; economically productive adults were offered relocation to job-rich urban areas; housing programs aimed at nuclear families separated extended family groups; children were sent to distant boarding schools; and, even after the general demise of boarding schools, children were removed from poor families and placed in long-term off-reservation foster care. As a result, culturally appropriate means of social problem solving have been displaced, and incentives to adapt those methods to contemporary times and current problems have been suppressed. In many tribal communities, residents have no one to turn to for help with a wide range of issues except their law enforcement agencies. A telling example came from the Director of the Juvenile Detention and Rehabilitation Center in the Gila River Indian Community, who told us that she (and the tribal police) regularly received phone calls from parents requesting that the police arrest, and the juvenile facility house, a problem child. Because these parents had little experience of being parented themselves, she concluded, their own parenting skills were extremely limited. However, when tribal members do turn to the police with their problems, they encounter organizations whose priorities have been shaped by a model of policing that limits responses to a narrow band of strategies and attention to a narrow band of crime problems. For example, the acting Pima Agency Superintendent at the time of our first site visit (the nominal head of the then-BIA police department) stated, "Law enforcement is law enforcement"--a claim that seems to exempt Indian police departments from adapting their strategies, policies, and procedures to local needs. As a result, disputes, conflicts, and problems that police and citizens see as each other's responsibility can continue to simmer and, eventually, escalate into real crimes. In addition, as tribal members conclude that the police are insensitive and unresponsive to community needs, support for the police diminishes. This, of course, further isolates police and communities from each other, and, in its worst form, the isolation develops into barely concealed hostility.[8] Partnership is not possible in such an atmosphere. Research on Effective Governing Institutions in Indian Country A substantial body of research suggests a roadmap for understanding and beginning to remedy the problems with policing that are rooted in Federal policy. Beginning in the 1970s, given the opportunity of increased self- determination offered by PL 93-638, a handful of Indian nations embarked on successful paths of social and economic development. Research by the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development indicates that the common denominator among these successful tribes was an effective government--one that was capable of both determining and implementing the policy priorities of the community. Data from the last U.S. Census (exhibit 8) illustrate the diversity in reservation performance that underlies the Harvard Project research. On paper, the Crow are one of the wealthiest societies in the world. They own vast coal resources, extensive timber supplies, rich wheat-growing land, and arguably the best grazing grass in the West. In the last decade, they have also received significant infusions of financial capital--totaling well over $100 million--through a number of highly remunerative legal settlements. The Tribe's emphasis on education gives it a rate of high school graduation that is well above the average for Natives living on reservations. Yet, the community's physical, financial, and human capital generates a negligible annual return, and the reservation unemployment rate is in the 80-90 percent range.[9] By contrast, some tribal communities have been booming economically and making rapid social progress. For example, the Mississippi Choctaw's home in Philadelphia, Mississippi, is hardly rich in natural resources, but the Tribe is now one of the largest employers in Mississippi. More than 3,000 non-Indians commute daily to work in the Choctaw's manufacturing, service, and public-sector enterprises.[10] All other things equal, the different outcomes these two nations have experienced can be attributed largely to differences in government effectiveness. The Harvard Project's research shows that one indicator of a tribal government's ability to effectively make and implement decisions is whether or not it has increased control over its own institutions (seizing de facto sovereignty, and not merely de jure). Stability, the separation of powers, and competent, respected bureaucracies are further indicators of a tribal government's effectiveness. The research also indicates that an alignment between the form and powers of a government's contemporary institutions and the form and powers of its prereservation institutions is most likely to create this stability, respect, and legitimacy. Yet that match between present and prereservation political systems is not typical: The U.S. Government created the 20th-century governments of most tribes, overriding indigenous institutions. In cases where tribes were fortunate enough to avoid imposed constitutions or where, fortuitously, the imposed structure is well matched to prereservation forms, tribes are performing well; but where the match is poor, tribes are struggling.[11] With reference to Indian policing, the first 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--that have increased their actual sovereignty--have experienced improved local economic and social conditions. The research has not found a single case of sustained economic development where the tribe is not in the driver's seat. While tribal-BIA relationships in thriving Indian nations range from cooperative to contentious, they are all characterized by a demotion of the BIA (and of other Federal agencies) from decisionmaker to advisor and provider of technical assistance. The reason sovereignty is crucial to successful development is clear: As long as the BIA (or any other outside organization) has decisionmaking authority, the actions, policies, and procedures of tribal government will reflect outsiders' agendas. For example, the BIA's bureaucratic standards of success (protecting a budget, expanding authority) will tend to be given more weight than tribal standards, and results that meet these external standards will be considered successful even if they lead to lost opportunities, failed policies, or other bad outcomes for a tribe. Without tribal sovereignty over the institutions of government, there is an injurious separation between the recipients of policy benefits and the bearers of policy costs. An important study of tribes' timber harvesting enterprises-- some operated directly by the BIA, others by tribes themselves under PL 93-638 contracts--provides hard evidence of this claim. When tribes replaced the BIA administration of forestry enterprises with their own management, institutional and economic performance improved. As predicted, tribes operated their timber programs more efficiently than the BIA and received better prices for the products sold (Krepps and Caves 1994; also, Krepps 1992). As discussed, the Federal policies that regulate Indian policing have the twin effect of reducing tribal control and diffusing accountability for institutional performance. In our interviews, tribes regularly blamed Federal agencies for the poor state of policing in Indian Country; not only were the resources provided by Federal agencies inadequate, but it also appeared that Federal policies were driven by a misreading of tribes' real needs and priorities. On the other hand, representatives of Federal agencies expressed skepticism about the ability and intention of tribes to develop and manage effective police departments. The truth is a mixture of these impressions. The very fact that power is shared between tribal and Federal authorities allows each to avoid their more appropriate roles and, thus, to perpetuate poor policing. By contrast, if police perform poorly in the typical American city, the citizenry signal their leadership that performance must improve. If conditions do not change, elected officials and police executives are at serious risk of being replaced. In Indian Country, this direct line of accountability and control is often absent. As in other areas of Indian policy, it is both appropriate and beneficial for tribal political and police department leaders to take on those tasks; the more appropriate Federal roles are to provide advice, technical assistance, and financial aid and to support effective local policing efforts. An additional observation that emerges from this line of inquiry concerns timing. The legal and de facto sovereignty of tribes has been subject to constant challenge, and it is frequently asserted that if a tribe wishes to be sovereign, it must first establish a sound, nondependent economy. A similar assertion is often made with regard to policing: If an Indian community wants greater authority over criminal justice administration, it must first demonstrate the ability to responsibly manage its own criminal justice institutions. But Harvard Project research indicates that this reasoning is backward. Sovereignty brings with it accountability: Being in charge makes tribal leaders and tribal citizens realize that their own resources and well-being are at stake (Kalt 1997). The second important lesson for Indian policing from the Harvard Project research is the importance of cultural match. Exhibit 9 summarizes the general research findings. For each Indian nation listed, it presents the contemporary form of government, whether or not this structure matches prereservation form, and whether or not the reservation economy is growing. For example, the economically prosperous community of Cochiti Pueblo has never given up its traditional theocracy and has no written constitution. At the other extreme, modern Crow government bears little or no resemblance to the hierarchical and two-branch governmental structure of prereservation Crow society, and economic conditions on the Crow reservation, as discussed above, are dismal. While this list is not exhaustive, the pattern is strong enough to suggest that match matters. A consonance between present and prereservation institutional forms confers legitimacy on the methods and outcomes of government decisionmaking and channels political energy in productive directions. Two examples from business and government relations illustrate the dynamics of cultural match. These examples highlight the aspect of government structure that appears to be most important for institutional legitimacy and effectiveness: coherence between institutional rules and citizens' jointly held expectations about who should hold authority, how it should be exercised, and what the decisionmaking structure should be. The central government of the Oglala Sioux Tribe of the Pine Ridge Reservation has sometimes tried to launch tribally owned businesses, which are relatively common in Indian Country. Yet in Lakota political culture, allegiance to authority is located at the subtribal level of the reservation's districts (political divisions that more closely replicate the quasi-autonomous family bands, or tiyospaye, of prereservation days). Time and time again, when a financial or management crisis arises for a business promulgated by the central government, the lack of connection to appropriate authority structures causes oversight mechanisms to fail, support for the enterprise to wither, and an eventual business failure.[12] Among the White Mountain Apache, the formal role of the Tribe's chief executive includes being the lead negotiator of external agreements with businesses and other governments. When a dispute arose between the Tribe and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS) about appropriate means for species protection, the Tribal Chairman gathered a team of advisors and negotiated directly with the USFWS on behalf of the Tribe. Today, because cultural norms support this activist, "presidential" leadership role (in fact, the Apache word for "leader" has been variously interpreted as "our smart one," "he who directs," or "he who convinces us") (Cornell and Kalt 1995, 420),13 tribal politicians, wildlife biologists, enterprise managers, and citizens are willing to exert together the effort required to make this historic agreement work ("Tribe, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Sign Historic Agreement" 1994; Wald 1995). To reiterate, these positive and negative outcomes result from matches and mismatches between indigenous and imposed norms and values. Unless there is a match between these factors, the imposed norms and values will consistently generate conflicts with customary ways of doing business across social, political, and economic dimensions of reservation life. We observed the same effects with respect to policing. The police officer at Tohono O'odham or Gila River who aggressively confronts a suspect not only will have offended longstanding tribal norms, but also will have failed to draw on them in the service of obtaining the suspect's 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 organization in which these officers work mandates or otherwise perpetuates such conflicts, both public support for and the effectiveness of the organization are diminished. A final note about cultural match deserves attention: It is important not to be naive about the possibilities. While research shows the potential that match has to contribute to institutional success, there are, unfortunately, no guarantees that prereservation institutions will be effective in a contemporary setting. A society might find itself with institutions that are firmly grounded in cultural norms and yet confront an environment that renders those institutions ineffective. If old forms cannot be adapted to modern problems, a new institution will be necessary. Then, the challenge to the group is to design one that both makes cultural sense and works. Building a legitimate institution that can meet contemporary challenges is the overarching goal. In summary, two lines of evidence, one based on a careful examination of the impact of Federal policy on Indian policing and the other based on the effectiveness of governing institutions in Indian Country generally, support this conclusion: The ongoing dominance of the BIA and other Federal agencies on policing in Indian Country has diffused accountability for Indian policing, limited tribal capacity to improve policing, deterred tribes from strategic and long-term planning, discouraged community priority setting, and prevented tribal communities and police departments from aligning their priorities, values, and resources. The severity of these issues varies across tribes and, individually, their influence may appear subtle. In combination, however, they have a powerful negative effect on the overall quality of policing in Indian Country. Moreover, they are concerns that an examination of Indian policing based only on crime trends, management issues, and budget constraints fails to bring into focus. Notes 1. Hagan (1961, 1980) and Peak (1989), for example, both note that reservations were extremely violent places, where natural mechanisms of social control were disrupted and armed bands preyed on the weak. 2. 24 Stat. 388, also known as the Dawes Act (see Canby 1998, 22). 3. Kelling and Moore (1998) coined the phrase "political model." Fogelson (1977) discusses the alliance of police with urban political machines (chapter 1). 4. An "agency" is the smallest BIA administrative unit. Most large Indian nations have a dedicated agency; smaller nations are grouped together or attached to an agency that primarily serves a larger nation. This structure adds to the problems cited in the text--in multitribe agencies, authority over a single tribe's patrol function quickly devolves to a tribal outsider whose interests and responsibilities are extremely diffuse. 5. Project D.A.R.E. is a school-based substance abuse prevention program that is taught by specially trained police officers in schools across the United States and in other countries. 6. Meeting of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribal Council, July 16, 1997. 7. Interview with the Chairwoman, Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes of the Flathead Reservation, July 18, 1997. 8. For example, on ride-alongs we saw officers "patrol" by driving through the front and back yards of homes, shining their floodlights into residents' porches, kitchens, and living rooms. 9. As in the final column of exhibit 8, this rate has been adjusted to account for those who are unemployed but have stopped actively seeking a job. 10. It may be tempting to credit such phenomenal growth to gaming, a niche market opportunity available to Indian nations because of their political sovereignty. But the example of the Mississippi Choctaw is telling: Economic growth started in the 1980s, long before July 1994, when the Tribe opened its casino. Furthermore, Harvard Project research is general enough to suggest that although gaming may contribute significant financial capital to some Native economies, even casinos thrive only when they are underwritten by the basic supports of effective governance. 11. This point is based on research by Stephen Cornell and Joseph P. Kalt, especially Cornell and Kalt (1995). The independent variable "match" was derived by comparing tribes' immediate prereservation governmental systems (as documented in ethnographic sources) with their current systems. Prereservation Indian societies can be characterized as self- governing societies that had passed the tests of environmental adaptation to that point in time; thus, the indigenous, diverse cultures of the tribes were embedded in their political systems. 12. One dramatic example of this dynamic is described in "Nebraska Sioux Lean Beef," a teaching case study about a meat-packing plant (Jorgensen 1990). 13. Original sources of quotes are Grenville Goodwin, The Social Organization of the Western Apache (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1942); Morris E. Opler, "Lipan Apache Culture," Southern Journal of Anthropology 9(1953): 92-95; and Tribal Cultural Director, White Mountain Apache Tribe, personal interview, 1987. ------------------------------ Chapter 6. Conclusions and Recommendations The preceding chapters demonstrate that the task of policing in Indian Country is difficult and complex. Reservation police confront significant crime problems and an array of related social concerns. They struggle under the pressures of limited resources, answer to multiple authorities, and function within a complicated jurisdictional web. Departments frequently operate without strategic direction from their tribal governments and lack methods for communicating directly with their service population, deficiencies that limit their knowledge of and ability to address community goals. Consequently, it can be difficult for police in Indian Country to generate community support for--let alone partnership in--their activities. These problems, concerns, and challenges have a substantial effect on the quality and effectiveness of policing in Indian Country. We argue that many of these issues are linked in important ways to Federal policy. Certainly, there is strong evidence of long, 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. Reversing this failure through the creation of more indigenous policing institutions may give Indian police departments purchase on many of the problems they face. Two important bodies of research and experience inform this conclusion and the recommendations to tribal and nontribal policymakers that follow from it. The first body of information, discussed in depth above and summarized below, demonstrates the influence that appropriate and effective governing institutions have on the successful development of reservation societies (recognizing that police constitute a governing institution of central importance). The second body of information, which describes the experiences of communities whose police departments practice "community policing," is introduced below. These two distinct bodies of research--with strikingly similar conclusions- -provide critical lessons for building a foundation for policing in Indian Country, a foundation that ensures strong public support for the police function and that effectively leverages a wide range of resources (not just funding, but political, social, and cultural capital as well) in the service of addressing crime. Before proceeding, we highlight an important aspect of our work: While we are critical of past Federal policy, we assert that Federal agencies can play a useful future role in assisting tribes as they build a new foundation for policing. Many Federal agencies are directing increased attention and considerable resources to efforts to better protect tribal communities from crime and to better support tribal criminal justice agencies.[1] The BIA has made substantial progress in improving training and practice, especially with regard to the investigative function. Police professionals within the BIA's Division of Law Enforcement Services possess significant resources in terms of experience and expertise. Many processes already in place, such as the 638 contracting process, could be modified to assist tribes as they undertake efforts to fundamentally rethink policing. The following recommendations suggest how these resources can best be used to improve policing in Indian Country. Reprise of Research on Effective Governing Institutions Research on Indian economies indicates that economic and social problems can be solved only if tribes first focus on building strong and effective governing institutions. This task properly begins with increasing tribal control of institutions, an activity that has been part and parcel of tribes' drive for substantially increased sovereignty--which has itself been the dominant political force in Indian Country over the last three decades. Thus, it is no coincidence that many of the tribes that have been most active in reclaiming sovereignty are also those that have most successfully combated the problems of poverty. The research on Indian economies further concludes that institutional design affects institutional effectiveness. Strong and effective governing institutions reflect the values and priorities (the culture) of the community. This match increases the probability that the population will support the methods and outcomes of government action. In general, Indian policing has continued on a trajectory outside of the national movement toward increased tribal sovereignty.[2] Likewise, the idea that institutions might be tailored to fit tribal conceptions of the appropriate methods for social control is not common among Indian police and policymakers. Yet if tribes took greater control over the management and design of policing, it is likely that, as in the economic sphere, their criminal justice institutions would become more effective. Parallel to the research findings on Indian economies, some of the major benefits of greater self-determination and cultural match in policing might include the following: o Focused accountability. o Increased likelihood of a consonance between the capabilities of policing institutions and the demands made on them by the social, cultural, and political environments in which they operate. o Increased public support for the police mission. The Possibilities for Community Policing in Indian Country "Community policing is a problem-solving partnership between the police and the community that is incorporated throughout a police department's culture and operations. In community policing, the police and the community collaboratively analyze problems, set operational priorities, and implement strategies appropriate for the resolution of each problem" (Michaelson, Kelling, and Wasserman 1988). In other words, because community policing is a method by which communities lend their authority to the police enterprise, see their norms and values (their culture) reflected in the police mission, and employ their considerable formal and informal resources to address crime and other social concerns, it gives rise to institutions that have the important characteristics cited above-- self- determination and cultural appropriateness. Experience and research show that the community policing strategy enhances the capacity of police to address crime and to help communities become strong, independent, and resourceful. It leads to more effective policing (see, for example, Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy 1990; Perspectives on Policing 1988-1993; Moore and Poethig 1998). In sum, the growing body of experience and research on community policing is remarkably congruent with the findings on effective governing institutions in Indian Country. We conclude that community policing provides a framework that tribes might use to design and implement Native approaches to policing--approaches that should improve the quality of policing in Indian Country and, rather than perpetuate an inappropriate Federal structure, enhance tribal nation building. A department practices community policing by supporting police officers in the activities that communities most demand of them, not only in the narrow band of activities that constitute reactive crime fighting. Departments implement community policing by promoting a broader definition of the police function than is permitted in the professional approach. In this definition, an improved quality of community life becomes a desirable outcome of good police service, which means that such activities as order maintenance, conflict resolution, and problem solving become acceptable and important police duties. The results of this broader definition are significant. For example, practices that bring police into close contact with the public have always been politically popular, but research shows that they are advantageous in other ways as well. They contribute to community life, reduce fear, increase citizen satisfaction with police, improve police attitudes toward citizens, and increase the morale and job satisfaction of police (Trojanowicz 1982). Similarly, police activities that both engage citizens in solving problems and provide citizens with new tools (such as conflict resolution capacities) contribute to community strength, independence, and resourcefulness (Goldstein 1990). Establishing and following practices with these wider effects is a central task of the community policing approach. The broader definition of the police function also helps align police priorities and values with those of the community (which, as we have seen, is rarely the case in Indian Country). In large part, the alignment occurs as the source of authorization for police activities shifts from professional or bureaucratic standards to the citizens being policed. Where community policing is already practiced, police have realized that ambiguity inevitably surrounds the new kinds of police activity and that, to make their interventions effective, they must regularly seek authorization from citizens. Police departments have learned that professional or bureaucratic authority--especially that which tends to isolate police and insulate them from community or neighborhood influences--decreases as citizens contribute more to defining problems and identifying solutions. In this sense, community policing relies on an intimate relationship between police and citizens, a relationship that is determined less by past practice than by the particular attributes of the community to be policed. The tight linkage between police action and citizen authorization is also a locale-specific application of a broader idea in law enforcement that "behind the badge is the Constitution." That is, to be legitimate in the eyes of citizens, the actual ways in which police maintain order, resolve conflicts, and solve problems must themselves uphold the priorities, norms, and values of the community. Police departments implementing community policing have found that community concerns are often important indicators of ongoing, underlying problems that might escalate into crimes if ignored. Today, community policing's problem-solving approach and attention to order maintenance are widely recognized as playing important roles in communities' efforts to rebuild their neighborhoods and in increasing the quality of community life.[3] The non-Native experience with community policing and data from our site visits suggest that community policing has great promise in Indian Country. For example, many tribal citizens rely increasingly on their police departments to settle disputes, conflicts, and problems that police themselves do not consistently treat as legitimate crime problems. The overarching lesson of community policing is that if reservation police were to pay attention to these problems and were to use credible tribal approaches as remedies, they would become more effective problem solvers, more respected by tribal citizens, and better able to "nip in the bud" problems with the potential to escalate into more serious crimes. Despite the success of community policing, it is not a wholesale prescription for transforming police departments and eliminating crime. Nonetheless, we conclude that, by changing the foundation on which policing occurs, community policing is the appropriate first step for improving policing in Indian Country. For any given Indian nation, the systems that animate and guide policing--such as the organizational structures of the police department and overall criminal justice system, the tribal personnel and training systems, the local management information and control systems, and the tribal agencies that conduct strategic planning--can be linked to a vision of policing shaped by that nation's needs, beliefs, priorities, and resources.[4] The tribe's policing institutions would then become more indigenous (or self-determined), more likely to build upon and reinforce important cultural norms and values, and more valuable to the community. Changing an Indian police department's policies and procedures is one practical way that this linkage between policing systems and tribal priorities might occur. Depending on the dispatcher's assessment of a call, for example, a local elder or other accepted authority could accompany the responding officer; in many instances, the officer might be there only to support the elder's authority (or vice versa). Such an effort would simultaneously lend credibility to the modern police function and show respect for important tribal traditions. Similarly, if a tribal value is to talk things out (as in O'odham culture), new policies and procedures might specify situations in which this approach would be appropriate and offer guidelines for ensuring that such conversations were effective.[5] Different policies and procedures could be developed for cultures in which the direct, physical assertion of authority is appropriate (the Turtle Mountain Chippewa might fit this description); the challenge would be to develop guidelines that made the physical exercise of authority controlled and also effective in maintaining order. Another approach might be to modify both the organization of a department and its personnel system to reflect tribal culture. In many of the interviews we conducted at Fort Berthold, interviewees mourned the decline of the Black Mouth Society, an association of respected, mature men who historically acted as the police for these tribes. A practical arrangement that would strengthen important traditional values, draw on the cultural power of the Society for greater authority, and still meet modern needs might be a two-tier department in which junior officers serve an apprenticeship under the supervision of tenured, highly experienced, and well-qualified senior officers (in effect, a Black Mouth Society) (Bowers 1992; Gilman and Schneider 1987; Lowie 1903[6]). The selection, promotion, and evaluation of officers could be geared not only to their ability to carry out the conventional functions of policing (conducting good investigations, driving safely, making arrests), but also to their fitness to serve as members of the Society. In reflecting on this description of community policing and its possible application in Indian Country, we emphasize that the model is not a tactic or set of tactics but, rather, a process by which police work with communities to establish shared priorities, to support community efforts to address crime, and to obtain the authorization of communities to act on their behalf. Thus, a department practicing community policing is characterized not merely by a set of general tactics, such as neighborhood foot patrols or stable geographic beats, but by the fact that it has found multiple (and usually locale-specific) ways to encourage officers to pay attention to citizens' priorities and values, to respond to the fears citizens feel in the face of certain social problems and crimes, and to employ programs that emphasize collaboration between citizens and police. Even so, the confusion between tactics and process (sometimes called strategy or philosophy) has discouraged police in Indian Country from moving beyond the professional approach to using the community policing approach in the manner we describe. On numerous occasions, police leadership and policymakers working in Indian Country informed us that staff shortages coupled with the tremendous distances characteristic of western reservations--that is, obstacles to tactics--make community policing an impractical goal. In our view, however, community policing can be implemented in practical ways that do not compromise the effectiveness of police. It should not require excessive funds and should not reduce a department's ability to carry out its mission. Instead, existing departmental values, priorities, and resources can be reoriented to community values, priorities, and resources. Misunderstandings about the requirements of community policing should not be allowed to stand in the way of its implementation (see Kennedy 1993; Sparrow 1988). What the Federal Government Can Do We recommend that the Federal Government pursue a more fully developed and more cohesive policy of self-determination in Indian policing. This approach requires amending several important Federal programs and activities, including the 638 contracting process, the way various agencies invest in policing in Indian Country, the training of BIA and other Indian Country police, and the administration of law enforcement within the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Our specific recommendations follow. The Federal contracting process is a crucial program to which changes should be made. Contracting should be about more than gaining control of a stream of money, and we therefore think that the process should emphasize not only tribal management (the present focus) but also organizational planning. Because contracted police departments do not need to replicate the BIA departments they replace, the contracting process should encourage tribes to rethink the way policing occurs. To do this, the Federal Government may need to invest directly in qualitative change. One possibility is to offer police department and political planners incentives to explore the specific implications of community policing for their department, tribal government, and nation and to pursue organizational change based on the findings. Yet, any amendments to PL 93-638 policy should avoid making the requirements for contracting more stringent. We believe that tribes can think best about policing when they control policing; thus, Federal contracting policy should offer assistance in ways that both improve policing and promote sovereignty.[7] Contracting is only one channel by which the Federal Government invests in Indian Country policing. Indeed, many departments and agencies of the Federal Government invest in Indian Country policing, and the way they do so is important. Past investment activities have tended to have an ad hoc quality, and while many have had positive effects, a more coherent investment policy could increase the usefulness of future spending. We propose that two related principles guide Federal spending (regardless of the department or agency initiating the funding) on policing in Indian Country. First, investments should strengthen tribal managers' ability to think in new ways about policing. That is, investments should encourage both departmental and political managers to address critical questions: o How does and how should policing promote the nation's goals to be more resourceful and independent? o What policing strategies are particularly effective at accomplishing this? o What tribal norms and values should be embodied in tribal policing practices? o How can tribal political and police department leaders ensure that this happens? Second, investments should strengthen tribal capacity to form and administer police departments that are more self-determined. As noted with respect to contracting, investments should not only assist tribes financially, but also increase their organizational and strategic capacity to oversee reservation policing. Funding is particularly vital to help tribes reform the organizational structure of their criminal justice systems (so that, if desired, they can become less compartmentalized), rewrite police policies and procedures (to create a culturally and task-appropriate set), professionalize personnel systems (including recruitment, training, and promotion requirements), and develop strategic planning entities. Two examples reveal how investments that do not accord with these principles may misdirect police department and political policymakers. The first is Federal spending on technology. While the need to improve the collection and management of information in Indian Country police departments is pronounced, a warning is in order. The statistics that such systems generate emphasize only one part of the police mission--fighting crime. Other roles that police might play in promoting community values and ensuring order and security are deemphasized. In other words, isolated investments in policing technology can lead departmental and political leaders away from the challenge of thinking in new ways about policing. Tribes and Federal policymakers with an interest in community policing (or any other approaches that generate new police roles and responsibilities) must bear this outcome in mind and, if possible, support investments in technology by funding activities that help connect the information system to the tribe's other important policing goals.[8] A second example is the response of national-level law enforcement authorities to reports of rising crime in Indian Country: They have called for the assignment of more Federal officers to Indian Country. These officers are already making their presence felt. They are members of Federal drug enforcement and antigang violence task forces, Border Patrol officers, agents of the U.S. Attorney's Office, and FBI agents. While many Indian police departments want the additional resources that an increased Federal presence brings, many Indian communities see this increased presence as a further loss of sovereignty (or even as an occupation). From the standpoint of self-determination, such fractionated injections of resources prevent tribes from developing truly comprehensive responses to their social disorder and crime problems, especially as they are complicated by offense and geographical jurisdiction issues. It would be better to spend the same money on Indian policing directly--so that a tribe could develop its own targeted strategy for dealing with its particular problems--and to have similar officers and agencies available to serve as professional advisors and partners in the implementation of tribally driven anticrime programs. The principles we propose push investment in this more fruitful direction.[9] Our final comment on investment is that increasing the impact of the current flow of funds to Indian Country policing should not become an argument for freezing or limiting investment. On the contrary, we believe that funding should increase. In part, this is because police in Indian Country operate with a limited resource base relative to the crime problems they face. It is also because of long-term underinvestment in the reservation criminal justice system overall. Federal policy concerning the training of police officers serving Indian Country must also change. Most of the training that tribal police receive is provided through State police academies, which have little focus on either community policing or the important economic, geographic, social, and cultural features of policing in Indian Country. These deficits might be eliminated by adjusting the current curriculum at the federally administered Indian Policing Academy in Artesia, New Mexico, to support the vision of tribal policing offered in this paper and by expanding the number of academies to adequately serve all of Indian Country. At the same time, we acknowledge that municipal, county, and State police are often more comfortable working with Indian police (and vice versa) if they have all attended the same training academy. If tribes continue to choose to send their police to State academies, the Federal Government could fund additional training in the self-determined approach to reservation policing we describe. These courses could be included in the curricula of State training academies or could simply be coordinated with the State offerings. They must, however, be more than minor postscripts to State curricula; they must provide substantive training that is appropriately tailored to the demands of policing in Indian Country.[10] A final Federal policy that deserves careful consideration (and possible amendment) is the centralization of authority over all BIA law enforcement functions in Area Offices and the elimination of any agency- level control. While this reorganization eliminates the separate lines of authority over criminal investigation and patrol that we criticized earlier and might increase the professionalization of police management within the BIA, tribes appear to appreciate access to a local reporting structure. In fact, loss of local authority was an explicit issue for two of the four tribes that we studied in depth. At Gila River, key tribal administrators protested centralization, and their objections led to the early and untimely departure of the acting BIA police captain charged with preparing the department for contracting. At Fort Berthold, centralization led many community members to agitate for contracting. It may be better for Area Office policing supervisors--experienced officers themselves--to shift their focus from managing policing for noncontracted tribes to serving as professional advisors to all area tribes, so that they become real partners in the process of rethinking reservation policing and implementing new, tribally driven efforts. What Tribes Can Do Our primary recommendation to tribes has been laid out earlier: They should pursue real self-determination in Indian policing. This is a process in which Indian nations seek both the financial and organizational capacity to oversee policing; find ways for the community, tribal leadership, and police to think strategically about policing; and weave culturally appropriate methods into policing. Significantly, the community policing philosophy advocates a similar process. According to this approach, reservation police and the tribal community "together analyze problems, set operational priorities, and implement strategies appropriate for the resolution of each problem" (Michaelson, Kelling, and Wasserman 1988). Thus, our correlate recommendation is that Indian nations strive to implement their own versions of community policing. We have a few additional recommendations for tribes, which may increase the effectiveness of new policing approaches. These recommendations concern tribes' commitments to fairness and impartiality and their responsibility for training. First, we recommend that tribes commit themselves to developing impartial police departments. Typically, reservation police are indicted for not having this characteristic. In some cases, political, clan, and family relationships influence police practice and policy. Many interviewees claimed that ties of this nature between suspects and department members often influenced the disposition of crimes. In other cases, political dynamics drive the management of departments. For example, corrupt tribal governments co-opt police departments to protect illegitimate activities and enterprises from scrutiny or prosecution. Cases of nepotism in hiring and promoting police officers and staff are also in evidence (see Naranjo et al. 1996). Of course, these problems are similar in character and frequency to those that plague small and large police departments outside of Indian Country. For them, one important solution has been to develop and publicize sound personnel policies--eliminating or minimizing nepotism, for example--so that the department can maintain its credibility among citizens and with other government agencies. Tribes would benefit from similar policies. Second, we recommend that tribes themselves take an active role in training police officers. If the goals of tribal policing include preserving and promoting important tribal norms and values, the training officers receive at State or Federal academies is insufficient. Local police training and education is necessary to give officers a better understanding of the government and culture of the tribe they serve and a better idea of how policing gives meaning to those principles. Tribe-specific research, preferably conducted by tribal members and tribal police themselves, is the only real way to meet this goal--although the Federal Government could productively support this process in a number of ways, such as direct financial support or various forms of technical assistance. Conclusion Our core conclusions and recommendations focus on a fundamental issue: Tribes, with the support of the Federal Government, must reconsider the foundations of policing on American Indian reservations. Our supporting recommendations grow out of this fundamental issue and are relatively simple. First, 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 can productively inform the development of Federal policy. Second, this same evidence and experience provide the necessary starting points for tribes as they undertake the task of rethinking policing. We do not recommend that Federal and tribal policymakers direct their full attention and resources to increased funding for reservation police departments, the development of specialized crime-fighting task forces, and improved technology. Although these activities have both appeal and short-term potential, in the long run, they will add little to the ability of Indian police departments and tribal communities to independently address the substantial problems they face. In conclusion, neither community policing nor the research on the design of effective governing institutions in Indian Country offers a wholesale prescription for transforming police departments and eliminating crime. Instead they provide a framework for linking research and action in designing approaches to policing that both make cultural sense and work. The overarching goal is the creation of legitimate policing institutions that are capable of meeting contemporary challenges (which may be as divergent as neighborhood disputes, family violence, and the manufacture and sale of methamphetamines). Two possible misinterpretations of this statement deserve mention. In recommending that tribes rethink policing in the context of culture, we are not recommending that they reflexively resurrect dormant prereservation methods of social control and policing, nor are we giving a blanket endorsement to the restorative justice policies now popular in many Indian (and non-Indian) jurisdictions (Young 1995). Rather, our advice to tribes is to create workable, nation-specific policing institutions and approaches that are informed by traditional customs. The workability criterion means that the policing policies and practices individual tribes develop must recognize the reality of day-to-day life and politics in Indian Country and must be capable of getting things done in this "real world." Police department and political leadership should not be left vulnerable to charges that they have failed to address modern crime problems (ranging from gang violence to driving while under the influence of alcohol). Our argument is simply that basing policing activities on a cultural foundation is a powerful means of establishing legitimacy, and that when policing activities are viewed by the population as legitimate, the police may become more effective.[11] The nation-specific criterion highlights the problem with implementing restorative justice approaches across the board. Anthropological evidence makes clear that while many Native American cultures employed such approaches to ensure adherence to social norms, many others employed strikingly authoritarian, retributive methods of social control. In sum, establishing culturally appropriate policing means that, on a tribe-by-tribe basis, Indian nations must make a substantial investment in identifying social norms relevant to policing and the function and influence of these norms in contemporary life. We feel that this can be accomplished only as tribes make a strong, sustained commitment to fundamentally rethinking their approach to policing. Finally, we note that the ultimate success of rethinking policing--with an eye toward increased self-determination, cultural appropriateness, and Native approaches to community policing--depends on research. The agenda must include research that helps identify the appropriate process for undertaking this initiative on a tribal level (perhaps using lessons learned from successful constitutional reform efforts) and research that helps practitioners understand how the approach we advocate can be reconciled both with the contemporary thicket of State and Federal jurisdictional issues and with PL 83-280. Besides the cultural research noted above, tribal-level research that focuses on strengthening tribal managers' ability to think in new ways about policing and on helping tribes' political and police department leaders ensure change will be particularly important. Notes 1. See, for example, Executive Committee for Indian Country Law Enforcement Improvements (1997); National Institute of Justice Strategic Planning Meeting on Crime and Justice Research in Indian Country, Portland, Oregon, October 14-15, 1998; and Summit on Charting the Future of Justice in Indian Country, Washington, D.C., October 28, 1997. 2. This is despite the fact that policing institutions are of such central importance to government that indigenous administration should be a top priority for tribes. On a fundamental theoretical level, the gift of people to their sovereign government--and the defining right of government--is the right to wield coercive power over the citizenry. It is impossible to be truly sovereign without exercising real self-determination in policing. See Hobbes (1651, especially chapter 17). 3. Examples of successful initiatives are found in Sparrow, Moore, and Kennedy (1990); Kelling and Coles (1996); and Braga et al. (1999). 4. Again, it is important to note that critical elements of policing are determined by the particular (or unique) attributes of a community and, therefore, that community policing in Indian Country may look dramatically different from tribe to tribe. 5. Many writers stress the importance of talking things out in O'odham culture. Several sources are Joseph, Spicer, and Chesky (1949); King and Jones (1974, 125-136); Teague (1993); and Underhill (1940, 1969). We observe, however, that although both the Tohono O'odham and Akimel O'odham have similar cultural roots, their recent history is quite different. Thus, the two communities might find markedly different ways to incorporate cultural values into their policing methods; the differences would not imply that one group was less "Indian" or less "O'odham," but would simply reflect modern cultural differences. 6. Also Cora Baker interview, above, note 29, chapter 4. 7. In the current political climate, this will be much more difficult than it sounds. Since the autumn of 1998, Congressional budget battles have slowed the implementation of new 638 and self-governance contracts. Preventing contracting--either through overly strict contracting requirements or a lack of funds--does Indian policing no good. In fact, it perpetuates the negative influence of Federal policy on policing, by allowing community needs and concerns to fester, department management and facilities to deteriorate further, and "catch as catch can" programs (drug enforcement or anti-gang violence programs, for example) to take the place of comprehensive strategic planning. 8. With regard to management information systems, additional caveats are important. First, increasing the availability of automated call management and management information systems does not change the fact that much of the data collected by these systems is of poor quality. The data can be improved only by breaking down the social and cultural barriers that exist between police and many tribal communities, and thought should be given to this problem. Second, automated information systems will provide needed information to tribes, but the technology and training that accompany these systems must recognize that the typical department in Indian Country is much smaller than its urban and suburban counterparts. These small staffs could be easily swamped by demands expressed through 911 systems, inhibiting their ability to do sound proactive planning. On the other hand, small departments will benefit greatly from systems that enable them to identify the truly high-priority calls and to focus on the underlying problems driving crime. Third, both police personnel and tribal leadership must be educated on how to best use the data in the service of broad tribal goals. 9. The COPS program also places federally funded officers in Indian Country, but because the tribe has great flexibility in how it uses these officers, the program is less likely to divert police and tribal policymakers from their most important tasks. As noted in chapter 4, the problems with the COPS program are much different in nature: Its restrictions on Federal employment create a dual authority structure in BIA-managed departments and further complicate oversight issues; the lack of training and equipment funds in COPS grants may create a group of officers with inferior capacities; and the statute's sunset clause and lack of specific phase-out provisions will severely test the already limited resources of Indian police departments and, thus, have a larger impact in Indian Country than elsewhere. 10. Notably, this discussion also implies that State-level changes in training will be necessary. Whether or not tribal police attend State academies, those institutions must inform their students of the appropriateness of Indian self-determination over policing and of the professionalism of Indian police. Police graduating from State academies must be prepared to work with all of their colleagues--in-State, out-of- State, Federal, and tribal. 11. Of course, the opposite configuration also presents a problem. Workable but illegitimate institutions are as unhelpful as legitimate but unworkable ones. If a department makes a limited set of cosmetic changes that leave in place old ways of doing business--no matter how functional-- it will not succeed in better aligning the efforts of police departments with community priorities. ------------------------------ References Barker, Michael L. 1998. Policing in Indian Country. New York: Harrow and Heston. Barlow, David. 1994. 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Washington, D.C.: National Organization for Victim Assistance. ------------------------------ Appendix A. Study Methodology Research for this study included four components: o A review of relevant literature. o Brief visits to several Indian police departments and the Indian Police Academy in Artesia, New Mexico. o Intensive site visits to four reservations. o A two-part survey distributed to Indian police departments. Each study component is described below. Literature Review Several areas of literature provided background and context for the primary research. These included American Indian issues, policing, sociology, and anthropology. For all areas, both historical and current materials ranging from academic works to local newspaper articles were found to be relevant. American Indian topics included history, the history of policing on Indian reservations, culture, economic development, governance, sovereignty, and materials specific to the four tribes studied in depth. Policing topics included the history of policing, community policing, rural policing, and the organization and management of police departments. The sociology review focused on rural sociology. The anthropology review focused largely on Native American anthropology, but also included some literature related to social control and the development of modern legal systems in indigenous societies. The scope of the literature search is reflected in the references at the end of this report. Brief Visits to Several Police Departments We made brief visits to several tribes and their police departments to inform our selection of departments to be studied in depth. These brief visits were also useful as a means of understanding possible survey issues. Members of the research team visited 10 tribes across the Southwest, the Northwest, the East, and the Northern Plains. The team also visited the Indian Police Academy in Artesia, New Mexico, to understand the training the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) provides to police officers. Indepth Study of Four Police Departments We studied four departments and the tribal contexts in which they operate in depth to gain a richer understanding of the diverse and complex ways in which Native communities cope with their policing challenges. Many aspects of reservation policing were difficult to understand or even know about without intensive onsite research. For example, we used this method to clarify the details of organizational process and structure. Likewise, because it allows investment in relationships, we expected the site-visit approach to provide data on community members' more closely guarded opinions (such as their honest perceptions of their police departments). Data from the four indepth studies are integrated throughout this report and are at the core of its discussion and analysis. Like the brief site visits, intensive onsite research was an important precursor to survey work. Because information about the practice of policing in Indian Country is so limited, onsite work helped define the topics on which broad-based survey data were needed. Similarly, the substantial variation in justice administration, jurisdictional arrangements, and socioeconomic conditions that exist in Indian Country suggests that only some quantitative data comparisons are meaningful; intensive study helped focus the survey on those that are. Our site-selection strategy was to choose Indian nations that varied on as many relevant dimensions as could be captured in such a small sample.[1] The most important dimensions on which we sought significant variation were crime problems and other policing challenges, culture, economics, geography, and the management and administrative structure of the police departments.[2] We chose Tohono O'odham and the Gila River Indian Community (both in Arizona) because they have similar cultural backgrounds but distinctly different geographical and economic settings. Both are O'odham nations located in their traditional homelands. We anticipated that, as southwestern tribes near the Mexican border, they might share some important regional challenges, including the problems of illegal immigration and drug smuggling. Nonetheless, we expected the overall problems to vary substantially between the tribes because the Gila River Indian Community is greatly subject to the social and economic influence of a major city (Phoenix) and Tohono O'odham remains more isolated, more traditional, and more economically distressed. Besides these contrasts, we were interested in comparing the policing challenges and approaches of tribes in different regions. Early investigation suggested that Indian nations in the Northern Plains have been generally (although not universally) more assimilated than tribes in the Southwest and that in some cases they suffer from more crime-- particularly more violent crime--a combination that, according to some policing professionals, makes them much more difficult to police.[3] Indeed, the way these factors combine with political dynamics and influence the administration of some otherwise interesting police departments caused us to rule out certain candidates for intensive study. The sustained involvement in these departments necessary for the study could not be assured. The sites selected for indepth study on the Northern Plains were 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). Finally, one of the most important differences between tribes is the management structure of their police departments. While the possibilities are covered in more detail in chapter 2, an important distinction among many Indian communities is whether policing services are provided by the BIA or by the tribe itself. If a tribe opts to manage the police department itself, it can either self-fund or contract for funding from the BIA. In the latter case, money that would have been used by the Federal Government to provide policing services is passed on to the tribe. Our sample of four sites includes important comparisons and contrasts along this management and funding dimension. At the outset of our study, the Gila River Indian Community had a BIA-managed department to which it had added a number of tribally funded officers. By the end of the study period, it had assumed management responsibility from the Federal Government using a contract under Public Law 93-638, which is the most common arrangement for replacing the Federal management of policing services in Indian Country.[4] Tohono O'odham operated under a "638 contract" throughout the period. Similarly, the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes have operated for many years under a self-governance compact (in practical terms, this means they have greater control over the way the department is funded and structured than do tribes operating under 638 contracts). Finally, the Three Affiliated Tribes' police department is BIA-administered (at the time of this research, the Tribes had no intention of changing their arrangement). The contrast between the last two cases may be especially important; some observers suggested that the departments were among the best in Indian Country, although they work under management structures that are ostensibly nearly as different as possible. We restricted our study to four sites for several reasons. First, we hoped to study both the departments and the tribal contexts in which they serve. Doing both well required a fairly small study sample. Second, in a few cases, it took substantial time onsite (a few days to approximately 2 weeks of staff time) to obtain approval to conduct the study. This time was productive from a research standpoint--offering much insight into tribal politics and culture during the process--but it was time consuming and limited the number of communities we could approach for indepth involvement. Finally, the increased time spent at each site allowed the formation of relationships, which produced critical information and insight into the way tribes policed. Clearly, it would be productive to study additional sites, especially given the diversity of policing arrangements and social, cultural, and economic settings in Indian Country. Although we spent considerable unstructured time at each site, our research was guided by a systematic list of individuals and groups we wished to interview and activities we wished to observe. Interview prospects included the following: o Formal and informal tribal political leaders from both the "national" (central tribal government) and "subnational" (district or village) levels. o Representatives of the tribal criminal justice system, especially those from the police department, correctional system, probation office, judiciary, prosecutors' office, and the defense bar. o Health and social service providers working for both tribal and Federal agencies. o Consumers of police and criminal justice services, particularly individuals and families who had been through the criminal justice system, youth groups, and residents of high-crime areas. o Representatives of important historical and cultural practices, such as elders and traditional healers. The activities we sought to observe included routine police activities, especially through ride- and walkalongs with the police; the operation of the broader criminal justice system (court proceedings, jail conditions, etc.); and important community meetings, such as legislative sessions, village or district meetings, school board meetings, elders' meetings, youth council or club sessions, and (where possible and appropriate) cultural activities. Surveys Although survey-based research addresses a narrower range of issues, the payoff compared with indepth site research is the ability to collect data from a larger sample of communities. Such data put information from the smaller, intensive study sample into perspective; they should help both researchers and tribes understand what is typical and what is not. To maximize the response rate and stretch our resources, we worked with Eileen Luna (Assistant Professor, American Indian Studies) at the University of Arizona (Tucson) in the survey effort. The University of Arizona mailed the first questionnaire (part I of the survey) to more than 200 departments in the continental United States, regardless of size. This distribution was intended to be comprehensive, including all departments whose primary responsibility is to police Indian Country.[5] Harvard University mailed the second questionnaire (part II)--which was longer and more indepth than the first and included some organizational questions--to 67 large tribes (but only 66 departments, since two of the large tribes share a BIA department). These nations are the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development's usual study sample, a group for which the Project possesses substantial background data. In general, these larger nations set the practice standard for Indian Country in terms of business activity, government and administrative function, and political rights.[6] Because of their probable greater importance, our greater familiarity with them, and our access to better data about them overall, we made a concentrated effort to increase the response rate among these tribes. All data that we report from both questionnaires of the survey refer to this smaller study sample. The questionnaires and list of respondents are included in appendix B. Forty-six of 66 departments responded to part I of the survey (the University of Arizona instrument) and 39 to part II (the Harvard University instrument). Using background data from the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, we determined that, in general, the groups of respondents and nonrespondents are comparable along the following dimensions: average economic status, communities' average distance from large urban areas, and police departments' usual administrative arrangements (638 contract versus BIA policing). However, police departments responding to the survey serve tribes that are somewhat larger (in both population and area), less active users of their native language, and less involved with the gaming industry than the nonresponding tribes. One caution is echoed throughout this report and in the work of other criminal justice researchers and practitioners in Indian Country (for example, Elias 1998; Luna 1998; Luna and Walker 1998; Wood 1998). All but the most basic and easily verified data must be interpreted carefully; this is most emphatically true for data collected by telephone or by mail. For example, multiple inquiries often produced different answers to the same questions regarding salaries, department budgets and size, and crime statistics. The reasons are numerous and complex, but the result is that we hold very loosely to what might be termed the "statistical" portrait of police departments in Indian Country offered later in this report, and we develop a portrait of the typical department that focuses more on management challenges. Indeed, there is a growing consensus among researchers and policymakers on management challenges faced by Indian police departments, even while there is substantial disagreement on such issues as the budget resources available and the ratio of law enforcement officers to citizens.[7] Notes 1. In some, but not all, cases our work was facilitated by existing working relationships with tribes. However, having such a relationship was not a criterion for selection. 2. PL 83-280 provides significant variation along several of these dimensions. We excluded these different administrative and jurisdictional arrangements from our study, however, because the impacts of the law-- and the reform options available to tribes whose policing institutions are subject to it--are important enough to merit a study of their own. 3. For example, interview with Brent LaRocque, Criminal Investigator, Bureau of Indian Affairs Division of Law Enforcement Services, March 1996. 4. The Gila River Indian Community assumed management of its police department on August 10, 1998. 5. There are approximately 330 reservations in the lower 48 United States, but many fewer Indian police departments. This is because some BIA- administered departments serve more than one reservation (particularly where tribal communities are small) and some tribes are not eligible to have their own police departments. 6. Using the 1980 Census as a benchmark, the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development sample includes tribes with population 1,000 or greater that are located in traditional Indian areas of the continental United States. However, the sample excludes Oklahoma- based tribes, both because they lack distinct land bases (the only reservation per se in Oklahoma belongs to the Osage) and because the U.S. Bureau of the Census collects data for them in a way that is not comparable to the way it collects data for other tribes. 7. This was discussed by members of the Indian policing panel at the National Institute of Justice Research and Evaluation Conference, Washington, D.C., August 1998. ------------------------------ About the National Institute of Justice NIJ is the research and development agency of the U.S. Department of Justice and is the only Federal agency solely dedicated to researching crime control and justice issues. 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