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Wounded Knee II and the Indian Prison Reform Movement

NCJ Number
199301
Journal
Prison Journal Volume: 83 Issue: 1 Dated: March 2003 Pages: 26-37
Author(s)
Lawrence A. French
Date Published
March 2003
Length
12 pages
Annotation
This article examines Native Americans' reaction to specific judicial abuses they have suffered, tracing the events from Wounded Knee II and the American Indian Movement (AIM) to the establishment of the Native American Rights Fund (NARF) and the efforts during the past quarter of a century of Indian-led reforms throughout the U.S. legal system.
Abstract
Wounded Knee II in 1973 began the movement toward a renewed Indian traditionalism. AIM, which was founded in Minneapolis in 1968 as an urban militant organization, was viewed as a radical faction of the National Indian Youth Council, a pan-Indian organization founded in 1961. As part of a protest effort, on November 30, 1969, approximately 600 Indians, representing some 50 tribes, occupied Alcatraz Island, and they were forcefully removed a year and a half later. This action was a precursor to the occupation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) in Washington, DC, in 1972, as well as the ill-fated 10-week takeover of Wounded Knee on the Pine Ridge Sioux Reservation in South Dakota in 1973. These radical actions resulted in numerous criminal offenses, including murder. Radical protests by young Native Americans were fueled by disenchantment with the paternalistic nature of reservation life, the failure of the Federal policy of forced accommodation, and the commitment to return to Native American traditionalism and the rebirth of a distinct Native American tribal identity. A focal point of these efforts was the Nebraska Penal Complex, which was operated much like the old Indian boarding schools, where any act of Indian culture was punished. Not only were Indian inmates punished for being and acting Indian, but unlike other inmate ethnic and racial groups, they were denied any special recognition as a group. In 1972 Indian inmates sought special protection of their religious and cultural rights as Native American as they filed a class action suit in U.S. district court in 1974 (Indian Inmates of the Nebraska Penitentiary v. Charles L. Wolff, Jr.). The resolution of this suit preceded the 1987 American Indian Religious Freedom Act by 4 years and most likely influenced its passage. The NARF of Boulder, CO, aided the inmates in this action. Another reform effort in Nebraska has been the Native American Correctional Treatment Program, in which American Indians are provided with traditional instruction intended to enhance their cultural awareness and develop self-esteem. Another phase of the program is to instruct Native Americans in behaviors appropriate for survival in a pluralistic society. Another outgrowth of the emphasis on Indian cultural orientation as a healing approach is drug treatment counseling that focuses on the cultural-specific needs of American Indians. 15 references