The Native Judiciary Debacle, Native American Profiling, and Mass Incarceration of Native Peoples
Written by Darrin Caldwell
The state of policing in the United States has always been a
hot button issue. From the rise of Black Lives Matter in 2013 and 2014, the
issue of our police work and operate in the US have been highly scrutinized,
and for good reason. In the State of Montana, 20% of male prisoners are Native
American, 34% of female prisoners are Native American. In the State of Montana,
6.5% of the population is Native American. [1] You may be wondering why there
could be so many Native Americans in jail while they are a minority, some less
dignified people might believe that they is no fishy business and this is
simply Indians being Indians, but as with the case with Black Lives Matter,
there is much to question about why the statistic is such a high number.
The first
issue is how the over-encroachment the federal government has been with wanting
to lay out judiciary judgement on reservation land. Throughout the many decades
since Native Americans were placed on reservations, the current government
practically legalized that these reservations are sovereign countries within
the United States and while they are sovereign, they are apart of the US.
Obviously, and eventually, new governments would come to resent this ruling and
attempt to rectify bits and pieces slowly over time by way of passing several
bills such as Public Law 280 in 1953, which brought a method where the United States
could assume jurisdiction over Native American reservations. This included
defining several different judicial organizations that have judicial rights
over Native American reservations including tribal police, local state police, Bureau
of Indian Affairs Police, and the FBI. All can enforce the laws of the tribes,
the states the tribes reside in, and federal laws of the US government. [2] The
next piece of legislature was the Indian Civil Rights Act of 1968. This pushed
the amendments of the US Constitution as laws on each Native American
reservation. While this was good for enforcing liberty, rights to due process,
and several freedoms, it also forever waned the authority tribes had over
governing themselves.
All of these, along with a few
bills before and a few bills after the ones I’ve discussed, eventually brought
Native American reservations under federal jurisdiction. But now, because the
reservations are under federal jurisdiction, that means that now all crimes are
treated federally instead of at the local level. This caused that for all
Native reservations that every crime is often going to carry a higher sentence
than the same crime at state level. Meaning that more Native Americans are put
behind bars longer, often charged in federal and tribal courts, and with our
justice system being punishing instead of rehabilitative means that Native
American prisoners who are already a part of a group disenfranchised and who
often feel meaningless, will now have those feelings multiplied because of the
longer sentencing. [4]
The problem
with the earlier statistic in Montana is that it shows up in other states and
alongside Native American youth. For example, in South Dakota, the Native
American population is 9% of the total population of the state but makes up for
29% percent of the incarcerated population. In Minnesota, they consist of only
1% of the population but also 7.6% of the prisoners in Minnesotan jails. And
probably one of the worst offenders of these statistics is that 70% of the
youth that are in federal prisons are Native Americans. [5] [6] These youth probably
feel helpless considering how their people have been treated for the past
hundred years, with their own history competing with African American ones for
how brutal they were treated. Native Americans are also the highest minority to
be killed by a law enforcement officer. [6] [7]
As I
mentioned from earlier, all of these issues from justice system led to the
creation of Black Lives Matter. These same problems that many Native Americans
deal with eventually led to the creation of NLM or Native Lives Matter which
roughly has the same message. That message being to reform the justice system
and fix the chronic issues that plague Native American people the same way it
does the African American community. Those who created NLM are Akicita
Sunka-Wakan Ska from the Cheyenne River and Standing Rock Sioux tribes and the
Lakota tribes. In their organization they call for the rights that they were
granted in 1924 as American citizens, and to, as I’ve mentioned before, fix the
issues on way Native Americans are profiled so harshly, especially Native
American women who are 6 times as likely to admitted to prison as a white
woman. [8] In fact, plenty of charges that send Native American people to jail,
are often dropped against whites guilty of the same crime, continuing the
issues that African Americans also face.
Overall, the
problems that Native Americans face could be negated with the proper government
in power that truly believes in restoring the rights of these downtrodden
people. This government hopefully would also reform the justice system to be
able to bring people back and make them productive citizens of society rather
than being thrown away to be forgotten about. That, and making the police receive
sensitivity training along with allowing tribes to govern themselves more can
only help everyone involved with this complex and ineffective justice system.
Sources:
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