Is Effective Policing Possible on Reservations?

Everyone at minimum knows someone who has been a victim of sexual assault. The candidates took a huge risk last year when they openly voiced their opinions on certain sexual assaults that are legitimate in their eyes. We are trying to educate both men and women about sexual violence, not encourage it as these two were doing. It’s not fair to the victim or their family and friends that they were assaulted. It leaves a permanent scar and fear in their minds and potentially ruins future relationships that the victim may try to pursue. While this report focuses on Native American women who are raped and the fears they face when reporting the rape, the reality is that every race faces the same fears and maybe in greater numbers.

It’s disheartening to hear that federal prosecutors decline to prosecute 67 percent of sexual abuse cases, however, you have to look at the evidence that they are presented with. The victim may either wait to report the rape and they are unable to take the “rape test” to prove that a rape actually occurred and gain enough evidence to pinpoint the offender, the victim could report the rape right away but fail to cooperate with the investigation and the case which is difficult for the prosecutor to build a case or they are unable to locate/pinpoint an offender. When these offenders aren’t punished for their crimes, they continue to think its ok and keep offending and hurting other victims. There’s mixed feelings when it comes to prosecuting offenders – some think certain types of rape is ok while others think the offenders deserve to be sentenced to death for pretty much taking away the victims “normalcy” in his/her life.

The fact that one in three Native women (compared to one in 5 or one in 7 for all races, depending on the study) will be raped at least once in their lifetime, combined with the recent VAWA controversies, is really rather disturbing.. Rape is such an unspeakably heinous crime and for the U.S government to sit back and do nothing is an example of how capitalism erodes moral obligations. If 80% of sex crimes committed on Indian reservations are by the hands of non-Indian men, I think there’s a blatant problem here. I don’t understand why members of Congress don’t feel the importance of protecting basic human rights. To say we cannot prosecute these men in Indian country because they will not get an impartial jury is absurd. And what makes its worse is that an Indian women’s chance of getting the state to prosecute is less than half (33%) and our members of Congress know this; all they’d have to do is sit down and read the stats.

I find it amazing how many abuse and rape cases are not being prosecuted due to the limited ability of the tribal court. Between 1976 and 2009, only 2% of people executed were Native Americans. Only 2.3% of the victims were Native American. To me this shows that there is a lack of reporting maybe due to the fact that there is not much done for these types of crimes and there limitations. Between 1930 and 1972 455 people were executed for the crime of rape. With the severity of the issue of rape in Native American tribe land maybe there sentencing and laws need to be looked at by there tribe and/or our legislature. I know there are certain protections against Native American, however serious crimes such as they should not be looked over.

In the United States the U.S. Attorney requires that all cases for which the death penalty is a legally authorized sanction, they must be reported. It makes me wonder, does this apply to tribal courts as well?

I believe it’s a pattern you will find in the history of nations. It’s like the Anglo-Saxons invading Roman Britain, the Mongols swooping down on Russia, the Aryans subduing the Dravidians, Arabians imposing themselves on North Africa, the Japanese abusing the Chinese. Even the Hebrews returning to Israel from Egypt massacred the Canaanites. I suppose you know well that throughout the Americas, the fate of natives for the most part, has been more or less the same destruction of homes, crops, and religious buildings, eviction from the land of their ancestors, outright extermination and massacre, deaths from famines, diseases smallpox, syphilis, and the like, death of native culture and language.
If the native men took up arms against the white men, and assuming the natives lost, that left the women and children to fend for themselves. If these survivors were unable to defend themselves, unless they killed themselves or fled successfully, the temptation for white men to abuse native women, possible even girls, was probably too great to overcome: one wonders what penalty, if any, was attached to maltreatment or abuse of native women. Abuses against native people continue to this very day in one corner of Brazil, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Colombia and elsewhere. In the past, America, as you know, quartered Indians in Oklahoma. America’s record in treating native people is not exactly a paragon of compassion.

This article upset me when I read “More than 80 percent of sex crimes on reservations are committed by non-Indian men, who are immune from prosecution by tribal courts.” This is dumb. They should not be exempt from being prosecuted because of where they committed the crime. I understand jurisdiction lines and everything- but this is something that needs to be investigated and prosecuted. These reservations are open for anyone to come visit and therefore it should be open for the same laws as everywhere else. We discussed in class that the reservation police officers’ hands are pretty much tied once off the reservation… commit a crime and run off the reservation and you’re a free person. This is wrong of our government to do this, and in a way I believe that this is discrimination. If you commit a crime in one city and run to the next city- we will still pursue you cause we can. There would be no justice if we could not pursue and prosecute outside our boundaries.

This article is very disturbing – how can it continue when we have all these facts and statistics gathered? It is time for the Native American justice system to change and be able to apprehend and prosecute these predators that come onto their land. It is the most ridiculous thing to not be able to follow the men who commit these crimes and arrest them. It does relate to our chapter on gender differences. These Native American women are being treated as less important by saying, sorry we cannot apprehend this man because he has left the reservation. It is time to break the cycle of discrimination against Native Americans.

It doesn’t make any sense to me that tribal police don’t have the power to enforce their laws on non-tribal people. Indian reservations are sovereign nations; they should be able to enforce their laws on anybody that enters their land. If we were to go to another country and commit a horrendous act like rape we would be arrested and prosecuted. It should be no different for Indian reservations. The fact that sex crimes are so high on reservations and that sex crimes go up during hunting seasons should inherently suggest a change in the existing laws. Why do we still treat Americans Indians as second class citizens? If this type of thing was happening on U.S soil there would be a swift response and the perpetrators would be dealt with. But, since this is happening on Indian reservations and they don’t make up a vital portion of the voting population, swift laws to remedy the problem are not so forth coming. I understand that the Federal Government and tribal nations have set forth certain laws and policies when concerning Indian reservations. But, criminal acts are still criminal acts no matter where they are committed and you shouldn’t get a free pass just because you’re on tribal land.