Native American Press/Ojibwe News Articles

Crime & Punishment for "Indians"

By Clara NiiSka - July 20, 2001
Arresting Indians under State jurisdiction
Minnesota Crime Information, 1999, released by the Department of Public Safety last year, detailed crime statistics for Minnesota compiled by the Bureau of Criminal Apprehension. The statistics included in that report were, according to DPS Commissioner Charlie Weaver's cover letter, also provided to the Federal Bureau of Investigation as a part of the National Uniform Crime Reporting program. According to BCA statistician Kathy Leatherman, they are the most recently-released crime statistics detailing arrest rates by race.

Except for the white-collar crimes of fraud and embezzlement, "organized" crimes like narcotics and gambling, and a few other offenses, Indians are at least four times more likely to be arrested in the State of Minnesota than the general population, according to the BCA's 1999 statistics. [See "Offense and Race of Persons …" table, page **] Press/ON has added an interpretive column, "percent Indian," to the BCA's figures, which shows the percentage of people arrested for each crime who were either "observed" to be Indians or were "self-defined" as Indians.

With Indians enumerated at about one percent of the total population in Minnesota, the rate at which Indians were arrested for vagrancy by State authorities - 22.32% of the statewide total - raises questions. Other crimes for which Indians' arrest rates were disproportionately extremely high include aggravated assaults, motor vehicle theft, other assaults, and vandalism. The statistical rate of Indians' arrests for murder is also extremely high - more than 11% of the state's total arrests, out of a total of 151 arrests for murder under state jurisdiction in 1999.

Because of the crazy-quilt jurisdictional situation on Indian reservations, Indians on Minnesota reservations can be also be arrested by BIA or tribal police, or by federal law enforcement officials like FBI agents. State arrest statistics do not include arrests made by the federal and tribal government.

The state Bureau of Criminal Apprehension qualifies its racial breakdown of arrest figures with a cautionary note that, "racial … data must be treated with caution because of the varying circumstances under which such information is recorded or reported …" However, in the narrative "Crime Information" preceding the statistical tables in the DPS's report, "composition of the population with reference particularly to age, sex and race" is specified among the "crime factors" defined by State law enforcement.

It should be noted that the State's high rate of arresting Indians almost certainly comes from several interrelated causes-and that neither racial profiling nor "racially"-based "crime factors" are a complete explanation. Thirty years ago, this writer did an extensive study of reported street-crime in the Summit-University area, examining precinct police records. At that time, there was an extremely high rate of what the police called "unfounded" crime-reports in that part of St. Paul: numerous white residents of that area were reporting to police that they had been robbed by "bands of Indians," especially working-class white men alleging that they had been "robbed" as they staggered home from neighborhood bars after drinking up their paychecks. Times and neighborhoods have changed during the last three decades, but since many arrests are based on citizens' crime reports to police, it is possible that such stereotypes still linger as one factor in the State's arrests of Indians.

Incarcerating Indians in State prisons
An Indian is more than four times as likely to be arrested than a white person, by the state of Minnesota. Statistics detailing Minnesota's rates of criminal conviction by race are not readily available. Arrest and conviction often lead to imprisonment, however, and comparison of Indians' arrest rates and state incarceration rates indicates that once arrested, an Indian is nearly twice as likely as a white person to be convicted and sentenced to prison in Minnesota.

The Foundation for National Progress (FNP), the "umbrella organization" for Mother Jones magazine, released its study, "Behind Bars: Native incarceration rates increase" on Friday, July 13. According to documents obtained by Press/ON, the FNP found that nationwide, about .7% of the Indian population were incarcerated in state prisons in the year 2000, a rate surpassed only by African-Americans, about 1.8% of whom are imprisoned by the states.

"Native Americans"-American Indians and Alaska Natives-are 1% of the total population in state prisons (and 2% of the federal prison population). In Minnesota, according to the FNP, Indians were an extremely disproportionate seven percent of the state prison population last year. Other states with extremely high incarceration rates included Montana (16% of prisoners, 6% of the general population), North Dakota (19% of the prisoners, 5% of the general population), South Dakota (21% of the prisoners, 8% of the general population) and Alaska (37% of the prisoners, 15% of the general population).

County jails
Press/ON has requested arrest and incarceration statistics for certain counties, but at press time had not yet received them. Official figures detailing rates that Indians are jailed in county jails in Minnesota may not available for some counties. One informed source told Press/ON that Beltrami County, for example, had only begun compiling such statistics by "race" during the past few months.

Based on published court reports and informed sources, Press/ON estimates that over 80% of the crimes committed in Beltrami County are by Indians: mostly stolen cars, assaults, burglaries, and crimes arising from domestic and substance abuse. A significant part of the problem derives from recent migrations from the reservations and from the urban "red ghettos" to the Bemidji area, and the consequent community breakdown.
In a recently-released report, U.S. Department of Justice estimated that on June 6, 2000, there were 20,238 Indians incarcerated in county jails nationwide.

Jails in "Indian Country"
In addition to disproportionately high state arrest rates, and even higher rates of imprisonment in county jails, and state and federal prisons, Indians are also confronted with the possibility of being incarcerated in "Indian country" jails: BIA and tribally-run "jails, confinement facilities, detention centers" and "other correctional facilities." According to the Department of Justice report released this month, Jails in Indian Country, 2000, Indian country jails "supervised" 1,799 Indians on June 30, 2000, an increase of 6% from June 1999.

Indians sentenced by either the Indian tribal courts, or the Court of Indian Offenses at Red Lake are incarcerated in "confinement facilities" in "Indian country," or in state and county jails under federal contracts administered by tribal governments. On June 6, 2000, the Department of Justice estimated that 20,238 Indians were in local jails. They found 5,500 Indians in jail in Indian country, 11,085 in state prisons, and 1,878 in federal prisons. There is a high turnover at the sixty-nine "Indian country" jails: during June 2000, 7,151 inmates were admitted and 7,201 were discharged.

The total capacity of these jails is rated at 2,076 persons-the DOJ has planned an increase of 1,108 Indian jail beds before July 2003, including building twelve new "Indian country" jails. Indian country jails were operating at 118% of capacity on a peak day in June 2000, up from 112% in 1999. On its peak day in June 2000, the Pine Ridge Correctional Facility, South Dakota, operated at 391% of capacity, with 86 inmates in custody and a rated capacity of 22. Two other facilities reported packing inmates into jail at more than three hundred percent of their rated capacity: Tohono O'odham Detention Center, Arizona (368%) and the Navajo Department of Corrections in Tuba City, Arizona (318%). At midyear 2000, eleven "Indian country" jails were under a court order or consent decree to limit the number of inmates they housed. Five of these were under multiple court orders or consent decrees, including court orders that Indian inmates be held in a "humane condition." More than an third of the inmates in "Indian country" jails nationwide have not been convicted of any crime: in 1998, 24% of them were innocent; in 1999, 34% were innocent, and in 2000, 38% of the Indians incarcerated in "Indian country" jails were innocent.

Sixteen percent of the people incarcerated in "Indian country" jails were juveniles: 81% of them male, and 16% female. Most of these federally-funded Indian jails do not have separate facilities for juveniles.

In a survey done during December 1999, the DOJ also found that there were 27,690 Indians whose activities were restricted under "community supervision," 28,518 Indians on probation, 4,046 Indians on parole, and 24 Indians on some sort of supervised release under "Indian Country" jurisdiction.

Of those confined inmates who had a "known offense" (half of the inmates in jail at Red Lake, for example, were innocent of any crime): 90% were held for a misdemeanor, ninety-seven were being held for a felony, and seventy-one for other reasons, including protective custody, detoxification, involuntary commitment, and pending charges.
On June 30, 2000, 15% of confined inmates were being held for driving while intoxicated, and 7% for a drug law violation. Fifteen percent of the inmates in custody of Indian country jails were undergoing alcohol or drug detoxification.

In its Jails in Indian Country, 1998 and 1999 report, the DOJ listed five "commonly reported needs" in the jails of "Indian country": · Staff training · Additional correctional officers · New jail equipment · Modify space for special population ·Drug/alcohol treatment program

Jails in Indian Country, 2000 is posted on the internet at http://www.ojp.usdoj.gov/bjs/jails.htm

Red Lake Indian jail:
There is one "Indian country" jail in Minnesota: at Red Lake. On June 6, 2000, there were twenty Indians incarcerated at the "Red Lake Law Enforcement Services" detention center. Eleven of these were juveniles under the age of 18: nine males and two females. Peak inmate population that month was 46, more than twice the Red Lake jail's rated capacity-in its 14 jail cells.

The DOJ plans to triple the Red Lake Band's jail capacity for incarcerating Indians during the next three years. The Red Lake Band held groundbreaking ceremonies for their new Criminal Justice Complex in May, 2001. At that time, the Band had obtained $9.7 million in federal grants. The Red Lake Band's house newspaper reported in its May 25, 2001 that the "total project cost [was] estimated at $12.5 million." The $12.5 million does not include operating costs, nor salaries for the 157 employees at the new Complex.
According to the Department of Justice report, only half of the inmates in the Red Lake Indian jail had been convicted of any crime on the June 6, 2000 survey date. All of the convictions were for misdemeanors: fifteen percent for DWI/DUI and 5% for drug offenses. On the June 6, 2000 survey date, one Indian was being held in detoxification at the Red Lake Indian jail. There is no separate area for holding intoxicated people in the Indian jail. There were 13 attempted suicides and one death in the Red Lake Indian jail in 1998, and 5 reported suicide attempts in 1999. The 2000 report did not include statistics on suicide attempts.

During 1998, the last year for which Press/ON had obtained statistics at press time, there were 139 "new admissions" to the Red Lake Indian jail-statistically speaking, an Indian at Red Lake had about a 20% chance of being jailed that year.

"Native American Issues"
The Newsletter for the Association of State Correctional Administrators (ASCA) addressed "Native American Issues" in its March 1999 issue. In commentary entitled "Native American populations and their prominence in our correctional system," association president Joe Lehman wrote that, "sometimes numbers tell only part of the story. While the population of Native Americans in our correctional systems is a small portion of the whole, correctional administrators have never been more aware of the issues and concerns surrounding this population. The numbers fail to reflect over twenty years of litigation … to establish the maintenance of Native American culture and religious rituals while in prison."

The top five "ranking issues of concern" as reported by the ASCA were: "sweatlodge," "dress code," "visitation," "length of hair," and "diet."