<DOC>
[108 Senate Hearings]
[From the U.S. Government Printing Office via GPO Access]
[DOCID: f:94555.wais]
S. Hrg. 108-628
INDIAN TRIBAL DETENTION FACILITIES
=======================================================================
HEARING
BEFORE THE
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED EIGHTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
ON
OVERSIGHT HEARING ON ISSUES AND PROBLEMS RELATED TO THE CONDITIONS IN
INDIAN TRIBAL DETENTION FACILITIES
__________
JUNE 23, 2004
WASHINGTON, DC
U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE
94-555 WASHINGTON : 2004
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, Colorado, Chairman
DANIEL K. INOUYE, Hawaii, Vice Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona, KENT CONRAD, North Dakota
PETE V. DOMENICI, New Mexico HARRY REID, Nevada
CRAIG THOMAS, Wyoming DANIEL K. AKAKA, Hawaii
ORRIN G. HATCH, Utah BYRON L. DORGAN, North Dakota
JAMES M. INHOFE, Oklahoma TIM JOHNSON, South Dakota
GORDON SMITH, Oregon MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska
Paul Moorehead, Majority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
Patricia M. Zell, Minority Staff Director/Chief Counsel
(ii)
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Statements:
Anderson, David, assistant secretary for Indian Affairs,
Department of the Interior................................. 9
Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado,
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 1
Devaney, Earl, Inspector General, Department of the Interior. 2
Guardipee, Fred, council member, chairman, Health, Education
and Social Services Committee, Blackfeet Tribal Business
Council.................................................... 25
Henke, Tracy, principal deputy assistant attorney general,
Department of Justice...................................... 13
Johnson, Hon. Tim, U.S. Senator from South Dakota............ 2
Juan-Saunders, Vivian, chairman, Tohono O'odham Nation....... 18
MacDonald-Lonetree, Hope, chairman, Navajo Council Public
Safety Committee, Navajo Nation............................ 20
Martin, Darrell, president, Fort Belknap Indian Community
Council.................................................... 24
Richards, Sr., Howard D., chairman, Southern Ute Tribe....... 16
Smith, Hon. Gordon, U.S. Senator from Oregon................. 7
Appendix
Prepared statements:
Anderson, David (with attachment)............................ 39
Campbell, Hon. Ben Nighthorse, U.S. Senator from Colorado,
chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs...................... 31
Daschle, Hon. Tom, U.S. Senator from South Dakota............ 31
Devaney, Earl................................................ 33
Henke, Tracy (with attachment)............................... 281
Juan-Saunders, Vivian........................................ 304
MacDonald-Lonetree, Hope (with attachment)................... 311
Martin, Darrell.............................................. 36
Richards, Sr., Howard D. (with attachment)................... 318
Steele, John Yellow Bird, president, Oglala Sioux Tribe, Pine
Ridge, SD.................................................. 37
Additional material submitted for the record:
Responses to questions from Jane Lyder, Legislative Counsel,
Office of Congressional and Legislative Affairs, Department
of the Interior, Washington, DC............................ 325
INDIAN TRIBAL DETENTION FACILITIES
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23, 2004
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The committee met, pursuant to other business, at 10:15
a.m. in room 485, Russell Senate Building, Hon. Ben Nighthorse
Campbell (chairman of the committee) presiding.
Present: Senators Campbell, Inouye, Johnson, and Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. BEN NIGHTHORSE CAMPBELL, U.S.
SENATOR FROM COLORADO, CHAIRMAN, COMMITTEE ON
INDIAN AFFAIRS
The Chairman. We will now convene our hearing for the
morning. I will tell all of our witnesses who are in the
audience, though, we are told we are going to have five votes
in a row at 11:15 a.m., so we have a choice of finishing this
up by 11:15 or waiting and coming back in about 2 hours from
now, and I do not think most of our witnesses are going to want
to do that. So I would ask all of our witnesses to be
relatively brief. We will include all of your written
testimony, but if you will try to keep it down to about 5
minutes apiece or so, I think we can get through it and still
have some time to ask some questions.
This committee's oversight hearing is on issues and
problems related to conditions in tribal detention facilities.
Several weeks ago, this issue caught my attention when I read a
series of articles regarding a Federal probe on tribal prison
deaths in the newspaper, USA Today and other newspapers as
well.
The articles spoke about abuse, neglect, and inhumane
conditions, overcrowding as well as staffing shortages, inmate
access to weapons and poor prisoner monitoring and supervision.
In fact, one story reported that the lack of prison monitoring
resulted tragically in the death of a 16-year-old girl. I
believe that is not only deplorable, but inexcusable and just
should not be happening.
In order to determine exactly what has happened and what is
happening, and what we can do about it, this morning the
committee will hear from witnesses from Federal agencies and
Indian tribes to share their thoughts and experiences with us.
I will submit my full statement for the record, in light of our
short time.
[Prepared statement of Chairman Campbell appears in
appendix.]
The Chairman. Senator Johnson, did you have any opening
statement on this issue before we proceed?
STATEMENT OF HON. TIM JOHNSON, U.S. SENATOR FROM SOUTH DAKOTA
Senator Johnson. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a
couple of comments. There are numerous problems in Indian
country today that require immediate attention. Unfortunately,
we are faced with a crisis surrounding the state of our
detention facilities.
If the conditions of our off-reservation facilities were
found in the same conditions as many of our reservation
facilities, there would be widespread public outrage. We are
grateful for new construction going on in my State of South
Dakota, but it has been a constant battle to receive
appropriate maintenance and staffing funding.
One of the prominent problems that needs immediate
attention is the lack of appropriate care given to juveniles.
Juveniles must not be held in the same holding cells as adults.
This is a safety issue, among other things. In Crow Creek,
young people, many of them juveniles who had attempted or were
suspected of committing suicide, were being held in the only
jail facility on the reservation, a condemned adult detention
facility. That is simply unacceptable. We have to do better to
address the situation and I look forward to reviewing the
recommendations that arise as a result of this hearing.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Johnson.
We will now start with our first witness, Earl Devaney, the
Inspector General, Department of the Interior, Washington, DC.
Welcome, Inspector General Devaney. If you would go ahead and
proceed. As I mentioned, your complete testimony will be in the
record. You can abbreviate if you wish.
STATEMENT OF EARL DEVANEY, INSPECTOR GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF THE
INTERIOR
Mr. Devaney. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am pleased to be
here today to speak about Indian detention centers in Indian
country.
In September 2003, my office began an assessment of these
facilities. I initiated this assessment following a
conversation with the Chair of the Attorney General's Advisory
Committee on Indian country, U.S. Attorney Thomas Heffelfinger,
who had expressed his concerns to me about overcrowding and
poor conditions in Indian country jails. I then discovered that
these same concerns have been articulated for years by the
Department of Justice in a variety of reports. My office had
also begun to receive anecdotal reports of appalling conditions
at detention facilities in Indian country.
With all this information, I felt compelled to address
these concerns immediately. I would like to point out that we
began our assessment well before the confirmation of Assistant
Secretary Anderson and prior to any of the recent media
disclosures of allegations made by a former BIA law enforcement
official.
While we have completed all of our planned site visits, we
have not finished our analytical work, nor have we even written
a draft report. However, given the committee's interest in this
issue, I would gladly share with the committee the same
concerns I shared with Secretary Norton in April of this year
when I gave her an interim report on the deplorable conditions
we were finding at some of these facilities.
For many years, the BIA's detention program has been
characterized as drastically understaffed, underfunded, and
poorly managed. Unfortunately, we have now reached a similar
conclusion. Simply stated, BIA's detention program is riddled
with problems, and in our opinion is a national disgrace, with
many facilities having conditions comparable to those found in
third world countries.
Unfortunately, BIA appears to have had a laissez faire
attitude in regard to these horrific conditions at these
detention facilities. In most of the 27 facilities we have
visited, basic jail administration procedures are not followed,
and many detention managers and their staff have not received
professional certified training in how to run a detention
facility. In fact, BIA OLES officials admitted to us that none
of their detention facilities come close to even meeting BIA
standards for operations, which supposedly derive from
nationally recognized detention standards.
Based on our visits, we discovered that serious incidents
are almost never communicated up the chain of command. In fact,
during the last 3-year timeframe, we found well over 500
serious incidents, including deaths, suicide attempts and
escapes that were either undocumented or not reported to BIA's
Office of Law Enforcement Services.
We learned 10 deaths from the facilities we visited. Five
of these deaths were suicides and five were non-suicides.
Inexplicably, only five of these deaths were reported to OLES.
Among those deaths reported to OLES was the recent death of a
16-year-old student who died while in a detention cell at the
Chemawa Indian Boarding School in Oregon. This case is under
active investigation by my office, in conjunction with the U.S.
Attorney's office in Portland, OR.
Based on our findings, suicide attempts appear to be a
regular occurrence at many of these facilities. At one facility
in Washington State, there have been an alarming 53 suicide
attempts within the last 3 years. None of those incidents were
reported to OLES.
At many of the facilities, we found multiple suicide
attempts made by the same inmate. For example, during 2001 an
individual detained at a detention facility in New Mexico
attempted to hang himself seven separate times using articles
of clothing or towels left in the cell. The corrections
officer's response was quite elementary. If the inmate tried to
hang himself with his socks, take the socks away. If the inmate
tried to hang himself with a towel, take the towel away. Until
finally, the inmate was left in the cell without any clothing
or any towels.
For the most part, the corrections officers at these
facilities convey stories of prisoner escapes with an air of
casual inevitability. We found that some facilities do not even
notify local law enforcement of prisoner escapes. This is not
only disconcerting, but it is irresponsible to allow escaped
prisoners to travel freely in the community while local law
enforcement authorities have no information about their
escapes.
One of the most common problems we found while visiting
these facilities is a lack of staffing. This factor has an
enormous impact on officer safety. In many cases, having only
one correctional officer on duty per shift is not unusual. It
is actually common practice. One BIA district commander told
us, ``every officer here has been assaulted.''
Aside from the lack of officers on staff, the current
officers at these facilities are for the most part poorly
trained. This lack of training not only hinders the officers'
ability to properly document incidents and follow standard
procedures, but also leaves the officers unprepared to prevent
physical harm that may be targeted against them or against
other inmates. One district commander quipped, ``most BIA
standards cannot be met, so why even try?''
In addition to officer safety, the safety of inmates
themselves must be considered. Officers who are improperly
trained and who have not undergone a thorough background
investigation may become a liability. Recently, a corrections
officer at an Indian youth detention center in Montana was
convicted of raping a 17-year-old female inmate while
transporting her to a medical facility.
During my discussions with the Secretary in April, I made a
number of recommendations to her, including instituting new
reporting protocols and the prompt investigation by BIA of any
serious incidents. I was pleased by her immediate response to
my briefing. Following our meeting, she tasked Associate Deputy
Secretary James Cason, along with Assistant Secretary Dave
Anderson, to begin addressing the concerns that I had raised.
To assist them in this effort, she also made a request to DOJ
for an experienced corrections professional from the Bureau of
Prisons to be detailed to BIA. I am now beginning to detect a
new sense of urgency about these concerns at BIA.
Finally, Mr. Chairman, the responsibility for these
failings we have found at Indian detention facilities cannot be
attributed to any particular individual or administration. Some
of these problems are decades old, thus the solutions will not
be easy to achieve and may take considerable time, effort and
additional funding. Nothing, however, less than a herculean
effort to turn these conditions around would be morally
acceptable.
Mr. Chairman, this concludes my oral remarks. I would
welcome the opportunity to answer any questions from you or any
of the members of the committee.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Devaney appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Devaney. I have several
questions and I think other members have several, too, and some
we will put in writing to you.
First of all, what percent of tribal police or corrections
officers on reservations attend Federal training through FLETC?
Mr. Devaney. I think it is actually a requirement, Mr.
Chairman. The problem is that the moneys that are made
available for this training are not always there. So you might
have, for instance, a corrections officer being brought on
board and not get to that training for 2 or 3 years. We
actually found cases where officers had been at the facility
for multiple years without that training. I think the intention
is to give everybody that training, but it is a matter of money
and getting the opportunity to send these folks there.
The Chairman. Give me some feedback on this. I visited one
reservation and asked them why they were having such retention
trouble keeping either tribal policemen or corrections
officers, and I do not know if this is true or not, or if it is
throughout all Indian country or not, but they told me that
that particular reservation, the policemen are only law
enforcement officials when they are on duty, and the
corrections officers when they were off duty had no police
powers. Consequently, the police, as an example, would arrest
someone and then when they got off duty, guess what? The first
time the people got out that they arrested, they would lay for
them and there would be some altercation, and the guys that did
the arresting would end up getting beat up. Did you find
anything along that line in this investigation?
Mr. Devaney. To be honest with you, sir, we did not find
that, but it would not surprise me that that is the situation.
It is very, very difficult to recruit corrections officers.
The Chairman. Have you visited any facilities personally,
the 74 facilities?
Mr. Devaney. Yes; I had an opportunity to. I wanted to
visit one because I thought it would be appropriate if I did.
So I did go with a team out to the Yakama Detention Facility in
Yakama, WA last month. I could make a few observations. Before
I was the Inspector General, I spent about 30 years in Federal
law enforcement. I have been in hundreds, maybe thousands of
jails, State, local, and Federal during my career.
I have seen some jails as unclean or in poor condition as
this jail. But I have never seen jails that are so prone to
suicide or easy to escape from, and so dangerous to not only
officers that work in these jails, but dangerous to the inmates
as well.
Quite coincidentally, Yakama turned out to have the highest
number of suicide attempts, 53 in the last 3 years. I can
recall visiting in a cell with a young woman who told me that
she had not been outside in over 5 days. I then turned to the
officer that was giving the tour, and I said, ``well, when can
she expect to be outside.'' He said, probably not for another
week.
The Chairman. Some of those conditions, wouldn't you
consider a violation of basic civil rights?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think so, yes. I think 12 days without
seeing sunshine in a windowless cell could drive someone to
attempt suicide. I would note for you that the standards, for
instance, for the State of Virginia for condemned inmates is
that they get outside 1 hour a day for 5 days a week. So there
is quite a parity difference here.
The Chairman. Of the 74 facilities, 20 are operated by the
BIA and 46 are operated by tribes under contract. Did your
auditors find any qualitative differences in how the tribal
facilities were run or compare with the BIA-operated ones?
Which ones were in better shape, if there was a conclusion to
that?
Mr. Devaney. First of all, as I mentioned earlier, we only
visited 27 of the 74 facilities. Of those 27, 12 were operated
by BIA and 15 were 638 facilities. In terms of some of the
better facilities we found, quite frankly, they were 638 jails.
We found that some of those jails were, even despite the poor
condition, the physical conditions of the jails, they actually
had very good management, former corrections folks running
those jails. Somehow they were making it happen even over and
above the lousy maintenance and the poor conditions that we
found there.
So from a perspective of some of the better things we saw,
they were principally at the 638 jails.
The Chairman. I am glad you mentioned that, because some of
us think around here that Indians can run their own affairs a
whole lot better than the Government can anyway. So that is
good. I live at Southern Ute which has, in my view, one of the
newer and better-run jails in the country, and that gets done
under the 638 program.
You mentioned that most of the facilities you visited
failed to follow basic jail administrative procedures. Is there
any national framework for procedures that go out through the
BIA that tribes adhere to?
Mr. Devaney. That is something I think BIA's detention
program is going to have to work on. There are, of course,
national correctional standards at the Federal level, at the
State level and most counties have those standards. BIA
purports to model their standards after those correctional
standards, but I think a lot of work needs to be done to bring
those in line.
The Chairman. And your review found nearly 500 serious
incidents not being reported to the BIA office or law
enforcement services. In reading notes provided by staff, I am
very sorry to say that 41 suicide attempts were attempted in
the last 3 years in Lame Deer, MT where I happen to be
enrolled. I was not aware that it was that bad, very frankly.
Did your auditors find out why these cases were not
reported, the 500 that were not?
Mr. Devaney. Well, I think there are probably a variety of
reasons for that. Sometimes it is a matter of they did not know
they were supposed to report these incidents. Other times, we
were told, quite frankly, Mr. Chairman, we rarely found
correctional officials that had anything good to say about
BIA's detention program. In fact, in that jail that I visited,
the Yakama detention facility, the chief told me that he had
not seen or heard from BIA in 5 years.
So there is a disconnect there. I am hopeful that the folks
that the Secretary has put in charge of fixing this problem
will address those issues.
The Chairman. Another report I have heard over and over is
that they do not have adequate separate facilities for men and
women, and sometimes the interaction between them leads to some
real problems of rape or intimidation or so on. Did you find
that also?
Mr. Devaney. Yes; we did. We found incidents where
unfortunately female inmates were put in with male inmates,
inadvertently, but nonetheless it happened, and bad things
happen when that occurs. Of course, there is the issue that was
raised earlier on the juvenile facilities, and the fact that
juveniles almost on a regular basis are housed in some of these
jails in situations which actually the law forbids them to be
housed in.
There is the sight and sound provision in the regulations
that suggests that juveniles should not be within sight and
sound of adult prisoners. We found widespread abuse of that
particular regulation.
The Chairman. I see. I have some further questions I would
like to submit in writing, if you would get back to us, but I
want to move along because of the impending votes.
Mr. Devaney. Yes, sir.
The Chairman. Before I yield to our vice chairman, Senator
Smith has shown up. Did you have any opening comments before we
move along with our questions?
Senator Smith. I will put those in the record.
The Chairman. Okay.
Senator Smith. I do have some questions.
The Chairman. All right, fine.
Senator Inouye.
Senator Inouye. I just have one question, Mr. Chairman. I
note that up until fiscal year 2003, the Department of Justice
was expending about $34 million a year for facilities, and
suddenly the following year it dropped to $5 million and now it
is $2 million. Can you explain why?
Mr. Devaney. I really cannot. I know there is a witness
from DOJ that is going to follow, so maybe that witness could.
There is an issue in our minds about the disconnect between the
facilities that BIA would like to see built in terms of
priority, and the facilities that actually get the grants at
the end of the day. At some level, that process needs to work
better.
There needs to be a better coordination between DOI and DOJ
to ensure that the actual facilities that need to be built are
the ones that are being built, and that there is not a
difference of opinion between DOI and DOJ. There may be some
difference of opinion at the end of the day, but a closer
coordination is clearly called for here. Monies should not be
given to the best grant writer.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much. I would like to submit
other questions.
The Chairman. Thank you.
In the order of appearance, Senator Johnson, you were next.
Senator Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you,
Mr. Devaney. I think this is very sobering testimony you have
provided to the committee.
The only question I would have this morning would be your
investigation is ongoing. Can you give us any sense of when the
final report would be issued?
Mr. Devaney. Sir, we are targeting the end of the summer. I
would say late August or early September.
Senator Johnson. Very good. We look forward to that. This
is one report that I hope will not be one of those gathering
dust reports, but will be truly an impetus to very major action
on the part of this committee and this Congress. Thank you.
The Chairman. Senator Smith.
STATEMENT OF HON. GORDON SMITH, U.S. SENATOR FROM OREGON
Senator Smith. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Mr. Devaney, thank
you for being here.
As I listened to your testimony, frankly, I am fearful we
have an epidemic, and this BIA really needs to get on top of
this. We need to make sure they have the resources. Normally,
we do not think of jails as suicide prevention centers, but
frankly that may be what we have to begin factoring in.
You mentioned the case of Cindy Sohappy from the Chemawa
Indian School in Salem, OR. Representing the State of Oregon, I
have particular concern about what happened there. It is
clearly not the Department of the Interior's fault that she
drank so much that she killed herself. But clearly, if we have
places where we hold them; if education and prevention of
alcohol abuse have failed and you resort to detention, there
ought to be some way to monitor, help and medically assist
those who because of their own choices and actions put
themselves in such grave danger.
I echo the comments of all of my colleagues that I hope the
Department will put in place procedures, systems, and
facilities that are equal to what is clearly an epidemic
problem. So I do not know that I have a question other than can
you give us any more information as to what has happened to
Cindy, what might be done differently in the future, and then
adjust the admonition to deal with a crisis.
Mr. Devaney. Senator, as I mentioned earlier, that case is
under active investigation. We are working with the U.S.
Attorney's office, and the U.S. Attorney in Oregon is obviously
quite interested in this case. So I hesitate to say a whole lot
about the investigation or where we might be headed. But having
said that, I personally was shocked to find a detention center
or a detention cell, if you will, and this was a cell. This was
like any jail cell in any jail we have ever seen on television,
at a boarding school, and particularly unmanned by a
professional. At the time, I think, of her death, there was a
woman who I understand is some sort of a dormitory counselor
who could have observed a television screen to see this child
in crisis, but apparently did not.
When I was told about this, I was not interested, quite
frankly, in assessing blame at that level. I am interested in
knowing who knew about this condition and for how long and why
did they let it exist. I will stop short of giving you too many
details, but we are working our way up the chain of command on
both the law enforcement side and the school side of BIA to
figure out who knew what and when and how far up that was.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Devaney. I appreciate your
time. I am going to ask you to do something for us that I am
going to ask all of the witnesses today, and that is we
obviously have a big problem in Indian country with law
enforcement. If you have any recommendations how we can help
from the standpoint of framing up legislation. I do not know if
the answer is just more money, although obviously the resources
in the form of money certainly help. But if you would give the
committee some recommendations of how we might try to make it
better, I would appreciate it.
Mr. Devaney. I would be glad to do that.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Devaney. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you for being here.
Our next witnesses will be Dave Anderson, Assistant
Secretary of Interior; and Tracy Henke, the Deputy Assistant
Attorney General at the Department of Justice.
As with the last witness, your complete testimony will be
in the record. If you would abbreviate, that would be fine.
Nice to see you, Dave.
STATEMENT OF DAVID ANDERSON, ASSISTANT SECRETARY FOR INDIAN
AFFAIRS, DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Anderson. Good morning, Mr. Chairman and Mr. Vice
Chairman, and members of the committee. My name is David
Anderson, Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs.
Thank you for allowing me to speak today about the
Administration's vision to improve the Bureau of Indian
Affairs' [BIA] detention center program. Recent events have
highlighted the need to continue to implement improvements, in
addition to those changes already underway. The ultimate goal
is to improve the delivery of services to tribes and
individuals who are serviced by the Bureau's owned and funded
detention facilities.
Until the 1960's, jail construction on Indian lands was
very limited. The Department of Justice, Law Enforcement
Administration assistance grants were provided for the
construction of jails in Indian country. Many of these
facilities, now 40 years old, are still in operation today. All
of the detention centers present many challenges such as
ongoing maintenance and needed improvement to these aging high-
use facilities.
There are 75 confinement facilities, detention centers,
jails and other facilities to be referred to in this testimony
as detention centers, operated by tribal authorities or the
Bureau of Indian Affairs in Indian country. Thirty-nine
facilities are Bureau-owned; 19 facilities are Bureau-operated.
Three of these detention centers do not house inmates and are
used for law enforcement offices. The remaining 36 detention
centers are owned and operated by tribes, either independently
or through Public Law 93-638 contracts or self-governance
compacts. All of the Indian detention facilities are designed
for short-term detention and have difficulties accommodating
long-term sentences.
In February 2004, when I became assistant secretary, I was
briefed on Indian country detention programs and the ongoing
challenges related to physical conditions and management
structure. I want to thank Mr. Devaney and his office for
bringing this to my attention. At this briefing, I immediately
determined that critical improvements were needed, in addition
to those that were already underway.
Since February, we have taken immediate and proactive steps
to identify the deficiencies at these detention centers and
take appropriate action. I would just like to say that prior to
my coming on board, my previous background was in the
restaurant industry where we take the health, safety and
welfare of our guests to be the highest priority. When I was
made aware of this by Mr. Devaney, I took the same reaction,
that this was a very important priority and I tackled that
problem with a sense of urgency. In fact, within the first 24
hours, I had gathered members of my staff and discussed a
detailed plan of action that I wanted taken and expressed that
the current conditions of the Bureau's detention facilities
were totally unacceptable to me.
Within the next 48 hours, we had assembled a task force to
start working on this problem. By the end of the week, we had
mobilized over 100 people to start our own investigation
throughout Indian country, especially the Bureau facilities
that we run, to take and do an investigation on what was
actually taking place.
I just want to highlight that. I cannot answer for what
happened before, but upon my hearing about it, we did not waste
one day; we acted immediately to start putting things in place.
Even though it is not in my testimony, I would like to
address the concerns that you have regarding Chemawa. Like Mr.
Devaney, since it is under active investigation, I cannot
comment specifically on it. But I want to share with you that
when I had heard about this, we stopped that practice of
holding children in detention cells. There are currently no
detention cells in our school systems that are being used.
In addition, we also implemented a safety procedure that if
any of our children are inebriated, that we have totally
changed how they are treated. They are immediately sent to a
hospital and placed under a physicians' care until they can be
released. When they are released, and brought back, they are
under supervision. There are many things that we have
implemented regarding the health and safety of our youth, so an
incident like the one at Chemawa's should never happen again.
Also, even though it is not in my testimony, one of the
things that we did was to stop including juveniles adult
facility. we have stopped that process immediately. There are
no juveniles being held in adult facilities. It has caused some
problems in the past, but we have put a stop to that practice.
It is important to get across we have not treated this as
business as usual. We have taken this to be a high priority and
have treated it with a sense of urgency and immediacy.
Thirty-nine of the Bureau-owned detention centers were
inspected for operational health and safety concerns by March
10, 2004. The 20 worst detention centers that are owned by the
Bureau were also inspected for structural, plumbing, electrical
and environmental concerns by March 10, 2004. The remaining 19
were inspected for structural, plumbing, electrical and
environmental concerns by June 1, 2004.
Inspections were completed in compliance with BIA handbooks
that are based upon national standards such as the American
Correctional Association standards, uniform building codes,
national fire life safety codes, and all pertinent
environmental standards. Thirty-nine Bureau-owned detention
centers were inspected to determine necessary repairs, whether
minor or major. All needed repairs were entered into the
Bureau's facility and management computer information system
for tracking of project completion and full financial
accountability.
I would like to further comment that our staff put in a
very herculean effort to put this report together so that I
would have correct and full information; so that I knew what I
was dealing with. I would like to acknowledge the work done our
staff on that.
The Chairman. Can we have that report? I do not think we
have a copy of that report. Could you provide that so we can
include that in our record?
Mr. Anderson. Yes.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Mr. Anderson. This year, in 2004, we have dedicated a total
of $6.4 million to address normal annual facilities operations,
as well as facilities safety and environmental deficiency
concerns. Prior to that, the budget was $1.4 million. Within
the first several weeks, we had identified another $2 million,
and since then we have raised that to a total of $6.4 million.
I think it shows that we have reacted swiftly to take care of
the things that we could do immediately.
About 84 percent of this funding has already been
distributed to the detention centers for completion of
identified repairs and normal annual operating expenses. In
addition, about 45 percent of these immediate repairs have been
completed since we started this.
The Office of Facilities Management and Construction and
the Office of Law Enforcement Services have already begun
corrective actions to reduce threats of harm to life and
property. These actions include, number one, closing unsafe
facilities, revising procedures for reporting and reviewing
serious accidents, which was one of the concerns of Mr.
Devaney's office, the reporting. I would also like to recognize
Mr. Walt Lamar who is our Acting Director for Law Enforcement.
He is here with me. If necessary, he is willing to help answer
questions.
I would like to say that he has done a terrific job. He has
set up a war room in the Department of the Interior, bringing
in his best officers. They have been working night and day.
They have worked through weekends and even this past weekend,
missing Father's Day, to work on restructuring our reporting
procedures.
A lot has happened, and I want to say that much of this has
happened even before it was brought up in the newspapers. I
want to assure the committee that this was not something that
just happened because there was something in the newspapers;
these officers have done a remarkable job considering the
constraints that they are under. We have good police officers
and I know they are. I would like to recognize that before this
committee.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Anderson appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. I am pleased to see that the Department of
the Interior and the Bureau takes the issue so seriously, and
that you have provided some very strong leadership in trying to
correct it.
Let me ask you a couple of things. I think there is a
movement, or maybe not a movement, but certainly some
discussion about whether it would be wiser to try to establish
regional correctional facilities, rather than having every
tribe have one. What would your view be on that?
Mr. Anderson. I think that is something we are considering.
We are looking at being able to maximize the resources that we
do have. It is something that is being looked at.
The Chairman. The second thing is that some tribes, as I
understand, they have, for lack of a better term I guess, over-
capacity. They have more cells. They have more space than they
need. They are renting those out to other tribes, which helps
offset the cost of running the facility, too. Is that something
the Bureau encourages?
Mr. Anderson. I think that what we are doing is using
whatever facilities are available. I think in some instances we
have extra space. In other facilities, we find ourselves
overcrowded. We have had to move prisoners to appropriate
facilities.
The Chairman. Have you initiated any special training or
partnerships with other agencies to try to reduce the terrible
suicide attempts in BIA jails?
Mr. Anderson. Yes, sir; we have. We have recently met with
the Department of Health and Human Services. We have also been
working with Justice. I would like to say this, you know, the
suicides that happen are not a product of detention centers.
The Chairman. Yes; they come in with emotional problems or
additions to drug or alcohol or something, and that is
contributing.
Mr. Anderson. This is one of my concerns as assistant
secretary. I have gone on record that we need to declare war on
drugs, alcohol and gangs in Indian country. As you are aware, I
have spent much of my time visiting tribes in the short time I
have been on board, and have visited almost 40 schools
throughout Indian country in talking to our Indian youth. I
really believe that the high suicide, high alcoholism and
substance abuse, the dropout rate and the unemployment in
Indian country are not a result of Federal interference, but it
are really a result of young people growing up without hope.
We had an opportunity to talk the other day. One of my
goals is to be able to work within our school systems to turn
our schools into leadership academies, to start addressing the
mental health of our children, being able to teach them success
principles because I really believe that when our young people
do not have hope in their future, that this is what causes the
despair. I really believe that one of my roles and the reason
why I was brought on board, because I think you could have
found many other people that could have addressed some of the
trust issues and other things like that, but I really believe
that the message that I bring to Indian country is that as
Indian people, we have a future; if we work together, we can
achieve great things. That is the message that our children
need to hear.
The Chairman. I commend you for that attitude. It is sorely
needed. Thank you.
One other thing, the Department of Justice said in their
testimony that there are roughly 500 unreported incidents. Is
there any changes in detention staff being trained or something
on how to report incidents in the Bureau's jails?
Mr. Anderson. Yes, sir; there is. Again, as I stated
earlier, we have treated this with an immediacy, a sense of
urgency, to the point that we have a war room within the
Department. It is something to see, we have taken every aspect
of law enforcement and detention centers and we are addressing
every single issue. We have 32 high-priority elements that we
feel must be taken care of or we are going to continue to
experience these same problems.
One of our priorities is the reporting of suicides and
attempted escapes. I will share with you that throughout law
enforcement the Department and the Bureau know that this is of
the utmost concern to me. It is something that I do not take
lightly, and it is something that we have implemented as part
of the job performance.
The Chairman. Thank you. Again, thank you for your
leadership on this issue.
Senator Inouye, did you have questions of Secretary
Anderson?
Senator Inouye. Just a couple of questions.
Mr. Secretary, I want to commend you for the proactive
attitude you have adopted and for the work carried out by you
and your team. I think it is safe to assume that these
conditions existed before you took over. Was BIA notified of
these conditions? Does the record show that they knew about it?
Or did it suddenly become obvious?
Mr. Anderson. I cannot answer what happened before me. I do
know that it is being investigated by Mr. Devaney and his
office. I will assure you that when I came on board, that not 1
day went by before we took action on it. I believe that the
health, safety, and welfare of our Indian people or those who
are non-Indian who are within our jurisdiction are a very high
priority and the issues raise by Mr. Devaney should be treated
with the utmost of urgency.
Senator Inouye. I have participated in many hearings, and
this is one of the most depressing, obviously. If you had to
select one facility or one tribe as having a good arrangement,
can you pick one so we can have a model prison? Is there such a
thing? I would like to have something positive in the record.
[Laughter.]
Mr. Anderson. We have the Southern Ute who will be
testifying. They are highly regarded for the work that they
have done within their law enforcement and detention center.
Senator Inouye. So this is a model that Indian country
should look at?
Mr. Anderson. Yes.
Senator Inouye. Thank you, sir.
The Chairman. Chairman Richards of the Southern Utes is
here and he will be testifying. We will ask him some particular
questions about that facility.
Now we will move to Ms. Henke. If you could go ahead and
proceed. The same thing, we will submit some questions for the
record and please abbreviate.
STATEMENT OF TRACY HENKE, PRINCIPAL DEPUTY ASSISTANT ATTORNEY
GENERAL, DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
Ms. Henke. Certainly. Due to time, I will abbreviate
Mr. Chairman, Vice Chairman Inouye, my name is Tracy Henke
and I do serve as the Deputy Associate Attorney General for the
Department of Justice. I want to thank you for the opportunity
to discuss the Department's limited role with tribal detention
facilities.
There are two groups of Indian offenders who may be in
Federal custody. First, there are prisoners who have committed
an offense under Federal law. Often, these offenses fall under
18 USC Sections 1152 and 1153. Section 1153 is known as the
Major Crimes Act and 1152 is the Indian Country Crimes Act.
Offenders in this category are under the jurisdiction of the
Bureau of Prisons and not in Indian tribal facilities.
The second group of prisoners have committed offenses under
tribal law. Indian prisoners in this group are under the
jurisdiction of the tribe whose law has been violated. As part
of their inherent sovereignty, Indian tribes have jurisdiction
to prosecute all crimes committed under tribal law by Indians
in Indian country. These prisoners are generally in facilities
operated by the BIA or the tribal government.
The Department of Justice's involvement with Indian country
detention facilities is generally limited to our correctional
facilities on tribal lands program. This program provides funds
to American Indian and Alaska Native tribes to construct
correctional facilities on tribal lands for the incarceration
of offenders subject to tribal jurisdiction.
Specifically, the Department of Justice has administered
tribal correctional facility grants. It is important to
understand that these grants are statutorily limited to brick
and mortar construction costs only. Grantees are responsible
for fully supporting, operating and maintaining these
correctional facilities.
Since the inception of funding of the program, the
Department of Justice has provided funding to 23 tribes for
jail construction. Of these 23 facilities, 8 facilities are
exclusively juvenile, 12 are combined adult-juvenile; and 3 are
exclusively adult. All 23 tribes are actively implementing
design or construction initiatives. Some have added beds to
existing facilities, but most involve new construction.
Proposed facilities range in size from 8 to 68 beds.
In addition to the correctional facilities on tribal lands
program, the Department's Bureau of Justice Statistics compiles
statistics relating to detention facilities in Indian country.
In November 2003, the BJS published Jails in Indian country
2002, the most recent survey of adult and juvenile detention
centers in Indian country. Data for this bulletin was obtained
by mailed questionnaires, accompanied by phone calls and faxes.
In total, 68 of the facilities in Indian country responded. For
the committee's review, copies of the bulletin, as well as the
questionnaire, have been provided to the committee.
It is important to note that while the Bureau of Justice
Statistics Bulletin contains statistical information about the
Indian detention facilities, it does not gather information
regarding conditions in jails. As the Administration, through
the BIA, works to improve Indian detention facilities, the
Department of Justice will continue to assist as we are able.
Most recently, as pointed out, an experienced administrator
from the Department's Bureau of Prisons, has been detailed to
the BIA to assist in the development of strategies to improve
the delivery of detention services in Indian country. The
Department of Justice looks forward to this opportunity to work
with the Department of the Interior to address this issue.
Mr. Chairman, this Administration, specifically Attorney
General John Ashcroft, has pledged to honor our Federal trust
responsibility and to work with sovereign Indian nations on a
government-to-government basis. The Attorney General and the
entire Justice Department will honor this commitment and
continue to assist tribal justice systems in their effort to
promote safe communities.
As you have pointed out, Mr. Chairman, often the most
effective solutions to address the problems facing Indians and
the tribes come from the tribes themselves. Our role is to help
them to develop and implement their own law enforcement
detention and criminal justice strategies.
This concludes my statement. I am happy to answer any
questions that you might have.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Henke appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you. Just a couple of quick questions.
You mentioned the funding that the DOJ has provided. How is
that funding distributed? Does it go through the Bureau?
Ms. Henke. Actually, sir, the funding that has been
provided, Congress has specifically directed the Department on
where those funds are to go.
The Chairman. Okay. Is there a formula for that, based on
the number of enrolled people in the tribe?
Ms. Henke. It is done through congressional earmarks
through the appropriations process.
The Chairman. I see.
Also, you stated that an experienced administrator was
assigned to help the Bureau develop strategies to improve
detention facilities services. How long has that person been in
that position? Have you measured any progress in that period of
time?
Ms. Henke. He has only been there about two weeks.
The Chairman. Okay.
Senator Inouye, do you have further questions?
Senator Inouye. Ms. Henke, if I may ask, for fiscal year
2000 until 2002, the Justice Department devoted about $35
million in funding to tribal detention facilities. Then in
fiscal year 2003, it went down to $5 million and then in 2004,
to $2 million. Can you explain why?
Ms. Henke. There are a couple of reasons, sir. As pointed
out by the Chairman earlier, not all the facilities were
operating at capacity. On average, according to the Bureau of
Justice Statistics report, during the month of June 2002, the
average capacity was approximately 79 percent. In addition to
that, the Administration believes that we have to identify,
because the Department of Justice grant program is only for
construction, not for operation and maintenance et cetera,
funds for those activities have to be identified.
Finally, sir, Congress has not provided the Department of
Justice any discretion in working with the BIA on how to
allocate those resources. Congress has specifically directed.
There has been no disagreement in the past between the BIA and
the Department of Justice on where those resources should go.
We just have not been given the discretion to allocate those
accordingly.
So in making some tough budget decisions, the Department
currently has not requested additional new construction costs.
Senator Inouye. So you are suggesting that the sudden drop
in funding was a congressional decision?
Ms. Henke. Well, Congress has appropriated the dollars and
has specifically earmarked where those funds should go.
Senator Inouye. Did Justice request more funds?
Ms. Henke. The Department of Justice, the Administration,
has not requested additional funds for new construction. We
believe funds need to be identified to address the current
situation facing the current facilities, and those issues are
maintenance and operation, before we request funds for new
construction.
Senator Inouye. Thank you very much.
Ms. Henke. You are welcome.
The Chairman. One follow-up, Ms. Henke. You mentioned that
sometimes the construction is based on earmarks from the Hill
here that does not go through some formula. Would you support
eliminating that current system and going to some kind of a
need-based program that is determined by the Administration?
Ms. Henke. The Administration has stated on numerous
occasions that they do not support the earmarks through the
appropriations process in general. So we would support having
the ability to have a needs-based or additional formula-based
process to distribute those funds.
The Chairman. Okay. I thank both of you for appearing here
today. As with our first panel, if you have any recommendations
how we might get involved to make things a little better, we
would certainly appreciate it.
Mr. Anderson. Thank you.
Ms. Henke. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Dave, and if you have the time you
might want to stay and hear our last panel, or at least some of
our last panel, I think their testimony is very important.
We have Howard Richards, the chairman of the Southern Ute
Tribe; Vivian Juan-Saunders, chairperson of Tohono O'odham
Tribe from Arizona; and Hope MacDonald-Lonetree, chairperson of
the Navajo Council Public Safety Committee; Darrell Martin,
president of Fort Belknap Indian Community Council; and Fred
Guardipee, council member for the Blackfeet Tribe of Montana.
We will go ahead and proceed with Chairman Richards, my
friend and colleague and neighbor from Southern Ute. They have
a facility at Southern Ute that I think very frankly could be a
model for the tribal jails and courts that could be used
nationwide. If any of you have an opportunity to visit that,
you should get a hold of Chairman Richards.
Go ahead and start, Howard.
STATEMENT OF HOWARD D. RICHARDS, Sr., CHAIRMAN, SOUTHERN UTE
TRIBE
Mr. Richards. Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, members of
the committee, thank you for allowing the Southern Ute Tribe to
provide testimony on an age-old issue that has been around
since the Government detention facilities.
I am the chairman of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe from
Ignacio, Colorado. I am not out here to magnify or illustrate
what has already been said to this point. We all understand
that there is a problem in Indian country in the field of
detention facilities, a problem that has existed when I first
became a tribal police officer in 1979. I experienced the
horrors of a government-run detention facility up until my
departure from the tribal police department in 1991, when I was
then elected to the tribal council. So in short, been there,
done that, and seen everything that the issue brings forward
today.
I would just like to offer recommendations based upon what
Southern Ute has experienced. They are five recommendations
that I bring to this committee. Recommendation number one is
that Congress must allocate enough money to build and maintain
facilities that are secure and legally sufficient. Having said
that, the tribe itself funded construction of the new facility
in 1999. Given what was happening in Indian country specific to
Southern Ute, we had enough of the government. We had enough of
the BIA-run program.
The tribe actually funded the total project cost in excess
of $9 million to build the corrections facility at Southern
Ute. Why did we do that? We felt that we would have better
control of the facility outside of 638 contracting with regard
to detention, without the BIA regulations hindering the tribe.
The other reason why we chose to go it alone is that the
Southern Ute Tribal Council looked at rehabilitation of inmates
versus warehousing of inmates as you see today.
The tribe subsidizes the operation and costs by
intergovernmental agreements. Today, we have 18 IGA's with 17
tribes, many of the Pueblo Tribes of New Mexico. We have one
presently with a tribe from California. We have two other IGAs
with the Federal Government, that being the Immigration and
Naturalization Service and the Federal Marshall's program.
Point number two is to allow tribes more flexibility for
involvement in management of Federally funded tribal detention
centers. The flexibility that I am talking about is
rehabilitation that our program, our tribal detention center
has 13 proactive programs. You will find in my testimony that I
submitted, with rehabilitation in mind, that the Southern Ute
Tribal Council wanted the inmates, once they were released from
our detention center to be productive members of the society,
as well as productive members of the Southern Ute Indian Tribe.
Point number three is the need to separate detention from
police functions which is very critical, very important. You
will hear testimony to that. At the Southern Ute Indian Tribe,
detention has been separated. It has a separate administration
and budget. The reason for that is that when we looked at the
Federal funding on the government side, that Federal money for
law enforcement programs usually means detention. Funding takes
a back seat to other spending. We lived with that for many
years, so the attitude in changing to a tribal control where we
would run our own programs and separate that from the police
action.
Point number four is to hire detention professionals to
manage detention centers. That is what the Southern Ute Tribe
did in 1999, with the separation of detention from tribal
police for many reasons. When you hire professionals that deal
only with detention, you have a better control of the inmates.
When you combine police and detention facilities, the majority
of the times, nine out of ten or ten out of ten, you will have
tribal police officers acting as detention officers at that
point, which can be viewed by police officers as punishment for
whatever, or to be utilized as a training grounds. They also
would dispatch for law enforcement in addition to supervising
inmates.
Point number five, for detention, the need to have good
operating policies and procedures in place are very critical,
as found at Southern Ute. Our principal policies are reviewed
on an annual basis. We have adopted the American correctional
standard as far as detention facilities at Southern Ute.
In conclusion, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, we realize
that few tribes can afford to build and operate their own
detention center without any Federal funding, as we have done.
We hope however that our experience and our recommendations
might give you some ideas on how to improve conditions in
Indian tribal corrections facilities.
I want to thank you for inviting me to testify before this
committee. On behalf of the people of the Southern Ute Indian
Tribe, thank you very much.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Richards appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you, Chairman Richards.
We are going to run out of time before we get to ask
everyone questions. So before going to Vivian Juan-Saunders,
let me ask you a couple of things, and Senator Inouye may, too,
before we have to run to vote.
The Southern Utes, a very progressive tribe, have an
alcohol recovery program called Peaceful Spirit. Does that work
in conjunction with the tribe on what you call rehabilitation
of people that are in the jail?
Mr. Richards. That is correct. The inmates have an option
of moving into and taking treatment at the Peaceful Spirit
Center, but also we provide AA-type rehabilitation while they
are incarcerated in the jail itself, in the detention facility.
The Chairman. In that program, you use the modern systems
of rehabilitation, which is counseling. But also I noticed that
they also have sweat lodges and things that try and use the
traditional and religious way of recovery, too. Is that
correct?
Mr. Richards. That is correct, Mr. Chairman. The Southern
Ute Tribal Council felt that because of the process that we
were experiencing, that there was no spiritual or traditional
healing within the justice system. So therefore we chose to run
our own detention center that would allow traditional and
cultural healing within our people.
The Chairman. Good.
Senator Inouye, did you have any questions of Chairman
Richards before we move on? I guess we have kind of run out of
time. Okay, then let's go ahead. Vivian Juan-Saunders, if you
would proceed.
STATEMENT OF VIVIAN JUAN-SAUNDERS, CHAIRWOMAN, TOHONO O'ODHAM
NATION
Ms. Juan-Saunders. Good morning. Thank you for the
opportunity to testify. My name is Vivian Juan-Saunders,
chairwoman of the Tohono O'odham Nation in Southern Arizona.
The BIA built our detention facility in 1961. It was built
to hold a capacity of 34 inmates. The BIA owns the facility and
through 638 contracting the Nation operates the facility. For
many years, the detention facility on our Nation has had the
unfortunate distinction of being one of the most overcrowded
jails in Indian country. Our average daily population ranges
from 110 to 115. This has resulted in a 300 to 350 percent
overcapacity rate.
In 1987, the BIA renovated the facility. However, it did
not address the overcapacity issues. It costs approximately
$3.4 million per year to operate this facility. The BIA
provides only one-third of the funding. The Tohono O'odham
Nation uses our own tribal funds to pay for two-thirds of the
operations, or approximately $2.3 million. Our juvenile
corrections program is separate from the adult facility and is
operated by our tribal court system. Once again, the tribe pays
for the juvenile program with no support from the BIA.
Our adult detention facility has a staff of 40 people. In
our testimony you have a listing of the positions. However,
five of the positions are frozen due to funding limitations.
From our own experience, we know that proper and ongoing
training is essential to effective jail management. Through our
own efforts, without any direction from BIA, we have
established policies and procedures that are in accordance with
standard corrections operations. We have ongoing staff
development and training practices. We implemented a
classification system that assesses an inmate's psychological
background, reviews past offenses, and evaluates the prevalence
of mental illness and other relevant factors to establish the
appropriate placement and treatment of the inmate.
The corrections staff attends the Indian Police Academy for
basic corrections training and participates in a structured in-
service field training program. We continue to operate with a
philosophy to respect inmates. However, oftentimes because of
our shortfalls with staffing, we do fall by the wayside.
However, that is our common philosophy.
We have many programs funded by the tribe, volunteers who
come into the facility to provide help, prevention, addictions,
religion, traditional services and contact visitations. One of
the concerns that I am hearing from our tribal behavioral staff
is they are trained to address alcohol and drug addictions, and
not mental health issues. So they are concerned going into the
detention facility about their own safety because of the lack
of training, but increase in mental health issues of inmates
coming in.
A recent report issued by the Inspector General in the
Department of the Interior gave our adult detention facility a
fair rating. While we are stretching our resources as far as
possible, the facility continues to suffer from extreme
overcapacity and need for basic capital improvements, such as
upgrading the ventilation system, fixing showers, and replacing
old backup generators.
In the wake of the USA Today articles, we were informed by
local BIA officials that additional resources have been
identified to address deficient jail conditions. However, we
have not been provided specific information regarding what
additional resources or funding will be available.
I am happy to report that we are in the design stage for a
new facility in tended to house minimum security inmates that
will be constructed with funding from the Department of
Justice, a total of $6.7 million. Our timeline for operations
is September 2005. The facility will be designed for 52 beds
for both adults and juveniles. This will solve part of the
problem. However, we still do need a maximum security facility
to address violent criminals, sexual offenders, and gang
members whose activities are increasing on our reservation.
Another related problem that must be addressed is the lack
of prosecution by the Arizona U.S. District Attorney for
serious felony-level offenses. For example, we have had people
in custody for murder who after the maximum tribal sentence,
walked free with no Federal prosecution. We believe that
additional Federal resources must be provided to address this
serious problem. A specialized Indian country crime unit should
be created in the Arizona U.S. District Attorney's office with
Federal law enforcement personnel assigned to work exclusively
with tribal police and prosecutors. Without appropriately
prosecuting violent crimes in Indian country, the crime rates
will continue to rise and repeat offenders will continue to go
unpunished.
A model is the FBI Safe Trails Program, where the Tohono
O'odham Nation has access to five FBI agents to assist our
tribal police with homicides, crimes against children, gang-
related violence and serious aggravated crimes. So there is a
model out there through the FBI.
Also within the Department of Justice, sufficient funding
for tribal detention facilities must be included in its annual
budget. Within the BIA, sufficient funds must be budgeted for
facility operations. Both of these Federal agencies must
consult with tribal governments and undertake a strategic and
comprehensive planning effort to implement reform of tribal
corrections facilities. The BIA should create a separate line
item for corrections programs which includes adequate funding
for staffing, equipment and operation and maintenance of
facilities.
Along these lines, proper respect and recognition must be
accorded to the corrections profession. This means we must
provide competitive wages, professional development
opportunities, and training incentives to attract and retain
qualified individuals.
In conclusion, the appalling condition of jails in Indian
country have been ignored for too long. Sometimes it takes an
unfortunate tragedy to bring attention to these needs. We have
not reached that level on the Tohono O'odham Nation, but based
on our experience, jails in Indian country need immediate
attention.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify today.
[Prepared statement of Ms. Juan-Saunders appears in
appendix.]
The Chairman. Ms. Juan-Saunders, you were here last July
and testified that your tribe annually spends about $2 million
to $3 million on border patrol. We all know that border patrol
is supposed to be a function of the Federal Government, the
cost of it, but you are sort of stuck with it, being on the
border where your tribe is.
Is any of that money reimbursed by any of the agencies of
the Federal Government, like the Bureau of Immigration and
Customs Enforcement?
Ms. Juan-Saunders. The total cost is $7 million and, no, we
are not reimbursed.
The Chairman. You do not get any reimbursement for that.
Okay, thank you. We will have some further questions. We will
move on to Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree please.
STATEMENT OF HOPE MacDONALD-LONETREE, CHAIRPERSON, NAVAJO
COUNCIL PUBLIC SAFETY COMMITTEE, NAVAJO NATION
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Vice
Chairman Inouye, members of the committee. Thank you for the
opportunity to provide the Navajo Nation's statement on Indian
tribal detention facilities.
On behalf of the Navajo Nation, I want to thank you for
your support and your funding of these facilities in Indian
country. The Navajo people directly benefit from your concern
and your support.
For the record again, my name is Hope MacDonald-Lonetree. I
am an elected Navajo leader and serve as the chairperson of the
Public Safety Committee of the Navajo Nation Council.
As the nation with the largest population and the largest
Indian reservation, we have various unique geographic,
demographic and intergovernmental features that require
significant congressional awareness, leadership and budgetary
considerations. Navajo does not have enough detention
facilities, personnel and equipment. This leads to unsafe
communities and a lack of economic opportunity. We need the
resources to provide more detention facilities, personnel and
equipment to make our communities secure.
Navajo currently only has 103 jail bed spaces for a nation
of more than 300,000 people. Detention facilities were built in
the late 1950's and early 1960's, and they became so
deteriorated that in 1992 the Navajo Nation court ordered all
facilities closed as health hazards. The court and Federal
inspectors told the tribe that the jail facilities were not fit
for human occupants and not even safe for detention personnel.
I have provided you with a page of major incidents and
fatalities as a part of my written testimony.
The Chairman. It will be included in the record.
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. Thank you.
After minor renovations, by consent decree the jails were
reopened with limited bed space and that resulted in the 103-
beds now available. Those often close intermittently due to the
environmental health inspections because of the unsafe nature
of those old facilities.
We have only three juvenile detention facilities and one of
these has been recently closed due to a lack of funds to make
those repairs. Despite this lack of jail bed space, we have
over 33,000 arrests a year on our reservation.
Members of the committee, I urge you to come and see for
yourselves the deplorable condition of our detention
facilities. But more than that, I hope that you will see for
yourselves the need for immediate resources to ensure Navajo
public safety. We need additional facilities, new facilities.
We need increased law enforcement personnel. We need adequate
and up-to-date equipment.
Mr. Chairman, members of the committee, the tremendous rise
in crime on the reservation is not due to the lack of resolve
on the part of the Navajo Nation. It is not due to the lack of
dedicated officers who are well-trained and committed. It is
due to the lack of sufficient annual funds to address the need
for detention facilities, more personnel and adequate
equipment.
The high crime rate is directly related to high
unemployment and poverty. Very few companies want to come to an
unsafe community. Therefore, economic opportunity and jobs for
our nation are adversely affected by the lack of safe and
secure communities.
The U.S. Attorney's office of Flagstaff, Arizona estimates
that violent crime on the Navajo reservation is six times
higher than that of the national average. Increased crimes
include alcohol and drug abuse, domestic violence and child
sexual abuse. We cannot even address domestic violence on
Navajo because we cannot even separate the abuser from the
victim due to the lack of facilities, and the abusers know
that.
We cannot even protect our children from sexual predators.
Just in one community, there were over 100 reported incidents
of child sex abuse in 1 month. We cannot protect our families
from somewhere to put the perpetrators threatening our
communities. Navajo Nation averages one officer for every 4,000
people, compared to the national average of three officers per
1,000. Our officers perform alone without partners and without
radio communication for backup. As you heard earlier from the
Inspector General, we often only have one detention officer for
a facility, and that is very dangerous for our officers.
Let me share an incident that will enlighten you on some of
the situations that we face on Navajo. An officer responded to
a call and found a man beating his wife and family. The wife
did not want him arrested. She knew that he would be detained
for a few hours due to the lack of facilities, and feared that
he would return more violent. Because she did not want him
arrested, she attacked the officer herself and tried to get his
gun. The officer managed to get away, leaving the abuser with
his family. That is because the people know we have no jails.
Another sad incident, and this is included in the written
statement, a young boy was arrested for attacking his brother.
After a short hour in jail, he was let out. A week later he was
arrested for attacking his sibling again. He was again released
after a short time in jail. The third time he was arrested was
for stabbing his mother. This is because we cannot detain these
individuals and we have no facilities.
Criminal incidents and recidivism are high on the
reservation, all due to the factors I have described. Criminals
are allowed to return to their community without incarceration.
We cannot incarcerate criminals without putting them at
significant physical and health risk. In many instances, the
tribal court is a revolving door for our criminals. Criminals
and their victims have a complete disregard for our criminal
justice system. Communities across the reservation and
neighboring towns are at risk. Public safety officers are at
risk.
From all statistics and reports we are receiving, Navajo
crime rates will continue to increase unless we address this
problem now. We need sufficient funds to replace and build
seven new facilities. These facilities must include sufficient
personnel and equipment to manage a growing epidemic of
criminal activities on the reservation.
Yes; we need your help now. Just to bring our detention
facilities up to the national standard will require $140
million from Navajo. This is just to cover the basic need for
facilities. This does not even include services that can be
provided in the jails.
Members of this distinguished Committee on Indian Affairs
and the U.S. Senate, I urge you to help us correct years of
neglect and underfunding and help us to secure our communities.
I have provided you with a written statements and
recommendations on behalf of Navajo and I am available for any
questions.
Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree appears in
appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you.
Did I hear the numbers right? To me, they were just
absolutely astounding, but 33,000 arrests per year?
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. Yes.
The Chairman. And you only have 103 beds?
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. At the maximum, and like I said,
some of them close off and on, so we can sometimes have 50 to
70 beds available.
The Chairman. I see.
So with that kind of arrest rate and that few places to put
them, you mentioned the word ``revolving door.'' It must be a
revolving door in the police departments when they are
arrested, too. They keep them for a while and then just turn
them back out. Is that what happens?
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. That is correct. And also, in the
attachment that I gave you, inmates are often held in back of
the police cars or panels for hours because there is no place
for them.
The Chairman. Because there is no place for them. So if
they get arrested, sometimes is it correct to assume that they
get turned right back out on the street before they even come
to trial?
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. That is true, because the officers,
as a matter of fact, on Navajo say they are very frustrated.
Before the ink dries on the report, the person they arrested is
out.
The Chairman. So then that leads to the question you
probably have a repeat offender program for a repeat offender
problem of people that are being arrested for the same thing
over and over. You mentioned the young man that beat his
brother up and then ended up stabbing his mother.
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. Absolutely. That is what also
causes the violent crime, because they know there is no law and
order on Navajo.
The Chairman. Senator Inouye.
Senator Inouye. I have just one question. I realize that on
a matter of this magnitude, you cannot point fingers and say
the Administration is at fault or the Congress is at fault or
Indian country. I think all of us have our share of fault. But
I am looking over your prepared statement and it says the
following: ``In February 2002, DOI estimated that the deferred
maintenance backlog was between $8.1 billion and $11.4
billion.'' I have been on this committee now for nearly 30
years and I have been chairman at times or vice chairman. But I
must confess that I have never heard figures of this magnitude.
There is some disconnect in the information. But I thank you
very much for your testimony.
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Now we will proceed with President Martin.
STATEMENT OF DARRELL MARTIN, PRESIDENT, FORT BELKNAP INDIAN
COMMUNITY COUNCIL
Mr. Martin. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman,
members of the committee. I want to thank you for giving me the
opportunity to testify on this important issue.
I speak on behalf of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes
of Fort Belknap. I serve as the president on the tribal
council. Fort Belknap is located in north-central Montana,
about 200 miles north of Billings, which is the largest city in
Montana.
The tribal headquarters is also 350 miles from Great Falls,
which is the only city that has a certified juvenile detention
facility. Adult detention facilities at Fort Belknap is a
single jail providing adult detention facilities for over 5,000
enrolled members. We only have eight beds in that one facility.
The jails are reviewed and deemed defunct and can no longer be
housing inmates for no longer than 72 hours.
Inmates in need of transport will have to be transported
for 1 hour because we have no room to house them in our own
facility, or they will be shipped to Fort Peck Reservation that
is at least a 3-hour drive from Fort Belknap. We asked for
reconstruction money and did not receive any money to
reconstruct this deplorable situation on Fort Belknap. In 35
years, we have only renovated the current facility.
The cost of transportation has been significant. It has
often required overtime by our police officers to shuttle
prisoners back and forth on drives that are often 6 hours round
trip in good weather. In winters, with long and often bitter
cold, and poor weather trips, can delay a trip up to 10 hours
for a round trip to transport a prisoner or a juvenile to Great
Falls.
The families of detainees that have to visit their families
to Great Falls or Billings have to travel long distances in
cold weather. They have no money to travel these long distances
to visit their families that are incarcerated, because we have
no facility in Fort Belknap to house them.
Juvenile detention facilities, we have never had a juvenile
detention facility on our reservation. For several years, we
have contracted for placement in Blaine County youth detention
facility about 25 miles away. However, this facility will close
shortly. It does not meet State standards. It has not provided
counseling or treatment for the youth detention. I want to put
on the record, too, there is no mental health help for these
individuals as well.
Limited funding has exhausted the youth, and they have to
be detained on Fort Belknap in the same environment as adults.
There is limited funding for counseling and treatment for youth
and their families. Many families simply do not have the
resources to travel to Great Falls and visit their children.
For nearly 6 months of the year, traveling such distances
is simply dangerous because of the cold weather and difficult
roads. We need a solution at Fort Belknap to detain youth
locally, provide timely return to the youth to make a
difference in their lives; to encourage them to go on.
I want to thank the committee for listening to our
testimony today. We ask the committee to please help provide
funding for jail and detention facilities. I want to thank the
committee. Thank you.
[Prepared statement of Mr. Martin appears in appendix.]
The Chairman. Thank you for your testimony. In listening to
all of your testimony, I just mentioned to staff, my gosh, the
numbers sound like something you would find in Iraq, not the
United States. They are just deplorable.
Go ahead, our last person who will testify is Fred
Guardipee.
STATEMENT OF FRED GUARDIPEE, COUNCIL MEMBER, CHAIRMAN OF
HEALTH, EDUCATION AND SOCIAL SERVICES
COMMITTEE, BLACKFEET TRIBAL BUSINESS COUNCIL
Mr. Guardipee. Good morning, Mr. Chairman. I want to thank
the Chairman, Vice Chairman and members of the committee. My
name is Fred Guardipee. I am a member of the Blackfeet Tribal
Business Council for the Blackfeet Tribe in Browning, MT. We
are in the northwestern part of the State. I am also the
chairman of the Blackfeet Tribal Council Business Law and Order
Committee.
I want to talk about the detention facilities on the
Blackfeet Nation. Our reservation jail was built back in 1970,
as were most of the facilities we were discussing this morning.
It was built to hold 35 prisoners. At the time I was working
there as a law enforcement officer, it was probably one of the
most modern facilities in that area.
However, today that facility has deteriorated. In 1995, the
Blackfeet Nation was operating the facility. It was then under
a 638-contract that the BIA took over the operations of that
facility. Then the tribe operated it in conjunction with the
Bureau under a 638-contract until 2002, on a resumption of the
BIA law enforcement services.
However, that facility now, it has become a problem. It is
unsanitary. There is no ventilation. The heating system does
not work, the showers. It was made to hold 35 prisoners, but as
many as 250 prisoners have been held in there at one time. They
are sleeping on floors. They have very little bathroom
facilities. Consequently, they are urinating and defecating on
the floors. When you enter the facility, that smell stays with
you. It stays with your clothing when you leave. I worked in
that building for a number of years.
The plumbing system is inadequate. It does not work. We
have had shut downs of our water. Our water system that is used
to provide drinking water is not drinkable. It is very bad. We
have had to utilize the bottled water system for years, for our
prisoners.
On the Blackfeet Nation, we have around 15,000 tribal
members enrolled. We have about 10,000 living on the
reservation. We are bordered on the north by the Canadian
border and on the west by Glacier National Park. Those 10,000
members are there year-round residents. However, during the
summer months that population increases to over 2 million
people passing through our Blackfeet Nation.
We hold tribal, State and Federal prisoners, from murderers
to vagrants in our facility. Yet it is not adequate. It is not
safe. There is a danger to our staff. Our staff have been
assaulted and seriously injured in this facility over the
years.
The suicide rate, the attempt rate, it is almost one
attempt daily, and we have had over the past 5 years at least
five successful suicides or deaths in our facility.
We have brought this to the attention of the BIA. I have
myself personally on many occasions, the conditions of this
facility, asking for renovations. They do bring paint. In a
couple of instances, we painted the place and found out the
paint was not suitable. It was contaminated and we ha to scrape
the whole thing back out and start over again.
The ventilation system is so bad that there is no fresh air
coming into the facility in the summertime. There was no
control over the heat. The heat runs consistently. The furnace
is full blast. There is no cool air coming in there.
So if it is 90 degrees outside, it is probably 110 degrees
inside those facilities. These inmates are being held from 6
hours to one year in that facility, due to the nature of the
crimes. We have every major crime on our reservation,
unfortunately. With the drugs, the meth operations, we have
ongoing operations on the Blackfeet Nation.
We also have the manufacturing of drugs, and drugs being
transported from the Canadian side, passing through unprotected
border stations that are not patrolled by the Border Patrol or
anyone else. We have about five entrances from Canada, where
they are unprotected. The Canadian individuals have keys to the
gates. They enter our Nation without any supervision at all.
They just come through, open the gate and go, and lock it back
up and come into our Nation, into the United States, and they
are not asked by anyone or stopped by any Federal agency to
check whatever they are bringing in.
Just recently, we had what we call the mad cow. We had
livestock entering our Nation through those unprotected border
stations. We have chemicals that are banned in the United
States that are being brought down through our Nation on these
unprotected stations on our border.
But yet we receive no homeland security funding, or very
minimal. We have asked for additional patrol officers. We have
asked the Border Patrol, the Customs to increase their patrols.
Officers were sent into our area, but they are not specifically
working the Blackfeet Nation. We have about 80 miles of border
there with Canada that is unprotected.
On the west, we have the Glacier National Park. We have
three entrances for tourists and other folks. Employees enter,
and a lot of things are brought into our Nation, drugs and
individuals that are hiding from law enforcement are found in
our Nation, in our forests. Several of these people have been
caught hiding out in our forests up there.
Over the years, this facility has been very underfunded. We
have asked many times to beef up the staff, the Blackfeet
Tribe. We have about a $5-million budget that we are called
upon to serve the Blackfeet Nation of almost 10,000 people that
live there. We were operating under 638 contracts that when
they were originally written were for about $4.5 million, but
were never funded beyond $1.2 million for law enforcement
services for the Blackfeet Nation.
Presently, the Bureau took over operations, an emergency
reassumption in 2000. The conditions have not changed. The law
enforcement services are still inadequate. We have seven
communities that are not being served by law enforcement. We
are now in a process, and have been for a while, to augment
those law enforcement officers with tribal officers funded
under the COPS program.
However, that funding is now reaching the stage where those
funds are running out, and there is no money available for the
Indian nation, the Blackfeet Nation in particular, to hire
these officers who we hired over the years that were trained by
us or trained at the Indian Police Academy. We need additional
dollars.
Our recommendation is that the committee take a serious
look at what is going on in our Indian Nations. We had Mr.
Anderson come out to Montana. However, he only visited two
reservations. We would like to have seen him visit the rest of
the Indian Nations. There are seven reservations in the State
of Montana. Only two were visited. I think he needs to look at
all of them.
I do not know if you have seen the movie that was done by a
former BIA officer. That movie clearly illustrates the
condition of the Blackfeet facility. I do not have that movie
with me today, but I think it is available. We will make that
available or leave it as part of our record that does show the
condition of the Blackfeet facility.
We are recommending funding for all Indian Nations, but in
particular the Blackfeet Nation. To look at our facility right
now, we are proposing, we have set aside land. We look at a
facility that would cost around $45 million right now to
combine our services. We have a little different philosophy
than other nations in that we like to look at one-stop
shopping. We want all of our facilities in one area, so our
people do not have to run all over the villages to find this
service or that service. They come to one place and all their
needs are met, the courts, the social services, the detention
facilities, adult and juvenile.
We do want to thank the BIA. Over the past two years they
have funded, limited funding on a juvenile facility. However,
that facility was also built back in 1970 and is in bad need of
renovations. The foundations are starting to crack. It is made
to hold at least 24 children, and we have instituted a program
there to look at rehabilitation. As a Nation, we have turned a
ranch over to these children, to their supervisors, for the
rehabilitation of those children. That seems to be working very
well at this point. That facility also is in bad need of
funding. It is going to need to be replaced here very soon.
One of our goals was to improve that facility, to contract
with other tribes who are in need of places to have their
juveniles taken care of.
Again, I just want to urge the committee to take a serious
look at all the Indian Nations, but in particular the Blackfeet
Nation in Montana, as well as our neighbor the Assiniboine, who
is here testifying today. The great need is of replacement of
facilities. I heard testimony earlier that they are looking at
renovation and operations. To date, those have only been
cosmetic. You throw paint down. You do not do anything with the
basic infrastructure there. They need to be torn down and
replaced. They are unsafe. They are unsanitary. They are
inhumane to the people that have to be in those facilities for
a long time.
Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Guardipee.
I have a couple of questions. I might mention, though,
Secretary Anderson has stayed around to hear your testimony. I
am sure this emphasizes the magnitude of the problems. With 240
Alaskan villages and roughly 300 reservations nationwide, and
him only being in office 6 months, give him a little time. He
has been on the road almost constantly trying to visit
reservations. I think he is doing his very best to do that.
Let me ask, particularly since we have two tribes from
Montana, I mentioned earlier the question of regional
facilities. Would you think in Montana that that would work, to
have a regional correctional facility in Montana so all the
tribes could use it?
Mr. Martin. I do not know if it will work because every
tribe has their different ways of rehabilitation through
spiritual or through medical. Plus, you have to put in the cost
of transportation. Where is it going to be? The nearest
McDonald's for us is 91 miles; or the nearest jail for our
children is 150 miles. So every reservation, and there are
seven reservations in Montana, where are you going to put it
where one tribe can be equally driven. Then you are going to
look at overtime for your police officers because there is not
enough money for police officers, and there is a shortage of
police officers.
So I really do not think that would work. In my own
opinion, just for the budgetary problems that each tribe has
individually.
The Chairman. Let me ask something else then. The Southern
Utes have testified that they got tired of waiting for Federal
funding and so they finally built a new facility with tax-
exempt bonding. Is that correct, Chairman Richards?
Mr. Richards. That is correct.
The Chairman. Have the other tribes, the Navajos or your
tribe, thought of doing that?
Mr. Guardipee. Yes; we are in the process of doing that,
Mr. Chairman. We are exploring that, working with financial
institutions within our area.
On the first question you asked, Mr. Chairman, we have a
little different philosophy in that we need to improve the
facilities on Indian Nations themselves. I agree with Mr.
Martin. However, there is a regional facility that is being
discussed in the State of Montana for holding juveniles, rather
than adults. We are looking at that proposal and it is being
discussed by the Montana-Wyoming tribal leaders council, to
look at maybe possibly three juvenile regional facilities,
because there are none, basically, outside of Blackfeet, that
these people can utilize. We discussed that about 1 month ago
at our meeting in Billings, that we would like to look at that
proposal for the juveniles.
The Chairman. There is some kind of a facility in Sheridan,
WY that a lot of Wyoming and Montana tribal members go to. I
think it is a hospital, though. Is that just an alcohol
recovery program or are there detention programs there, too?
Mr. Guardipee. What I know, Mr. Chairman, is that it is an
alcohol and drug recovery program at this point. They do not
necessarily hold detention.
The Chairman. Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree, what do you think
about bonding as a mechanism for building facilities?
Ms. MacDonald-Lonetree. The Navajo Nation has been
exploring other options for our detention facilities. But one
thing is paramount, and that is that our program, as Ms. Juan-
Saunders had mentioned earlier, is 638. We do have a 638-
contract. We have been severely underfunded through that
contract to even maintain what we have.
So as we look at options, one of them is a bond option that
the Navajo Nation is exploring, and that has yet to even come
before the full Navajo Nation Council for approval. But from
the Division of Public Safety for Navajo, we are exploring
other options for funding, but we would like to work with our
trustee, the BIA, to find out how we might be able to get or
reorganize some of the funding that they have there to meet our
needs on Navajo. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Senator Inouye, did you have further questions?
Senator Inouye. All I can say is, once again this has been
the most depressing hearing I have participated in. I can
assure you that we will do our very best.
My only regret is that our colleagues are not here. They
should have heard this.
The Chairman. I think so, too. The numbers you expressed
are something, as one of the panelists mentioned, are like a
third world country. It is hard to believe that those problems
could actually exist in a country that can fly to the moon or
provide miracle drugs worldwide for people who are in poor
health, or things of that nature. It is just phenomenal
numbers.
But as with the other panels, I would request if you have
some specific suggestions about what we might frame up. I
understand that the lack of resources, that is, money, is
always a problem and will probably continue to be, with a very
fast birth rate in Indian country, but there might be something
we can do that is concrete and advantageous to tribes. If you
would maybe submit some suggestions to staff, I certainly would
appreciate it.
Thank you again. We will keep the record open for two weeks
for any additional comments from our panelists or anybody in
the audience, and we may submit some questions in writing to
have you answer.
Thank you. This hearing is adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 11:45 a.m., the committee was adjourned, to
reconvene at the call of the Chair.]
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A P P E N D I X
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Additional Material Submitted for the Record
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Prepared Statement of Hon. Ben Nighthorse Campbell, U.S. Senator from
Colorado, Chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs
Good morning and welcome. This morning the committee is conducting
an oversight hearing on ``Issues and Problems Related to Conditions of
Tribal Detention Facilities''.
Several weeks back this matter was splashed across the pages of
major newspapers--such as USA Today--across the country. The articles
discussed the ongoing Federal probe into tribal prison deaths that, as
we now know, has revealed instances of inmate abuse, prison
mismanagement, neglect, escapes, deaths, attempted suicides, inhumane
conditions, overcrowding, as well as safety issues, staffing shortages,
inmate access to weapons and poor prisoner monitoring and supervision.
In fact, one story reported that the lack of prison monitoring
resulted in the tragic death of a 16-year-old girl in Oregon.
This situation is inexcusable and should not be happening.
In April 2004, the Inspector General of the Department of the
Interior issued an interim report on the dire conditions and operations
of these facilities. In its report, the Inspector General discussed the
many problems associated with these detention facilities and made four
recommendations to be implemented immediately to prevent further life-
threatening situations.
The Inspector General's report does not place the physical
condition or operation of these facilities in a good light and
justifies immediate action.
In order to determine exactly what is happening and what we can do
about it, this morning the committee will hear from witnesses from
Federal agencies and Indian tribes to share their thoughts and
experiences with us.
I thank all the witnesses for appearing today and I look forward to
hearing their testimony as well as any recommendations they may have to
improve this situation.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Tom Daschle, U.S. Senator from South Dakota
Good morning, Mr. Chairman, Mr. Vice Chairman, and members of the
committee. As many of you know, USA Today recently reported that
Federal investigators have uncovered evidence of abuse, neglect, and
inhumane conditions in Native American prisons and jails. This
troubling report suggests that the conditions in Indian detention
facilities are not improving, and, in fact, appear to be getting worse.
It is my hope that this hearing will help to shed additional light on
these allegations, and lead to solutions to improve conditions in
facilities across Indian country.
According to recent statistics, from the Department of Justice
report on Indian jails and prisons, there are 70 detention facilities
in Indian country, supervising approximately 2,100 inmates. Many of
these facilities are in an appalling state of disrepair, and face
problems that range from overcrowding and understaffing to sheer
neglect and abuse.
According to the most, recent statistics from the Department of
Justice, over one-half of all detention facilities in Indian country
were operating at 100-percent capacity in 2002, and 19 were operating
at 150-percent or higher capacity. Of those 19, three are located in my
State of South Dakota: Rosebud's Medicine Root Detention Center,
operating at 250-percent capacity; Crow Creek's Fort Thompson Jail,
operating at 242-percent capacity; and the Pine Ridge Correctional
Facility, which is operating at a staggering 400 percent of its
capacity.
Inmates in South Dakota's BIA facilities are housed in dilapidated
buildings and are forced to endure extraordinarily harsh conditions.
Even though the Lower Brule-tribal detention facility was condemned by
the BIA in 1987, it was still being used to house inmates as recently
as 2 years ago. Because the new facility is still under construction,
Lower Brule prisoners are sent 13 miles away, across the Missouri
River, to the Crow Creek facility in Fort Thompson. Because there
aren't enough BIA officers to transport them back to Lower Brule,
detainees released from Crow Creek are often forced to make the return
trip to Lower Brule on foot. It is shocking that this is allowed to
happen in South Dakota, which routinely experiences harsh winters and
sub zero temperatures. Moreover, the Fort Thompson facility is in
equally bad shape. One person serves as both police dispatcher and
detention officer in a facility that houses up to 30 prisoners.
These conditions have a devastating impact on prisoners.
Nationally, between July 1, 2001, and June 30, 2002, 282 inmates in
tribal jails attempted suicide, up from 169 the previous year. In the
last 5 years, the number of admissions rose 32 percent, and the annual
number of attempted suicides more than doubled from 133 to 282. On Crow
Creek, which encompasses most of one of the most impoverished counties
in the United States and experiences inordinate suicide rates among its
general population, several suicides have occurred in the local jail.
Even more troubling, inadequate detention facilities pose a serious
threat to the surrounding communities. With a limited number of
officers responsible for large inmate populations, the risk of prisoner
violence--against both prison staff and, in the event of an escape,
local citizens is much greater. Moreover, the culture of neglect and
abuse found in many of our Indian jails is indicative of broader trends
within the communities. The Crow Creek jail doubles as a suicide watch
center for troubled teens, since there is nowhere else in the community
to take them. Several Emergency Medical Technicians [EMT's] and law
enforcement personnel have either resigned, or are on the brink of
resigning, due to the stress of the situation. Law enforcement
officials are at a loss about how to address this disturbing pattern,
and are overwhelmed by the feelings of hopelessness that accompany it.
Clearly, the impact that overcrowding, dilapidated conditions, and
neglect is having on inmates in these facilities, as well as local
communities, is reaching a critical mass--both in South Dakota and
across the Nation--and we must act now to reverse the trend. While
addressing the problems that exist in jails and prisons clearly isn't
the whole answer, such an approach will meet a critical need in Indian
country, and will represent an important step toward increasing public
safety and reducing incidences of abuse and neglect.
We can start by increasing funding for BIA facilities.
Unfortunately, this Administration has demonstrated a complete
unwillingness to give Indian detention facilities the resources they
need, and has actually reduced funding for jails and prisons in Indian
country. It wasn't always so bad. Under the Clinton Administration,
then-Attorney General Janet Reno created the Department of Justice-
Department of Interior Indian Law Enforcement initiative with the
objective of creating an effective way to address law enforcement,
facilities, juvenile justice, and rehabilitation efforts in Indian
country. Although funding for these programs--which increased under the
Clinton Administration and was consistent until the fiscal year 2002
appropriations cycle--was not enough to meet all of Indian country's
needs, the initiative represented an unprecedented step toward
addressing some of these problems.
Unfortunately, the current Administration, while budgeting hundreds
of millions of dollars for Federal prison construction, has proposed
eliminating the tribal facility program for the second year in a row.
While Congress appropriated $35 million per year for construction of
BIA detention facilities between 2000 and 2002, we appropriated only $2
million in fiscal year 2004. Now, with an even tighter budget to work
with, the outlook for this year is especially bleak, and conditions at
BIA facilities are likely to get even worse.
For too long, we have neglected our obligations to Native
Americans. We are seeing the effects of that neglect in South Dakota.
These are once again examples of the abrogation of the trust
responsibility by the Federal Government to the tribes and its people.
We need to do a better job funding Indian detention centers, and we
need to do more to address public safety, tribal courts, and
rehabilitation efforts. We cannot ask tribes to choose between funding
crisis intervention and law enforcement. We cannot force tribes to make
the choice between funding education and after-school programs for
their children, and repairing cracked walls and inoperable surveillance
cameras in their jails.
While national rates are the lowest in years, crime on Indian lands
continues to rise. Particularly disturbing is the violent nature of
this crime; violence against women, juvenile and gang crime, and child
abuse remain serious problems. The Bureau of Justice Statistics.
reports that American Indians experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the Nation--almost twice the national average.
Mr. Chairman, the issues we are discussing today are of critical
importance. If this were happening in any other part of the country, it
would be met with public outrage and swift Government action. However,
in Indian country, it is met with silence and reduced funding. For the
safety of our Indian people and the well-being of their communities, we
must take action.
I look forward to working with this committee, and other relevant
committees, to address these important issues.
______
Prepared Statement of Earl E. Devaney, Inspector General, Department of
the Interior, Washington, DC
Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, I want to thank you for
the opportunity to address the committee this morning concerning the
state of detention facilities in Indian country.
In September 2003, my office began an assessment of Indian country
detention facilities. I initiated this assessment following a
conversation with the Chair of the Attorney General's Advisory
Committee on Indian country, U.S. Attorney for the District of
Minnesota, Thomas Heffelfinger, who had expressed his general concerns
to me about the overcrowding and poor conditions of Indian country
jails. I then discovered that these same concerns had been articulated
for years by the Department of Justice in numerous reports. My office
had also been receiving unofficial reports of appalling conditions at
the detention facilities in Indian country. With all this information,
I felt compelled to address these concerns immediately.
We selected a team of seasoned investigators and auditors to visit
a predetermined number of facilities and collect information about
their management and operation. Our focus was on whether the funds
designated for Indian country detention facilities were being properly
expended and whether these facilities were safe and secure.
I would like to point out that we began our assessment well before
the confirmation of the present Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs,
and prior to any of the recent media disclosures of allegations made by
a former BIA law enforcement official. While we have completed all our
planned site visits, we have not finished our analysis of the funding
issues or BIA's management of the Detention Program. However, given the
committee's interest in this issue, I will gladly summarize our
findings, thus far, and share with the committee the same concerns I
shared with Secretary Norton in April of this year when I gave her an
interim report on the deplorable conditions we were finding at some of
these facilities. Thus, my report to her then and to you today, focuses
primarily on deaths, attempted suicides, escapes of inmates and officer
safety issues. While we have visited only 27 of the 74 detention
facilities in Indian country, we assume that similar incidents have
occurred at other detention facilities. Therefore, we believe it is
imperative that BIA takes immediate action to alleviate these
potentially life-threatening situations at all Indian detention
facilities.
Under the Indian Law Enforcement Reform Act of 1990, BIA is
required to provide law enforcement services on reservations. In
addition, under the Indian Self-Determination Act, BIA provides funding
to tribes for detention services. Of the 74 detention facilities in
Indian country, 20 are operated by BIA's Office of Law Enforcement
Services [OLES], 46 receive BIA funding for detention services under
Public Law 96-638, and 8 are operated by tribes. Of the 74 facilities,
28 house adult inmates, 11 house juveniles, and 35 house a combination
of both adults and juveniles.
For many years the BIA detention program has been characterized as
drastically understaffed, underfunded, and poorly managed. BIA's
Director of Law Enforcement has oversight authority for BIA-operated
and 638-contract detention facilities. Until very recently the Director
oversaw these facilities through six district commanders and with a
three person detention staff at OLES Headquarters.
In most of the facilities we have visited, basic jail
administration procedures are not followed and many detention managers
and their staff have not received professional, certified training in
detention procedures. In fact, BIA OLES officials admitted to us that
none of their detention facilities ``come close'' to meeting BIA's
standards for operation, which derive from nationally recognized
detention standards. BIA's detention program is riddled with problems
and, in our opinion, is a national disgrace with many facilities having
conditions comparable to those found in third-world countries.
Unfortunately, BIA appears to have had a ``laissez-faire'' attitude in
regard to these horrific conditions at its detention facilities.
Based on our visits, we discovered that serious incidents are not
always communicated up the chain of command. Our review of the Serious
Incident Log maintained by the OLES detention program and a similar log
kept by the OLES internal affairs unit revealed that many of the
incidents we identified occurring within the last 3 years were not
contained in these logs. In fact, during this 3-year timeframe we found
close to 500 serious incidents--including deaths, suicide attempts, and
escapes that were either undocumented or not reported to the BIA/OLES.
The following are some examples of the serious situations we have
identified so far in our assessment.
Deaths and Suicides: We learned of 10 deaths from the facilities we
visited. Five of these deaths were suicides and five were non-suicides.
Inexplicably, only five of these deaths had been reported to OLES.
Among those deaths reported to OLES is the recent death of a 16-year-
old student who died while in a detention cell at the Chemawa Indian
School in Oregon. BIA operates the boarding school which has a
detention facility. This case is under active investigation by my
office in conjunction with the U.S. Attorney in Portland, OR.
In March 2003, a 15-year-old inmate hanged herself at the BIA-
operated Zuni Adult and Juvenile Detention Facility in New Mexico.
According to the facility director, correctional officers at the time
were ``off-line for approximately 30 minutes,'' handling other duties,
and were not properly overseeing the cell population.
Similarly, at the BIA-operated Hopi Adult and Juvenile Facility in
Arizona, an intoxicated inmate died of asphyxiation in 2003. According
to the Acting Lead Correctional Officer, this occurred because the two
officers on duty were ``more interested in cleaning up the office''
than observing inmates.
Attempted Suicides: Based on our findings, suicide attempts appear
to be a regular occurrence at many of these facilities. At the BIA-run
Northern Cheyenne Detention Facility in Montana there have been an
alarming 41 suicide attempts within the last 3 years. Only two of those
incidents were actually reported to the OLES.
At many of the facilities, we found multiple suicide attempts made
by the same inmate. For example, during 2001, an individual detained at
the Shiprock facility in New Mexico attempted to hang himself seven
times using articles of clothing or towels left in the cell. The
correction officer's response was quite elementary--if the inmate tried
to hang himself with his socks, they took his socks away; if he tried
to hang himself with his towel, they took the towel away--until finally
the inmate was left in his cell without any clothing.
Prisoner Escapes: For the most part, the correctional officers at
these facilities convey stories of prisoner escapes with an air of
casual inevitability. In fact, our impression is one of collective
acceptance. In our interviews, correctional officers who discussed
escapes also told us that it is simply not possible to prevent inmates
from escaping. Since the majority of these facilities often function
with only a single officer on duty, officers explained that they simply
cannot ``keep an eye'' on everyone. In addition, we found that some
facilities do not notify local law enforcement of prisoner escapes.
This is not only disconcerting, it is irresponsible to allow escaped
prisoners to travel freely in a community and surrounding areas while
the local law enforcement authorities have no information about their
escapes.
Physically rundown and deplorably maintained, many of the
facilities provide ample opportunity for escape. At one facility, the
chain-link fence surrounding the outdoor recreation yard was held
together and locked by a set of handcuffs because the inmates had
learned the combination to the cipher lock on the gate. While many of
the recreation yards at these facilities are fenced-in and crowned with
barbed wire, there seems to be a universal acceptance among the
correctional officers that if inmates want to climb over the fence and
escape, they will.
From weakened and deteriorating locks on cell doors to broken
windows in inmate dormitories, the interior of many of these facilities
is in extremely poor condition and therefore does nothing to deter
prisoners who set out to escape. For example, the wire-meshed windows
in many of the cells at the White Buffalo Youth Detention Center in
Montana are loosely encased in a crumbling wall and, with the
application of some pressure, can be easily removed from their housing.
According to the acting director at the detention center, these
``removable windows'' have, in the past, provided a vehicle of escape
for a number of detained youths.
Perhaps even more disturbing than the actual circumstances and
frequency of inmate escapes at these facilities are the lack of
response and importance placed on these incidents by those working at
the facilities, both correctional officers and facility directors,
alike. At the Shiprock Adult detention facility in New Mexico, one
officer chuckled in response to our question about escapes, and said,
``Oh yeah, they happen.'' She then said that a prisoner had escaped
from her in June 2003, on foot and in ankle-shackles while she was
ushering a line of prisoners from the facility to the courthouse across
the courtyard. Since she was the only officer on duty at the time, she
said that she could not pursue the fleeing inmate and leave the other
prisoners unattended. The officer told us that to the best of her
knowledge that prisoner had not yet been apprehended.
Officer Safety: One of the most common problems we found while
visiting these facilities is lack of staffing. In many cases, having
only one correctional officer on duty per shift is not unusual; it is
common practice.
At Mescalero in New Mexico, a female correctional officer was
working alone when she was confronted at knife-point by a former inmate
who entered the facility through an unlocked door. Tragedy was averted
when the officer locked herself into a detention cell. An inmate at the
jail convinced the intruder to leave the officer alone, while a second
inmate summoned the police.
The San Carlos facility in Arizona has only four correctional
officers on staff to operate what they feel is an overcrowded facility.
To address this situation, the facility has placed a 24-hour, 7-day-a-
week ``lockdown'' on inmates. Although lockdown is not unusual as a
short-term solution for an acute problem in a detention facility, it
could lead to an unsafe and dangerous environment long-term. At San
Carlos, a detention officer on duty has no one for back up if a medical
emergency or conduct problem arises. When an officer is working alone,
he or she must either wait for assistance or act independently, both of
which risk placing themselves or inmates in a potentially life-
threatening situation.
At the Blackfeet facility in Montana, staff told us there is never
more than one correctional officer on duty. Furthermore, twice a week,
the officer on duty also functions as the facility cook to prepare
inmates' meals, leaving the facility unsupervised during meal
preparation time. At this same facility, one of the dispatchers said
that her husband, a correctional officer at the facility, had been
working alone and was attacked by an inmate. According to the
dispatcher, the sound of the other inmates banging on doors was the
only thing that alerted her to the incident and prevented a potential
fatality. Unfortunately, this incident does not appear to be an
exceptional case; the BIA district commander told us, ``Every officer
here has been assaulted.''
Aside from a lack of officers on staff, the current officers at
these facilities are, for the most part, poorly trained. This lack of
training not only hinders the officers' ability to properly document
incidents and follow standard procedures, but also leaves the officers
unprepared to prevent physical harm that may be targeted against them
or against inmates. In fact, one district commander stated, ``We've
never received any training on how to operate a detention facility.''
When asked if his facility followed BIA standards, the commander
quipped, ``Most BIA standards can't be met, so why even try?''
In addition to officer safety, the safety of the inmates themselves
must be considered. Officers who are improperly trained or who have not
undergone thorough background investigations may become a liability.
Recently, a correctional officer working at the White Buffalo Youth
Detention Center in Montana was convicted of raping a 17-year-old
female inmate while transporting her from the facility to receive
medical treatment.
During my discussion with the Secretary in April, I made a number
of recommendations to her including instituting new reporting protocols
and the prompt investigation by BIA of any serious incident such as
those I have cited today. I was pleased by her immediate response to my
briefing. Following our meeting, she tasked Associate Deputy Secretary
James Cason along with Assistant Secretary David Anderson to begin
addressing the concerns I raised. To assist them in this effort, she
also made a request to DOJ for an experienced corrections professional
from the Bureau of Prisons to be detailed to BIA. That person is now on
board and I detect a new sense of urgency about these concerns at BIA.
Our final report, which we hope to have finished at the end of the
summer, will provide the Department with additional findings and
recommendations regarding funding, detention standards and policies,
detention facility maintenance, health care and social services at the
detention facilities, and training and hiring practices of detention
personnel.
The responsibility for the conditions and failings we have found at
Indian detention facilities can not be attributed to any particular
individual or Administration. Some of these problems are decades old.
Thus, the solutions will not be easy to achieve and may take
considerable time, effort and funding. However, nothing less than a
Herculean effort to turn these conditions around would be morally
acceptable.
______
Prepared Statement of Darrel Martin, President, Fort Belknap Indian
Community Council of the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes, Fort
Belknap Agency, MT
Greetings from the Gros Ventre and Assiniboine Tribes of the Fort
Belknap Indian Community, Montana. On behalf of the tribal government
of the tribes, I thank you for the opportunity to provide testimony to
this committee on the important topic of tribal detention facilities.
I am an enrolled member of the Gros Ventre Tribe, and serve our
tribal council as the tribal president. The Fort Belknap Indian
Reservation is located in North Central Montana, approximately 200
miles north of Billings, the largest city in Montana. Fort Belknap
Agency, the location of tribal headquarters, lies about 150 miles
northeast of Great Falls, MT, the closest city with a certified
juvenile detention facility.
Adult Detention Facilities. At Fort Belknap, a single tribal jail
provides adult detention facilities to over 5,000 enrolled members. The
jail was recently reviewed, was determined deficient and can no longer
house inmates for more than 72 hours. Inmates needing to be detained
are housed at the Blaine County jail, a 1-hour drive from some of our
reservation communities, or at facilities on the Fort Peck Reservation,
at least a 3-hour drive from Fort Belknap Agency.
Our jail, reconstructed from other facilities about 35 years ago,
is located at Fort Belknap Agency in the northern part of our
Reservation. It was condemned 10 years ago, as not meeting jail
standards. It was rehabilitated less than 10 years ago, only to be
redetermined as deficient in the last 6 months.
Our police department has had to transport prisoners on a regular
basis to other facilities. The cost of transportation has been
significant, as it often requires overtime for officers to shuttle
prisoners back and forth on a drive that can be 6 hours round trip in
good weather. Our winters are long and often bitterly cold. In poor
weather, trips can be delayed or extended to as long as 10 hours, round
trip.
The lack of a local jail has caused logistical difficulties for our
tribal court. The transportation of prisoners to other jails has
continued to cause budget difficulties for our police department.
Paying for offsite detention has similarly caused budget difficulties
for our police department. The lack of a local jail has affected
detention decisions by both our police department and tribal court
judges. Because of the difficulties in detaining individuals, it
happens that people are released who should be detained. This causes
risks to the community.
The families of detainees are often unable to travel the distances
required to visit family members. Counseling alternatives available on
reservation are seldom available at distant locations.
In the last 35 years, we have watched as every other tribe in
Montana has had a new jail facility built. We don't begrudge such
facilities. Other tribes certainly have needed jails. But Fort Belknap
has equally needed a facility, and has only been able to secure moneys
to rehabilitate starkly inadequate buildings. Those short term fixes
have not worked. We need a long-term solution.
We can fully appreciate that money is hard to come by right now.
Nevertheless, basic law enforcement and the ability to detain people
who break the law is the most basic of governmental functions. We
urgently call on Congress to help us in this effort.
Juvenile Detention Facilities. We have never had a juvenile
detention facility on our reservation. For several years, we have
contracted to place youth in the Blaine County youth detention
facility, about 25 miles away. However, this facility will close
shortly, as it does not meet state standards. It has not provided
counseling and treatment to youths detained.
The closest certified facility is located in Great Falls, MT,
approximately 150 miles from Fort Belknap Agency, and nearly 200 miles
from the southern communities on our reservation. These distances are
simply unworkable in providing adequate services to youth and their
parents.
Limited funding exists to detain youths. Limited funding exists to
provide counseling and treatment to youth and their families. Many
families simply don't have the resources to travel to Great Falls to
visit their children. For nearly 6 months of each year, traveling such
distances is simply dangerous, because of cold weather and difficult
roads.
We need a solution at Fort Belknap to detain youth locally.
Providing timely, routine consequences to youth can make a difference
in their lives. We urgently call on Congress to help us in this effort
also. Thank you for your willingness to address these important
concerns.
______
Prepared Statement of John Yellow Bird Steele, President, Oglala Sioux
Tribe, Pine Ridge, SD
The Oglala Sioux Reservation is over 2 million acres in size and
has a population of approximately 50,000. We currently have three
detention facilities, one of which is a juvenile facility. Our
facilities are tribally operated under a Pub. Law 93-638 contract.
The adult detention centers in Kyle and Pine Ridge contain 24 and
22 beds, respectively. The Pine Ridge Correctional Facility is
currently staffed by nine correctional officers, one lead officer, one
facility administrator and two cooks. We house both male and female
inmates with an average daily occupancy rate of 33 inmates per day,
therefore overcrowding is a constant problem. This is particularly true
on the first of every month throughout the year, when 100 arrests a day
occur. The overcrowding often forces us to allow offenders to go free.
We are drastically underfunded which, in addition to causing
overcrowding, has burdened us with inadequate facilities and problems
which arise from being understaffed. Our juvenile facility is
understaffed due to lack of adequate funding and our inmate to staff
ratio at the Kyle Correctional facility is 35 to 1. These problems have
translated into our inability to properly secure the facilities and the
inmates.
Our facilities are inadequate. Because the volume of inmates is
greater than the maximum capacity of the facilities, the buildings have
deteriorated so that they are in disrepair and suitable for
condemnation. At the adult facilities we are unable to provide adequate
drinking water or bathroom facilities. Since we do not have sufficient
shower facilities, we must move inmates from cell to cell to provide
them access to a working shower. This is both time-consuming and poses
security threats particularly in regard to officers' safety.
Additionally, we have facility maintenance deficiencies such as our
ventilation system which breaks down often, particularly in the summer
months, so we are forced to use fans in the cell doorways. This too has
affected our ability to maintain a secure environment. At the Pine
Ridge Correctional Facility, we are plagued with inadequate lighting,
no sprinkler system, and no exercise or outdoor areas for the inmates.
Inadequate facilities and under-staffing have led to a number of
escapes. From January 1, 2004 to May 31, 2004, 30 individuals have been
charged with escape from the Pine Ridge Correctional Facility. These
escapes have occurred both inside the facility due to a lack of a
secure perimeter fence and inoperable gate, and outside the facility
during the transportation of inmates to court or to obtain health care.
Any one of these inadequacies alone is cause for concern, and yet we
must deal with all of them on a daily basis.
Equally distressing is our inability to provide onsite
rehabilitation services such as alcoholics anonymous, counseling, and
traditional ceremonies. Since alcohol is illegal on the reservation, we
have a high number of prisoners who are arrested for intoxication, but
no way to provide treatment.
To address these problems, the Oglala Sioux Tribe participates in
the ``Circle Project,'' a Department of Justice Demonstration Program
for enhancing tribal criminal justice programs. The Circle Project is
designed to introduce a multi-disciplinary approach to unique and long-
standing problems of high alcohol-related crime rates on Reservations
such as Pine Ridge. As part of the Circle Project, the tribe has
enhanced its community policing program and improved the administration
of its Public Safety Department, It has also designed and is receiving
construction funds from Department of Justice [DOJ] for a multi-
disciplinary direct-supervision corrections facility on the
reservation. The new facility shall combine in-patient alcohol
counseling with detentions, for the first time. It will be for
sentenced individuals only. Since the new facility is not a holding
facility, it will not alleviate the overcrowding in our current
facilities. Therefore, overcrowding will continue to be a problem and
we will be forced to transport/relocate inmates to other detention
facilities in other States thereby increasing our costs associated with
housing and transportation. Additionally, we are forced to use new
facility transition money to supplement existing facilities. Without
this source of funding we would be forced to cut much-needed current
detention staff.
While construction efforts progress, our growing concern is the
lack of funds for the facility's operation. The state-of-the-art
facility cannot be left to sit empty or to run inefficiently. An
estimated $2,176,395.00 is needed for detention operations and
facilities maintenance. This funding would flow through the BIA's
Office of Law Enforcement Services and Office of Facilities Management
and Construction budgets. The BlA supports our estimated costs and has
requested an increase in their appropriations for these purposes.
We also need funding for the operation of the detoxification aspect
of the facility. Our immediate need is the hiring of a Detox/Treatment
Director to develop facility operating standards; the estimated cost is
$124,265.00. We also need overall detox/treatment operating funds to
cover staff (including the aforementioned Director) and program costs;
the estimated annual cost totals $1,602,227.00. For efficient and
continuous operation, this funding must be recurring each year, not
grant based, and could be earmarked in the SAMHSA budget.
We urge Congress to look at the need for overall increases in the
national budget for these issues. We are in a crisis situation. Tribes
submit their unmet needs each year, but they are only addressed in a
piecemeal manner. Long-term change is needed in the area of Indian
Detention Facilities and increased funding is a necessary first step in
meeting our specific needs, of course, but also in the overall national
budget for detention center funding. We look forward to working with
Congress to address these important issues.
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United States Department of the Interior,
Office of the Secretary,
Washington, DC, October 7, 2004.
Hon. Daniel K. Inouye,
Vice Chairman, Committee on Indian Affairs,
U.S. Senate, Washington, DC.
Dear Mr. Chairman: I am pleased to provide the responses to the
questions submitted following the June 23, 2004, Committee on Indian
Affairs oversight hearing on Indian Tribal Detention Facilities.
Should you have any questions, please contact my office at (202)
208-7693.
Sincerely,
Jane Lyder, Legislative Counsel.
Spirit Lake Tribal Detention Facility
I have been contacted by Valentino White, Sr., Chairman of the
Spirit Lake Nation, in my State of North Dakota about the possible
closure of its detention facility at Fort Totten. My understanding from
the Chairman is that the tribe was not consulted by the Bureau of
Indian Affairs before a decision was made to place the facility on the
closure list. Like the Chairman, I am concerned about the possible
closure of this facility and strongly urge you to keep this facility
open.
Question 1: Can you please tell me what the current status of the
Fort Totten detention facility is? Has the Bureau of Indian Affairs
engaged in government-to-government consultation with the Spirit Lake
Nation on its possible closure? Will you commit to keeping the facility
open?
Answer: The Fort Totten detention facility is currently open. The
Bureau of Indian Affairs [BIA] has not engaged in consultation with the
tribe on closure of the facility since there is no official closure
plan.
We cannot make any commitments to keep any of the detention
facilities open. Decisions will be based on the BIA's ability to ensure
the safety and welfare of inmates and staff. If a building cannot be
renovated to meet the minimum standards and codes, the result will be
closure. However, we will commit to consulting with the tribes affected
prior to moving forward with a closure plan.
Mississippi Sioux Tribes Judgment Fund Distribution Act
On an unrelated note, I want to shift gears and raise an issue on
the Mississippi Sioux Tribes Judgment Fund Distribution Act. In 1998,
Congress amended the 1972 Mississippi Sioux Tribes Judgment Fund
Distribution Act to reallocate a portion of the undistributed fund to
the Spirit Lake Tribe, the Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Tribe and the Fort
Peck Sisseton-Wahpeton Sioux Council. The reallocation was conditioned
on the 1998 Act surviving any challenge to its constitutionality.
Following enactment, the constitutionality of the reallocation was
challenged in two lawsuits. The first, LeBeau v. United States, ended
on October 15, 2002, when a final judgment sustaining the
constitutionality of the reallocation was entered. An appeal was filed
but was subsequently dismissed on July 8, 2003, thereby ending this
litigation. The constitutionality of the reallocation was also
sustained in the second suit, Loudner v. United States. The final
judgment on this issue was entered on February 25, 2004, and was not
appealed. Accordingly, the three tribes have a right to payment of the
funds reallocated to them in the 1998 Act.
After the appeal deadline expired in the Loudner case on April 26,
2004, the tribes' legal counsel was informed by the Department of
Justice that payment could not be made to the tribes until the court
lifts an injunction entered in the Loudner case, some years ago barring
payment of any of the undistributed fund without permission of the
court. At the end of April, the Department of Justice requested
permission from Interior to file a motion to lift the injunction. I am
informed that on May 18, 2004, the Associate Solicitor for Indian
Affairs recommended that this permission be granted. To date, no action
has been taken on this recommendation.
Question 2: Since there is no longer any legal impediment, except
the injunction, to the payment of the tribes and since this payment is
now statutorily mandated, and since, I am informed, the lifting of the
injunction is not controversial and is expected to be granted without
objection by the court or the parties. I would like to know why, for
nearly 60 days, the Department has not responded to the Department of
Justice's request and I would like to know when this response will
occur.
Answer: On August 2, 2004, the Department of the Interior advised
the Department of Justice that it had no objections to the Court
lifting the injunction, so long as the rights of the lineal
descendants, who share the bulk of this fund, are protected. On
September 9, 2004, the Court lifted the injunction. The BIA will
process the payment accordingly.
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