Research Reports
Reflections on Traditional American Indian Ways, 1998
Threats to Tribal Sovereignty, 1998
Traditional American Indian Leadership: A Comparison with U.S. Governance, 1997
Discussion
American Indians represent only a small percentage of Minnesota’s population yet experience significant numbers of arrests, disparate sentencing, and “hard time” incarceration in state prisons. Their involvement in the criminal justice system begins early in life, and many young American Indians generally accept the criminal justice system. The Indian community is quite familiar with the criminal justice system because most Indians know someone who has been confronted by a social worker at school, a local police officer, or has been imprisoned in a state institution. Sometimes this person is a parent, spouse, child, brother, sister, cousin, or another member of the extended family.
There are numerous causes for overrepresentation of American Indians in the criminal justice system. Primarily, participants in this study identify internal as well as external contributing factors such as weak connections with culture, spirituality, values, and beliefs of their ancestors; excessive use of alcohol; criminal justice system disparities in arrests and convictions; and social environmental factors. Yet no precise factor or combination of factors surfaces because in a circular fashion, each factor contributes to or is caused by another. For example, weak connections to culture, spirituality, values, and beliefs result from historic mistreatment that has defined the relationship between Indian people and the dominant society since earliest contact. Alcohol and drug use is a symptom of the pain experienced by American Indian males because of the disintegration of traditional male roles in the dominant society. As a result of this complex interplay between root causes and precipitating causes leading to disparities in the criminal justice system are difficult to sift through and measure.
In parallel with internal cause factors among Indian people other cause factors lie in the criminal justice system. These two domains function separately from one another; hardly communicating in terms to which each can relate. It is apparent that this gap must be diminished and eliminated. A new and effective method of dealing with American Indian populations is required. Overrepresentation of American Indians in the criminal justice system is a condition that is not isolated to Minnesota, it is in place throughout Indian Country where concentrations of Indian populations might be found. Therefore, the criminal justice system must begin to change its operational approach when addressing these disparities.
The solutions are difficult to describe. Primarily, participants identify community involvement in policy development as a necessary step to reestablish culture and traditions in the community, to develop cultural training for criminal justice personnel and to change operations in the criminal justice system. Unfortunately, the difficulty of identifying root causes as well as the interplay between causes and solutions tend to focus on one area. For example, over the past 20 years the prison population in Minnesota has quadrupled, and the population of Indian inmates has steadily increased. Analysis of this growth points to society’s desire to be more punitive without considering alternatives; keeping citizens safe seems to be the driving force. From a policy perspective, attention to this issue focuses on the rising cost of maintaining the prison system. However, building new prisons is not the way out of this serious dilemma. Nearly 10 years ago the Office of the Legislative Auditor reported on the recidivism of adult felons and stated, “Corrections spending has been one of the fastest growing parts of Minnesota’s state budget. The number of felons imprisoned and on probation in the community have grown in recent years, and there has been considerable public pressure to ‘get tough’ on crime.” Recent history shows this condition not changing. Therefore, we recommend a shift away from this rigid thinking and planning and suggest movement toward developing effective culturally competent approaches to address the issue, including effective education and training.
Very little discussion about causes for disparities takes place in any part of the criminal justice system, and even less discussion occurs between systems such as corrections, adult courts, and juvenile justice, law enforcement, and schools. As such, reducing disparities is an overlooked issue. While American Indians in concert with criminal justice system representatives may want the disparities either reduced or eliminated, little concrete planning has occurred. Policy makers tend to be attracted to and driven by statistical information that is historically framed in the scientific paradigm of research; while information that best describes the American Indian human condition can best be obtained through reality-based research methods.
The criminal justice system from police to corrections must develop internally driven, action-oriented steps to upgrade its knowledge of American Indians. For too long this system has focused its attention on the “to protect” end of the spectrum, i.e., public safety and security issues, and spent less effort on the “to serve” end of the spectrum, i.e., human dynamics. The outcome of this skewed behavior is quite natural; it tends to maintain the system rather than treat the client.
Arrests, convictions, inordinate time served, access to bail, and high recidivism rates are a few tell-tale signs that the system is not working well for American Indians. For many in the mainstream, it is “business as usual.” Since the 1950s, when American Indians began to show up in the criminal justice system in significant numbers the condition remains unchanged. This system appears incapable of improving itself. Internally, it doesn’t have the knowledge and/or experience to deliver the level of cultural competence necessary to work with Indian offenders.
The
Well-Being of American Indian Children in Minnesota: Economic Conditions,
1994
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