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
Develop Training and Education Programs
Participants note several solutions for inadequate training and education for criminal justice personnel. They suggest increasing the number of Indian social workers in criminal justice professions, increasing the cultural competence of workers, examining curriculum for programs that prepare workers for the criminal justice system, and involving the community in the support of Indians in the social work field. While several of the solutions were gleaned from talking circles with social workers, again these solutions are applicable across the board to schools and colleges that train workers for any role within the criminal justice system. One participant suggests training criminal justice personnel in an alternative approaches to the current structure of the criminal justice system.
“There’s the movement called restorative justice. It’s basically an alternative to court systems. A lot of it is based on Native American culture. For instance, you can have a juvenile who’s a first time offender and even if they’re facing a felony, you can get a judge to rule that this juvenile can go through restorative justice instead. But attorneys need to be aware of the option and both sides need to agree on the option of restorative justice. But judges have shown to be open to the idea.”
“Behaviorists tend to align more with the corrections approach, that actions equal consequences … the therapeutic model would talk about where’s this anger coming from [in a criminal justice setting].”
In our talking circles with social workers, one of the most frequently mentioned solutions to inappropriate social work interventions with Indians was to increase the cultural competence of non-Indian professionals. Participants frequently mention the need for curricular content on appropriate interventions and resources for Indians. But even more often they note the necessity of non- Indian social workers having direct field experience within the Indian community. Participants suggest that a process be developed by which social workers could be certified as culturally competent to work with native people. It was suggested that such a process would include the successful completion of academic course work and supervised experience with Indian people.
Despite the challenges faced by Native social workers, they are adamant and creative in their recommendations to make criminal justice systems for adults and juveniles more responsive to Indian people. They see the effort as one of asserting "the competence of the Indians” against the cultural incompetence they find in the system. Their suggestions to change the system include:
- Encouraging more Indians to move into decision-making roles in the corrections and welfare bureaucracies;
- Examining hiring practices to ensure access for qualified Indians;
- Calling for more funding and scholarships to ensure that Indians receive the credentials necessary to meet hiring requirements in the systems;
- Use the larger Indian community as a source of support and as a way of building collective understanding of system issues; and
- Creating an Indian social work organization to monitor and influence program policy and interventions in the lives of Indian people.
This final recommendation for Indian social worker advocacy organizations was the most frequently mentioned remedy through out the Talking Circle conversations. Several of these native social workers said that they look to their "strength within" for change. They encourage each other to operate with "cultural integrity" articulating "another way" of approaching the struggles of Indian families in the child protection and correctional systems. As one social worker put it, "we have to ask ourselves if we are seeking to reform the system; it requires a close look at how Indians are treated and sentenced, and we have to do something about that - that's not just a political debate; it's about asserting our sovereignty." (see Appendix C for a complete summary of talking circles).
The
Well-Being of American Indian Children in Minnesota: Economic Conditions,
1994
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