"Law enforcement can get stretched pretty thin in rural America. Insufficient funding and too much territory to patrol are the main reasons it is so hard to maintain adequate coverage. In Indian Country, when you add the challenge of checkerboard jurisdiction and additional funding challenges, it makes the idea of sufficient law enforcement just that – an idea.

Indian Country is, generally speaking, as rural as it gets. Therefore, we have all the problems that any other rural community has when it comes to law and order but more so.

A recent U.S. Department of Justice Study found that American Indians experience violence at a rate that is two and a half times greater than the general population. In that study, for every 1,000 American Indians, about 100 individuals experience violence. Compare that to the general population, which experiences violence at a rate of about 50 per 1,000 individuals. The Department of Justice also found that American Indian women are 2.5 times more likely to be raped or sexually assaulted than any other group in the Unites States. Currently, fewer than 3, 000 federal and tribal officers patrol 56 million acres of Indian lands. The Bureau of Indian Affairs estimated in a recent study that tribal police staffing meets about 58 percent of policing needs."

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Aurene Martin: Law and Order in Indian Country (The Daily Yonder 5/13)