Editorial: Lawlessness on reservations

Monday, April 14, 2008  

"The stories are so grim it's hard to believe they're happening here. A shop is broken into again and again with no repercussions.

Thugs break into homes with no fear of being caught and inflict horrible violence on strangers. The police are hours away, if they're working at all.

Not in America - it couldn't be. Certainly not in South Dakota.

But it is, and the state of lawlessness on some of South Dakota's Indian reservations undermines our collective struggle toward a stronger, richer, more just society.

Situations such as this develop through years of systemic failures, eventually reaching the point that it seems Standing Rock has reached: It is a community in which, for some, consequences have been divorced from actions."

Get the Story:
Editorial: Crime haunts tribes (The Sioux Falls Argus Leader 4/13)