A Penobscot Nation police department vehicle. Photo from EPA
Maine is home to five federally recognized tribes but state officials and politicians sometimes act as if they don't exist. Maine Attorney General Janet Mills is opposing efforts to strengthen law enforcement on reservations. She contends the tribal jurisdiction provisions of the Violence Against Women Act of 2013 don't apply in the state due to special provisions in a land claim settlement act from 1980. Citing the 1980 law, Mills also claims the Tribal Law and Order Act of 2010 does not apply in Maine. The law's major provision allows tribes to impose longer sentences on Indian criminal defendants. Tribes are lobbying for changes in state law that would recognize their authority. But they face big hurdles among lawmakers, who have twice rejected bills to to place a tribal representative on the board of directors for the Maine Criminal Justice Academy, The Bangor Daily News reported. “Maine has changed demographically in the past 15 to 20 years," Penobscot Nation, Police Chief Robert Bryant told the paper. "I think it’s important that not only do we look at this and say we need that representation there, but we need other races to have that seat at the table because we are changing, the state is changing." Unlike the state, Bryant noted that the federal government treats the tribe as a partner. He participated twice in high-level law enforcement meetings at the White House this year as part of the President's Task Force on 21st Century Policing. “It’s about having a voice. The public wants to have a voice. It’s about trust, and if you don’t have that trust, at the end of the day what do you have?” Bryan told the paper. In a sign of the failed relationship in Maine, the Penobscot Nation and the Passamaquoddy Tribe (Pleasant Point and Indian Township) withdrew their official representatives from the Legislature in May. They took action after seeing nearly every one of their proposals voted down or tables. Get the Story:
Tribe’s police chief: Maine changing, and law enforcement should change with it (The Bangor Daily News 8/4)
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