A new report from the
Government Accountability Office is highlighting the challenges facing young Native Americans who end up in the justice system.
In the
first study of its kind, the GAO found that more than 105,000 American Indians and Alaska Natives under the age of 18 were arrested between 2010 and 2016. The vast majority of the arrests took place at the state and local level, according to the data.
In 2016, for example, more than 11,000 young Natives were arrested by state and local authorities, compared to just 20 in the federal system.
But the data showed that Native Americans were overrepresented at the federal level. Of all federal youth arrests between 2010 and 2016, 18 percent were Native, according to the report, even though they comprise just 1.6 percent of the nationwide population.
The
Department of Justice explained the disparity to the GAO by noting that the federal government exercises jurisdiction over certain crimes in Indian Country. But that doesn't immediately explain other differences in the way Native youth were treated.
For example, offenses among youth of all ethnic groups and races were similar at the state and local level. Property crimes and public order crimes were charged at around the same rates, the data showed.
In the federal system, on the other hand, Native youth are most often charged with crimes against another person, such as assaults and sex offenses. Non-Native youth, in comparison, are more likely to face less serious charges.
The disparity is even more pronounced because there are more young non-Natives confined in the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) than Natives, according to the report. That means Native youth are more likely to be face harsher punishments in the federal system than their counterparts in both the federal and state systems.
"Native American youth who were sentenced and confined by the federal justice system—in BOP’s custody—had longer sentences compared to non-Native American youth from fiscal years 2010 through 2016, according to analysis of available data," the
report stated.
"About half (52 percent) of the Native American youth confined during the period were sentenced for 13 to 36 months," the GAO continued. "Most non-Native American youth (62 percent) had shorter sentences of up to 12 months."
More than 1,000 young Native Americans were arrested in both South Dakota and in Arizona in 2016, according to the Government Accountability Office. Source: GAO-18-591
The report also showed that Native youth in certain states are more impacted by the justice system than others. In Alaska, Montana, North Dakota and South Dakota, young American Indians and Alaska Natives are overrepresented in state and local arrests, according to the data.
South Dakota, in fact, stood out in a number of ways. More than 1,000 young Natives were arrested at the state and local level in 2016, the data showed. Only one other state, Arizona, had more than 1,000 arrests that year.
And young Natives in South Dakota were far more likely to be arrested than their non-Native counterparts and they were far more likely to be in detention at the state and local level, according to the report.
Comparisons cannot be easily made to the federal system because the data was collected in a different manner. Rather than going by state, the U.S. Marshals Service reported numbers by circuit, with the circuit containing South Dakota and six other states showing the largest number of Native youth in the system. More than 100 young Natives were in federal custody between 2010 and 2016, according to the GAO.
2015 Hearing on Juvenile Justice
Indianz.Com on SoundCloud: Senate
Indian Affairs Committee Oversight Hearing on "Juvenile Justice in Indian
Country: Challenges and Promising Strategies"
To better understand the challenges, the
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs is holding an oversight hearing next week to discuss the report.
“This report is essentially the first of its kind to comprehensively evaluate Native youth involvement in juvenile justice systems,"
Sen. John Hoeven (R-North Dakota), the chairman of the committee, said in a
September 6 statement "While this important report indicates that the number of Indian youth in the justice systems has declined somewhat, there is still much work to be done to address the risk factors which affect Indian youth and to help them turn their lives around.”
He added: "I intend to conduct more oversight into these issues so that Indian youth can thrive and have a hopeful future.”
According to the report, the
Bureau of Indian Affairs operates three juvenile detention centers. They are located on the Northern Cheyenne Reservation in Montana, on the North Dakota portion of the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation and on the Ute Mountain Reservation in Colorado.
The
Northern Cheyenne facility had the largest population, which was attributed by an increase in intakes from reservations throughout the region, the report stated. In 2010, only 14 youth were detained there, a figure that jumped to 204 in 2016.
"BIA officials also noted that the Northern Cheyenne facility services an area where there is a high rate of delinquency among youth, and because the facility works well with Native American youth struggling with delinquency issues, many tribes elect to send their delinquent youth to the facility," the GAO wrote.
The Standing Rock facility opened in May 2016 so comparable data does not exist. The Ute Mountain center had 53 juveniles in detention in 2016, down from 63 the year prior, according to the report.
In addition to the BIA-operated centers, tribes run at least 20 juvenile facilities. Additionally, 89 adult facilities in Indian Country house some juveniles, the report stated.
The Department of Justice plans to collect data about tribal law enforcement arrests in 2019, according to the GAO, to help understand what happens at the reservation level.
The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs hearing will take place next Wednesday, September 26. A witness list hasn't been posted online.
The panel's
last hearing on juvenile justice took place in July 2015. At the time, lawmakers and officials questioned whether placing young Native Americans in detention was the proper approach.
The data in the GAO report showed that overall, the numbers of young Native Americans and Alaska Natives declined in both the federal and state systems between 2010 and 2016.
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs Notice
Oversight Hearing on “Justice for Native Youth: The GAO Report on ‘Native American Youth Involvement in Justice Systems and Information on Grants to Help Address Juvenile Delinquency’ ”
(September 26, 2018)
Government Accountability Office Report
NATIVE AMERICAN YOUTH:
Involvement in Justice Systems and Information on Grants to Help Address Juvenile Delinquency
(September 5, 2018)
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