Indians Face Rising Crime, Shortage Of Police Report Suggests Doubling Size Of Law Force

American Indians receive less than half the police protection provided to other rural communities and face a “public safety crisis” because of soaring reservation crime rates, according to a Clinton administration report.

The report proposes doubling the size of reservation police forces and suggests that a Justice Department takeover of Bureau of Indian Affairs police functions could improve safety.

President Clinton has given the Interior and Justice departments until the end of the year to recommend a plan for dealing with reservation crime so he can put it in his 1999 budget. The report was prepared by a team of federal officials, U.S. attorneys and tribal leaders.

“Simply put, many American citizens living on Indian reservations do not receive even the minimum level of law enforcement services taken for granted in non-Indian communities,” the report said.

The report stopped short of endorsing a Justice Department takeover of reservation law enforcement, but said that would ensure better congressional funding and higher standards.

Tribes are deeply divided over the idea, however, and it is losing momentum within the administration, according to a Justice Department official who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt has “effectively deferred this matter” to his new assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Kevin Gover, who oversees the BIA, the source said. Gover, who has expressed concerns about dismantling the BIA, isn’t convinced the Justice Department could obtain more money for law enforcement, said spokesman Thomas Sweeney.

Major tribes have come down on either side. Two of the largest, the Navajo Nation and the Oklahoma Cherokees, want the BIA to stay in control of law enforcement, while the Oglala Sioux and many other tribes in the Dakotas favor the Justice Department takeover. Many tribes took no position at all.

“We have 2.3 million acres throughout the reservation,” said Charles Murphy, chairman of the Standing Rock Sioux, who favor the Justice Department plan. “It would be so much easier for us to get additional law enforcement people.”

Nationwide, there are 1,600 BIA and tribal officers patrolling 56 million acres of Indian land, or 1.3 officers for every 1,000 residents, according to the report. That compares to an average of 2.9 officers per 1,000 residents in small non-Indian communities. On the Navajo reservation, there is fewer than one officer per 1,000 residents.

The report calls for adding 2,047 officers to reservations and increasing the number of criminal investigators from 270 to 496.

The homicide rate on Indian lands has soared 87 percent over the past five years, even as it has dropped 22 percent nationwide. In 1995, the murder rate on the Fort Peck Reservation in Montana was more than twice that of New Orleans, one of the nation’s most violent cities.