This report by Stewart Wakeling, Miriam Jorgensen and Susan Michaelson, and Manley Begay reports that crime is increasing dramatically in Indian Country, but little is known about how the unique context of Indian Country - the culture, geography, and economy, for example - affects law enforcement policies and practices. This research report summarizes the findings from the authors' exploratory report on policing on American Indian reservations.

Looks at policing in Indian Country (IC) in order to understand the many arrangements for admin. reservation police departments (PD), develop an initial assessment of the challenges facing Indian policing, and identify policing strategies and approaches that might be successful in responding to the growing crime problem in IC. Evaluates the prospects for community policing in IC. Could this strategy, which grew out of the experience of PD in urban settings, be usefully applied to the strikingly different cultural geographic, and demographic features typical of Indian reservations? This study characterizes the variety of arrangements for reservation policing. Illustrated.

This book seeks to address a significant void in the scholarship on policing Native American communities. It is the first book to explore Native Americans' perspectives on the ways in which Native American communities--especially those in and around reservations--are both over-and underpoliced in ways that perpetuate both the criminalization and the victimization of Native Americans as nations and as individuals. Drawing upon a series of interviews conducted with 278 Native Americans from seven states, Policing Race and Place in Indian Country uncovers patterns of hate crime against Native Americans as well as a general dissatisfaction with the nature of law enforcement in their communities. Participants reported activities ranging from willful blindness to Native American victimization at one extreme, to overt forms of police harassment and violence at the other. What emerges from these descriptions is the recognition that the patterns observed by the participants of the study are an extension of a lengthy history of systemic racism against Native Americans. Policing Race and Place in Indian Country is one of the first books to address the policing of Native American communities. While there are several studies that investigate the racialized nature and context of policing, most only refer to Native Americans in passing. By focusing solely on the Native American community, the book is appealing to scholars writing on race and policing or criminal justice.

What does it mean to be a tribal police officer? What are the complexities of that role? And how do tribal communities, tribal police departments, and other law enforcement agencies collaborate to address the alarmingly high rate of violent crime in Indian country? Author Eileen Luna-Firebaugh answers these and other questions in this well-documented text about tribal government and law enforcement in America. Based on extensive research with tribal police departments conducted over a period of eight years, Tribal Policing reveals the complicated role of police officials in Indian country and the innovative methods they are developing to address crime within their borders and to advance tribal sovereignty in the United States. Tribal police departments face many challenges, such as heightened crime rates, a lack of resources (working patrol vehicles, 911 systems, access to police radios), and vast patrol areas. Luna-Firebaugh demonstrates that tribal officers see themselves as members of the tribal community and that tribal law enforcement is a complex balance of tribal position and authority within the community. Among other topics, Luna-Firebaugh analyzes the structure of tribal law enforcement and the ways it differs from mainstream policing; the role of women, tribal members, and others who comprise tribal law enforcement personnel; tribal jails and corrections; police training; and the legal, political, cultural, and historical issues that affect American Indian tribal policing. This informative text addresses the scarcity of published material regarding tribal law enforcement and will be a welcome addition to courses in criminal justice, the administration of justice, law enforcement, and Native American studies.