State Tribes Passed Over in Funding of Drug Courts

When Native Americans in California got shorted last year on a major federal dole-out for fighting crime on tribal lands, U.S. Justice Department officials pledged that it wouldn’t happen again. Instead, the problem now seems to be getting worse.

The Justice Department last week came out with more than $5 million in new grants for 38 tribes around the country designed to fund much-ballyhooed “drug courts” and help nonviolent drug and alcohol offenders break the cycle of addiction and arrest.

But California--home to 107 tribes and the most Native Americans in the nation--was shut out. None of the grants is going to a California-based tribe, and only one--a $30,000 grant to the Nevada-based Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California--is earmarked for a tribe with any representation at all in the state.

“There’s obviously a huge need for ongoing funding,” said Sue Masten, chairwoman for the York Tribe in Northern California and president of the National Congress of American Indians. “This should draw attention, because what it says is that something needs to be done.”

The problem is that California tribes find themselves in a Catch-22: Because their law-enforcement holes are so gaping, many tribes don’t have the police and court systems in place to be legitimate candidates for federal grant money in the first place.

California tribes, hampered by a 1953 federal law that gave state governments in California and a few other states jurisdiction over criminal and civil law on tribal lands, have lagged behind most other states in developing law enforcement resources.

Unlike Native Americans in many other states, most California tribes do not even have police departments or court services of their own, and relations with the sheriff’s deputies who patrol their lands are often frayed.

“It may well be the case that tribes in California that don’t have any court at all are not in the best position to jump into the drug court business,” said UCLA professor Carole Goldberg, head of the university’s joint program in law and American Indian studies. Tribal leaders “are rightfully displeased over the history of having been shut out [of federal grant programs]. They’re handicapped in this.”

As a result, California tribes have struggled to deal with crime problems that are often much more severe than in the population at large.

A Justice Department study released last year found that the rate of violent crime nationwide against Native Americans--often at the hands of nonnative Americans--was nearly twice as high as that against other U.S. residents.

Alcohol, long a demon in many tribes, was identified in the study as a major problem. Seven in 10 Native Americans in local jails for violent crimes had been drinking when they committed the offense, nearly double the rate for the general population, the research found.

The Justice Department’s new drug court grants target the particular needs of nonviolent substance abusers who have been arrested, including alcoholics and drug addicts, by taking them out of the generalized court system and focusing more intensely on rehabilitation.

Modeled after the success of programs in Los Angeles, Miami and elsewhere, drug courts are now in place in about 500 communities and have drawn strong support from Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, federal drug czar Barry McCaffrey and other law-enforcement officials.

Reno, in announcing last week’s grants, pointed to dramatic declines in Florida and Kentucky counties in the number of people rearrested after “graduating” from a drug court. And Justice Department officials also said the new grants should help meet “a higher need for drug abuse treatment” in the Native American community, with high rates of drug and alcohol use.

But for an estimated 65,000 Native Americans in California who live on or near reservations, such federal aid may still be a long time in coming.

Mark Van Norman, director of the Office of Tribal Justice at the Justice Department, said that the drug court grants “work best in conjunction with an existing court system,” and most California tribes simply do not have such a system in place yet.

Federal officials have conducted outreach meetings in recent months in California and provided other assistance to help accelerate the development of tribal police departments, court systems and other law-enforcement resources, and Van Norman said he is hopeful.

“The California tribes are really beginning to focus more strongly on justice systems and police development,” he said. “We’re seeing a lot of positive development even though it’s unfortunate that we don’t have California participating in these drug court funding projects. I’m hopeful this year we’ll get more participation.”

But Justice Department officials offered similar assurances last year after California received less than 1% of an $89-million allotment for new tribal police officers--only to see state tribes shut out entirely in the current batch of drug court funds.

Van Norman and other Justice Department officials could not say how many tribes in California applied for the current grants. In the past, however, California tribal leaders have complained that they were never informed the money was available or felt discouraged from applying because they saw little chance of success, given their scarce resources.

In addition to the 38 tribes awarded grants, the Justice Department is also distributing about $20 million in drug court funding to 61 counties and court systems nationwide. Eleven jurisdictions in California will receive money, including San Francisco’s youth treatment and education court, the Santa Barbara County Probation Department and Santa Cruz County.