Domestic violence: South Dakota tribal-city police department a national model for handling domestic abuse - Sunday, Sept. 24, 2006

Editor's note: Reporter Jodi Rave has spent much of the past year reporting on the reasons for - and solutions to - the disproportionate rate of domestic violence against Native women. This is the third installment in an occasional series.

FLANDREAU, S.D. - When the city of Flandreau and the Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribal Council hired Ken James to create a tribal-city police department, no one knew how it would work.

But they knew this: They needed a new approach, something radical, something to provide law enforcement for those living within tribal, state and federal jurisdictions - a phenomenon that affects nearly 300 reservations nationwide.

They needed a department that could handle the web of legal jurisdictions that can snare anyone living in or near Indian Country.

In Flandreau, a person can stand in the middle of the street and be on tribal land. Then he can shift his feet and stand on city land.

City and tribal officials spent three decades trying to find the best way to police Moody County.

The tribal council hired tribal police officers. That didn't work. It turned to Bureau of Indian Affairs cops. That didn't work, either. Then a partnership with the sheriff failed.

"We didn't feel the county was able to meet our needs, nor did the tribe," said Flandreau Mayor Warren Ludeman. "Our needs more closely meshed together. That's because a good share of the reservation is within city limits."

Today, each Flandreau police officer must understand city, state, tribal and federal laws.

"We've gone through our rites of passage," said James, a Santee Sioux from Nebraska. "It hasn't all been a bed of roses."

But it's working. Harvard's Honoring Nations program recognized the Flandreau City Police Department last fall as one of Indian Country's best examples of tribal governance, an award worth a $10,000 prize. It will be used, James said, to organize a national conference on establishing cross-jurisdictional partnerships.

Flandreau's police force is funded by the city and tribe. A public safety commission - with tribal and city representatives - oversees the department.

In 2003, the tribe and city turned their attention to domestic violence.

The police department began working with the Wholeness Center, a domestic violence and sexual assault program that helps victims in rural Moody County and those living on Flandreau Santee Sioux tribal lands.

"We know nationally that domestic violence is a problem for every socioeconomic class, for every woman of every educational level," said Paula Clary, the center's director.

In Moody County, abuse hits Native women especially hard.

Natives comprise 12 percent of the county population. But Native women make up 70-75 percent of all clients served by the Wholeness Center's shelter.

Clary can't explain the numbers, but said people with fewer resources typically seek shelter assistance.

The numbers also reflect a larger problem: Native people make up 8 percent of South Dakota's population, but Native women account for one-third of those seeking shelter services statewide, Clary said.

While domestic violence had been rising in the Flandreau community, the police department has seen a significant drop in arrests. In 2001, it made 28 domestic violence arrests between the tribe and city. In 2004, combined domestic violence arrests fell to 12.

James credits an increase in community education and public awareness. And when an abuser is arrested, the address is printed in the local newspaper.

In a small town, it's easy to figure out who's abusing others.

Native women are particularly vulnerable where tribal, state and federal jurisdictions collide, said Andrea Smith, a University of Michigan assistant professor of Native studies and a leading national expert on violence against women of color.

Many blame the U.S. Supreme Court for a 1978 ruling - Oliphant v. Suquamish Indian Tribe - that said tribal courts do not have criminal jurisdiction over non-Natives.

The ruling "severely infringes on their ability to create safety for Native women," Smith said. "It hinders their ability to arrest the people living there."

The same problems arise on tribal lands that fall under Public Law 280, which gives states jurisdiction.

"There's already a historic distress going on between state officials and reservation communities in many cases," Smith said. "For one thing, states don't get extra funding to do law enforcement on reservations. So they just don't want to be bothered because those reservations are often geographically isolated."

Natives pay the price, said Smith, author of "Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide."

The Bureau of Justice reports 70 percent of violent crimes against Natives are committed by whites, while 10 percent are committed by blacks. The high rate of violence inflicted by other races could be attributed to border town violence and intermarriage with non-Natives.

"The other possibility is non-Native perpetrators often seek out a reservation place because they know they can inflict violence without much happening to them," Smith said. "There's often no one there who can arrest them. Natives can't arrest non-Native perpetrators. If it's not a major crime, state officials don't arrest them either."

Then it's up to the FBI to handle those offenses.

Not all tribes are as successful as the Flandreau Santee in addressing domestic violence.

A larger problem exists because reservation domestic violence arrests aren't reported to a centralized database, such as the National Crime Information Center.

A provision in the recently reauthorized Violence Against Women Act of 2005 is supposed to create a national domestic violence registry to include abusers on tribal lands, but President Bush has yet to include any money for the registry in his budget. Congress authorized $1 million for it in the 2005 Violence Against Women Act budget.

Until then, though, tribes aren't keeping track of Native abusers who might travel from one reservation to the next. And they can't prosecute non-Natives.

And even a cross-deputized department like Flandreau faces myriad obstacles.

Did officers arrest a suspect on city land? Tribal? Was the suspect white? Native?

These factors determine whether a person appears in tribal or city court.

And the cops don't always get it right.

A Flandreau officer once responded to a domestic violence call after a non-Native man assaulted his son, a tribal member. The charge was filed with the state because he was non-Native.

But the crime took place on tribal land, where the man lived with his Native wife.

James had to talk with his officers. "I said, 'No, you can't do that.' Then we had to drop the charge," The complaint had to be refiled with the U.S. attorney's office.

"You're going to have complex issues," James said. "That's why you need people who are good problem solvers."

Jodi Rave covers Native issues for the Missoulian. She can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jodi.rave@lee.net