No reform in sight for racist Native American Prison Systems
Saturday, January 29, 2005 at 08:22AM
TheSpook
If you were ever in suspense
about it, it looks like you can relax - detention facilities in Indian
country are not going to get funding for reform any time soon. The
demise of two bills in the 108th Congress settles that.The
neglect for Indian prisons, and Indians in the prison system, will go
on despite two watershed reports in the past couple of years. The one
from this year, the Office of the Inspector General for the Interior
Department's ''Neither Safe Nor Secure'' report on Indian-operated
detention facilities, got the most attention. It examined the
federal prison system for Indians ''as run by the BIA and/or tribes.''
It was completely scathing in its assessment of these facilities, but
it buried one key fact that tribal leaders later brought out: Federal
funding shortfalls have made it impossible for tribes and the BIA to
keep pace with basic maintenance, training and other functions at
detention facilities, much less implement needed reforms. Funding for
detention facility construction has fallen dramatically over the past
two fiscal years, by almost 90 percent to under $2 million in fiscal
year 2004.On this as on many other issues, we cannot close our
eyes to the problems that plague us - but nor should we be misled by
federal agencies into bashing our own people because they can't perform
miracles of oversight and effectiveness without proper funding. Instead
of highlighting the shortfall in federal funding, the OIG report
highlighted tribes that have used casino wealth to establish their own
detention facilities.But if we can't get Congress to address
Indian prison reform, we can at least recognize the neglect for what it
is. It is racism pure and simple. The American criminal justice system
is racist. Indian detention facilities don't get the attention they
need because it's easier for everyone to just lose sight of Indian
prisoners, just as it was easier for years to lose sight of whole
Indian nations. [more]
Article originally appeared on (http://brownwatch.com/).
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