Administration looks to crack down on Indian crime

WASHINGTON — The Obama administration has vowed to address rising crime and the breakdown of justice on American Indian reservations across the West, and is planning to roll out a series of initiatives later this year to address what officials concede is a mounting crisis.

The package will be designed in consultation with tribal leaders in the coming months, and it will be presented at a final "listening session" in the fall attended by representatives from hundreds of tribes and led by Attorney General Eric Holder.

It's an effort to address spiraling rates of violent reservation crime, including rape, child sexual assault, domestic assault and beatings as well as a net of underlying causes, from insufficient prison space to neglect by federal investigators and prosecutors.

"We envision this tribal nations listening conference to be really about bringing a true action agenda," said Associate Attorney General Tom Perrelli, the Justice Department's third in command.

Comparing it to a similar initiative under the Clinton administration, Perrelli said that might include "a very significant request for additional resources. We're not at that point yet, but we hope soon to know what it is we're going to ask for."

But in addressing Indian crime, an administration that already plans to tackle the country's most vexing policy problems has taken on another: a breakdown in public safety complicated by jurisdictional oddities, insufficient resources and thorny politics.

And its early efforts are already being criticized by some federal lawmakers and advocates, who fear the new administration is making some of the same mistakes as its predecessors.

Perrelli faced skepticism from listeners at a National Congress of American Indians conference in Niagara Falls, N.Y., recently, several of whom pressed for specific action rather than another "listening session," a tactic tried by administrations going back to Jimmy Carter.

At a Senate hearing June 25, Perrelli announced that the administration would oppose a provision in a Senate bill requiring the public release of statistics on reservation prosecutions by the Department of Justice, which is responsible by law for all serious Indian crimes but routinely declines to take those cases.

The release of those statistics — known as declinations — has been a high priority for policy-makers and advocates, who say it would pressure federal prosecutors to take more cases and help end the growing sense of lawlessness on reservations.

"I'm never sympathetic to the argument that less information is a good thing," said former Colorado U.S. Attorney Troy Eid, a Bush appointee who has pushed for more vigorous prosecution of Indian cases and who also testified at the June Senate hearing.