[Senate Hearing 114-81]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
S. Hrg. 114-81
ADDRESSING THE NEED FOR VICTIM SERVICES IN INDIAN COUNTRY
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HEARING
before the
COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
UNITED STATES SENATE
ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS
FIRST SESSION
__________
JUNE 10, 2015
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Indian Affairs
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COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
JOHN BARRASSO, Wyoming, Chairman
JON TESTER, Montana, Vice Chairman
JOHN McCAIN, Arizona MARIA CANTWELL, Washington
LISA MURKOWSKI, Alaska TOM UDALL, New Mexico
JOHN HOEVEN, North Dakota AL FRANKEN, Minnesota
JAMES LANKFORD, Oklahoma BRIAN SCHATZ, Hawaii
STEVE DAINES, Montana HEIDI HEITKAMP, North Dakota
MIKE CRAPO, Idaho
JERRY MORAN, Kansas
T. Michael Andrews, Majority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
Anthony Walters, Minority Staff Director and Chief Counsel
C O N T E N T S
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Page
Hearing held on June 10, 2015.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Barrasso.................................... 1
Statement of Senator Crapo....................................... 3
Statement of Senator Daines...................................... 28
Statement of Senator Franken..................................... 30
Statement of Senator Heitkamp.................................... 4
Statement of Senator Hoeven...................................... 25
Statement of Senator Lankford.................................... 31
Statement of Senator Murkowski................................... 25
Statement of Senator Tester...................................... 2
Witnesses
Cruzan, Darren, Director, Office of Justice Services, Bureau of
Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior................ 5
Prepared statement........................................... 6
Harrold, Hon. Dianne Barker, Tribal Court Judge, Pawnee Nation of
Oklahoma; Member, Cherokee Nation Victim Task Force............ 13
Prepared statement........................................... 16
Godfrey, Gerad, Chair, Violent Crimes Compensation Board; Senior
Advisor, Rural Business and Intergovernmental Affairs, Office
of the Governor, State of Alaska............................... 18
Prepared statement........................................... 21
Stafne, Hon. A.T. ``Rusty'', Chairman, Fort Peck Assiniboine and
Sioux Tribes................................................... 8
Prepared statement........................................... 10
Appendix
Aceveda, Jr., Hon. Casimero, President, Organized Village of
Kake, prepared statement....................................... 68
Frost, Joye E., Director, Office for Victims of Crime, U.S.
Department of Justice, prepared statement...................... 46
Flower, Ruth; Hannah Evans, Friends Committee on National
Legislation, joint prepared statement.......................... 83
Gardner, Jerry, Executive Director, Tribal Law and Policy
Institute, letter.............................................. 84
Ivan, Hon. Ivan, M. Chief, Akiak Native Community, prepared
statement...................................................... 81
Jerue, Hon. Carl, Chief, Anvik Tribal Council, prepared statement 70
LaPointe, Hon. Darla, Chairwoman, Winnebago Tribal Council,
prepared statement............................................. 45
National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), prepared statement. 63
O'Leary, Carmen, Director, Native Women's Society of the Great
Plains, prepared statement..................................... 53
Omish-Guachena, Germaine, Executive Director, Strong Hearted
Native Women's Coalition, Inc., prepared statement............. 60
Pete, Darlene M., Tribal Administrator, Native Village of Nunam
Iqua, prepared statement....................................... 72
Rodriguez, Hon. Thomas, Chairman, La Jolla Band of Luiseno
Indians, prepared statement.................................... 51
Root, Jane, Executive Director, Wabanaki Women's Coalition....... 58
Sam, Hon. Michael, Chief, Native Village of Tetlin, prepared
statement...................................................... 55
Sheldon, Jr., Hon. Melvin R., Chairman, Tulalip Tribes of
Washington, prepared statement................................. 75
Starbard, Robert, Tribal Administrator/CEO, Hoonah Indian
Association, prepared statement................................ 49
ADDRESSING THE NEED FOR VICTIM SERVICES IN INDIAN COUNTRY
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WEDNESDAY, JUNE 10, 2015
U.S. Senate,
Committee on Indian Affairs,
Washington, DC.
The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 2:30 p.m. in room
628, Dirksen Senate Office Building, Hon. John Barrasso,
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.
OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING
The Chairman. I would now like to call to order the meeting
of the Indian Affairs Committee and ask the witnesses to please
come forward.
Today the Committee's hearing is on Addressing the Need for
Victim Services in Indian Country. This Committee has examined
crime and justice in Indian communities for several years and I
have made criminal justice a priority as chairman.
Federal data shows that Indian communities face some of the
highest victimization rates in the Country. Native youth
experience violent crime rates up to ten times the national
rate. Violence is pervasive and tied to 75 percent of deaths
among American Indian and Alaska Natives between the ages of 12
and 20.
American Indian women are murdered at a rate of more than
ten times the national average on some reservations. It is
clear that tribes lack the resources and capacity to provide
basic services to victims of crime on their lands.
The primary source of victim assistance funding is the
Crime Victims Fund. Unfortunately, the way this fund is
currently administered, it is not working for Native victims of
crime. Under the current system, only a portion of this money
reaches the States, and far less ever reaches Indian Country.
Instead of accessing victim assistance and compensation grants
directly from the Crime Victims Fund like other States and
territories, tribes must apply to the States for these
resources.
Despite the exceedingly high crime rates and great need for
victim services in Indian Country, over the last five years,
tribes have never received more than 0.7 percent of the Crime
Victims Fund available for victim assistance. We will hear
today that one of the underlying problems is that most tribes
lag far behind the rest of the Nation when it comes to baseline
crime victim infrastructure and capacity.
For example, most tribe do not have emergency shelters for
crime victims. Most tribes do not have facilities or personnel
for the delivery of critical services, such as medical care and
counseling. Most tribes cannot provide temporary or
transitional housing, even when the perpetrators live in the
same home as the victim. This gap must be addressed as it
severely limits tribes' ability to deliver even the most basic
crime victim services and in turn limits opportunities to
restore safety and security to Native communities.
We must expand tribal access to resources for crime victim
services, improve the way these Federal dollars are
administered and ensure that tribes have the flexibility to
develop programs that meet the needs of their respective
communities.
So I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on
how to best accomplish these goals. I will be releasing a plan
in the near future to change the status quo for Native victims
of crime.
Before we hear from the witnesses present today, I want to
recognize the Vice Chairman for an opening statement.
STATEMENT OF HON. JON TESTER,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA
Senator Tester. Thank you, Chairman Barrasso. I appreciate
your holding this important hearing on Addressing the Need for
Victim Services in Indian Country.
Study after study shows that crime has devastating impacts
on its victims. Often those effects are not the easiest topics
to discuss.
For the witnesses who we have here today, I know that this
is not a topic that any of you would like to dwell on either.
Yet crime is a reality in far too many communities and far too
many homes in Indian Country. Each of the witnesses here today
have been touched by this issue in very personal ways. And each
of you works very hard every day to help curb violence, be it
suicide, domestic violence or drug or alcohol abuse.
I just want to say how much I appreciate the work that you
do, and I appreciate your coming here today to share your
knowledge and your experience with us. I would just like to
say, we talk about issues a lot. Hopefully we can stop talking
about this issue and start addressing it.
I want to extend a personal welcome to Chairman Rusty
Stafne of the Fort Peck Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes in my home
State of Montana. The Fort Peck Reservation is located in the
northeast corner of our State and lies within the boundaries of
one of the highest growing crime regions in the Country. Let me
say that again: it lies within the boundaries of one of the
highest growing crime regions in the Country. That region is
known as the Bakken.
This past August, I held a listening session focusing on
the human trafficking in the Bakken region. We have heard
first-hand how this unprecedented economic opportunity has
brought increased population, increased traffic and
unfortunately, increased crime into this very rural part of our
Country.
Chairman Stafne certainly knows better than most how all of
this translates into an uptick in crime and violence in his
community. Fort Peck has been a leader in addressing issues of
violent crime on their reservation. As Chairman Stafne will
discuss in his testimony, they were one of the first tribes in
the Country to cross-deputize local, State and tribal law
enforcement.
They also showed leadership in working directly with the
National Native Children's Trauma Center out of the University
of Montana in order to address the high instances of suicide
and attempted suicide of Native youth in their community.
Additionally, they were one of the first tribes to be selected
as a pilot project site under the Violence Against Women
Reauthorization Act of 2013.
Yet, there is much more to do. The tribe estimates that
they have only 50 percent of the police force necessary to
police their vast reservation. The resources that do exist are
often fleeting and are anchored on temporary grant funding that
prohibits stability or growth. I am certain this lack of
consistent and dependable funding is a problem for all tribes,
not just for those in Montana.
In recent years we have made some gains with the passage of
the Tribal Law and Order Act, and more recently by
strengthening tribal authority under the Violence Against Women
Act. But we still need to do more in helping our tribal nations
combat crime in their communities.
Our Committee will continue to work to secure resources
from law enforcement and victim services in Indian Country. One
such proposal I would like to thank our Chairman for working on
would create a set-aside in funding, specifically for Indian
Country out of the Crime Victims Fund created by the Victims of
Crime Act. I think that this set-aside is an important step in
creating safer communities in Indian Country. I will work with
my colleagues to ensure this legislation represents the views
of Indian Country, including those we are going to hear from
here today.
Again, I want to thank everyone on the ground who works
every day to improve the lives of our Native Americans and
Native American children throughout Indian Country. I look
forward to the testimony today.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you, Vice Chairman Tester.
Would any other members like to make an opening statement?
Senator Crapo.
STATEMENT OF HON. MIKE CRAPO,
U.S. SENATOR FROM IDAHO
Senator Crapo. Yes, Mr. Chairman, just briefly. Thank you
for holding this important oversight hearing today. Among the
critical issues facing Indian Country at the present time,
criminal activity and victimization with tribal lands ranks as
a top concern.
We are all aware of the influence of the Victims of Crime
Act and the Violence Against Women Act, and I appreciate the
efforts of the Chairman and Ranking Member to help us focus
even more effectively on Indian land. It is the task of this
Committee to ensure that Federal policies that are aimed at
rectifying the problem are serving their intended purposes. We
have all seen the data and know that Native American
communities are disproportionately represented in crime and
abuse when compared to the broader U.S. population. We must
continue to seek ways in which they can be improved.
The Victims of Crime Act is one tool that Congress has
adopted to help provide relief services and assistance.
However, we know that a lack of parity presently exists
regarding the share of the Crime Victims Fund going to tribal
communities.
I look forward to hearing from today's witnesses and know
that their feedback will help guide our efforts in addressing
this discrepancy. Once again, Mr. Chairman, thank you for
holding this hearing. I look forward to hearing from our
witnesses.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Crapo.
Would anyone else like to make an opening statement?
Senator Heitkamp.
STATEMENT OF HON. HEIDI HEITKAMP,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman and Vice Chairman
Tester for holding what I think is an absolutely critically
important hearing today. As you know, North Dakota is home to
five tribal reservations that are located almost exclusively in
rural areas, which makes it really difficult to provide
critical services.
I will tell you, I just was at a hearing where they talked
about kids driving around Indian Country holding up a cell
phone so that they could transmit electronically their papers
to UND so they could be graded. Think about if that person was
a victim of crime and they had no way to dial 911.
I can tell you, as a former attorney general, a huge gap in
our collective services to protect people in my State comes as
a result of a lack of official law enforcement on the
reservations where they have major crime responsibilities. So
this is an issue that we have all worked hard on, whether you
are in Fort Peck or whether you are in Fort Berthold, as
Senator Hoeven and I have experienced, these problems cross the
reservation. We want them fixed, and we want victim services to
be made available to all the victims of North Dakota, so that
no one gets left behind.
So thank you so much for holding this hearing. We look
forward to ongoing discussions about how we can improve victim
services, but also law enforcement services in Indian Country
and my State of North Dakota.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp.
Any other members who wish to make an opening statement? If
not, today we will be hearing from Director Darren Cruzan from
the Office of Justice Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs. We
will be hearing from, as introduced by Senator Tester, Chairman
Rusty Stafne. Also Judge Dianne Barker Harrold from the Pawnee
Nation of Oklahoma and Mr. Gerad Godfrey, who is the Chair of
the Violent Crimes Compensation, Office of the Governor, from
the State of Alaska.
Welcome, all of you. I want to remind each of the witnesses
that your full written testimony will be made a part of the
official hearing record. So please keep your statements to five
minutes, so that we may have time for questions.
I look forward to hearing your testimony, beginning with
Director Cruzan.
STATEMENT OF DARREN CRUZAN, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF
JUSTICE SERVICES, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
Mr. Cruzan. Chairman Barrasso, Vice Chairman Tester and the
rest of the Committee, I want to thank you for allowing me to
come and testify on this as has been said, very important
issue.
I think crime in Indian Country, as you have all mentioned,
is well documented. I don't need to convince you, you know that
as well as I do, if not better.
I think that the exciting part of this conversation is what
we could possibly do for these crime victims. Similar to what
we did with our high priority performance initiative, but I
think it is important for us to have the discussion and the
understanding that the crimes that we are seeing in Indian
Country are heinous.
And when we did our high priority performance initiative,
we saw, because of the added resources that were put out there,
a greater than 50 percent increase in violent crime in the
first 12 months. That was not because more violent crime was
being committed, it was because the community members saw that
something was being done, there was more violent crime being
reported.
I believe that we would see a similar increase in the
number of violent crimes. There are virtually, I say virtually,
for the vast majority of Indian Country, there are not the
resources out there that are needed. These victims and their
families, the survivors, are suffering because of it.
And it is a very simple thing, from initial response where
there is emergency housing needed or there is transportation to
get a rape kit done, all the way to the judicial process where
hopefully ultimately the suspects in these violent offenses
would be held accountable for their actions.
Far too many times in Indian Country, what we have are
these victims that don't show up to court because they don't
understand the system, they don't even have a way to get to
these types of hearings.
So this is absolutely, as Senator Heitkamp said, an
absolutely critically important conversation to be having. Just
to give you a little bit of perspective of the Bureau of Indian
Affairs and how we operate currently with our victims program,
we, through a partnership with DOJ and specifically Office of
Victims of Crime, we are able to receive funding, sort of
similarly to how our tribal partners do, as seed money to
initially hire these victim specialists who are the touch point
for the victims and respond to the crime scenes and provide
services.
We currently have ten for the BIA that serve in many
locations. That is the total number that we have that are
actually out there providing the services specifically to the
BIA.
In 2014, these ten victim specialists had a combined total
of 2,100 victims that they provided services to. That is a
staggering number when you think of it as a whole number. But
if you think about everything that goes into providing those
services, there was over 16,000 services provided.
So it is, as I said, the rides to the hospital, it is the
emergency services provided and maybe diapers to the family,
those types of services that are being provided. That is 210
cases a year that each one of these victim specialists are
providing.
They are in remote locations. They may be servicing four or
five or more tribes with hundreds of miles distance in between
them, responding 24 hours a day. Very, very difficult thing to
do.
I think it is the lack of adequate sustainable funds that
is the biggest concern for us. I do believe that we could have
a significant impact if the resources were out there, us and
our tribal partners, in providing services. I absolutely agree
with what I heard today. It is equity that we are looking for,
it is the ability for these victims who are suffering greatly
to receive the services and hopefully heal from it.
I know there is another hearing, and I have 37 seconds
here, I know there is another hearing coming up regarding
suicide. I think there is a direct correlation between
victimization and services or lack of services being provided.
I am happy to be here with this panel and I look forward to
the questions.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Cruzan follows:]
Prepared Statement of Darren Cruzan, Director, Office of Justice
Services, Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior
Good afternoon, Chairman Barrasso, Vice Chairman Tester, and
members of the Committee. Thank you for the opportunity to provide a
statement on behalf of the Department of the Interior, Bureau of Indian
Affairs, on the topic of ``Addressing the Need for Victim Services in
Indian Country. I would like to take a moment to congratulate the
Committee and members of Congress on taking unprecedented action that
increased the cap on the Crime Victims Fund, a catalyst to improve and
expand the Nation's capacity to effectively respond to the needs of all
crime victims.
We at the Bureau of Indian Affairs share the commitment to meet the
needs of crime victims in American Indian and Alaska Native communities
and we also aim to decrease barriers faced by AI/AN communities to
access programs and services critical to meeting the needs of crime
victims.
The Department also appreciates and would like to thank the Office
for Victims of Crime (OVC) at Department of Justice for its continued
support. Since 2010 OVC has provided approximately $2.9 million in seed
money to support BIA Victim Specialist positions in New Mexico,
Montana, Arizona, and South Dakota. In FY 2015, OVC will be providing
BIA an additional $832,000 for training and technical assistance
including efforts focused on Pine Ridge and the Bakken region.
State of Indian Country
AI/AN communities make up approximately 1.7 percent of the Nation's
population, but suffer some of the highest rates of violent crime,
shorter life expectancy, higher rates of suicide, and have the least
amount of consistent resources available on a continuum of care that
one can expect in most rural and urban settings.
While there is a severe lack of data on crime and victimization in
AI/AN communities, it is well documented that AI/AN communities
experience higher rates of violence than the general population.
AI/AN women experience the highest rates of sexual assault and
domestic violence in the nation. \1\ Native youth between the ages of
12 and 19 are more likely than non-Native youth to be the victim of
either serious violent crime or simple assault; \2\ and suicide is the
second leading cause of death for our Native youth aged 15 to 24. \3\
Just in the last ninety (90) days, BIA Law Enforcement alone responded
to eighty-eight (88) suicide attempts, with six (6) of those being
successful attempts, accounting for almost one (1) suicide attempt per
day. AI/AN children suffer post-traumatic stress disorder at the same
rate as veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, and triple the
rate of the general population. \4\
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\1\ www.BJS.gov.
\2\ Indian Law and Order Commission Report, Chapter 6 Juvenile
Justice: Failing the Next Generation, November 2013.
\3\ Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration
(SAMHSA), National Survey on Drug Use and Health, 2003.
\4\ Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/Alaska
Native Children Exposed to Violence Report: Ending Violence so Children
Can Thrive, Final Report, November 2014.
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Forty percent of the federally-recognized tribes in the United
States are in Alaska. Alaska Natives represent one-fifth of the total
State population. \5\ The demographics for Alaska Native villages are
vastly different than most American Indian tribal communities in the
Lower 48.
Public safety concerns over limited resources are severe across
Indian Country, but disproportionately so in Alaska Native Villages.
The rate of sexual violence victimization among Alaska Native Women was
at least seven times the non-native rate. \5\ On average, in 2003-2004
an Alaska Native female became a victim of reported sexual assault or
of child sexual abuse every 29.8 hours. The isolation of villages and
the inability to easily access tribal communities further create
vulnerabilities of re-victimization for Alaska Natives. \5\
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\5\ Indian Law and Order Commission Report, Chapter 2 Reforming
Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time is Now, November 2013.
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Given the national rates of crime victimization in American Indian
and Alaska Native communities, it is necessary to address the resource
parity for tribal nations. The Victims of Crime Act and the Crime
Victims Fund is the largest source of federal funding for crime
victims. While states and territories receive an annual formula based
on funding from the Victims of Crimes Act (VOCA) fund, tribes do not.
The BIA supports a tribal set-aside for Indian tribes to establish and
strengthen victim service programs for crime victims in AI/AN
communities.
In Fiscal Year 2014, $730 million was distributed from the Crime
Victims Fund, and approximately $6.1 million reached tribes through
tribal specific discretionary grant programs.
While these efforts are commendable, the level of funding
distributed specifically for Tribes for AI/AN communities is less than
1 percent of the VOCA funds distributed each year. There is much more
work to do to meet the critical needs of crime victims in Indian
Country.
Unmet Needs faced by Tribes for AI/AN Communities
Designated funding specifically for Tribes for AI/AN communities
would establish and/or strengthen justice for crime victims and meet
some of the most critical and basic unmet needs in AI/AN communities.
Crime victims in AI/AN communities have need for a wide range of
services that are culturally appropriate and tribal specific. The
proposed tribal set aside would allow Indian tribes to provide the
following:
Comprehensive community based programs to provide direct and
immediate assistance to victims to include culturally
appropriate crisis response and intervention, victim advocacy,
financial assistance for emergency needs such as food and
clothing, transportation, court accompaniment, and safe homes
or shelters;
Holistic services for abused and neglected children and
children exposed to violence, such as Trauma Informed Care
Centers and Child Advocacy Centers;
Legal and criminal justice advocacy, such as initiatives to
support local task forces and multi-disciplinary teams to
improve child abuse investigations and prosecutions, forensic
interviewing, and developing culturally specific models such as
Sexual Assault Forensic Examination Support, Training, Access
and Resources (SAFESTAR), to provide community based responses
to sexual assault victims;
Additional staffing for BIA Victim Specialist to serve all
26 BIA operated Law Enforcement Programs, and to expand the
program to fund Tribal Victim Specialist positions to assist
crime victims both in federal and tribal criminal justice
systems. Tribes should be able to sustain not only human
resources, but develop and enhance or expand current programs
and services for the immediate needs of crime victims;
Professional Development and Peer Mentoring across the
Nation and regions to support advancement of tribal Victim
Services (VS) programs, to identify and support new Promising
Practices, to develop and expand Program Policies and
Procedures, and to provide administrative and financial
oversight of designated tribal VOCA programs; and
Expanded National Data Statistics, Collection, and Research
and Development Programs for Indian tribes.
Tribal leaders and tribal organizations have advocated year after
year on the need for change in the way tribes access funding to support
sustainable victim service programs. Competitive discretionary grant
programs are limited in capacity to provide sustainable victims
services and resources for American Indian and Alaska Native
communities. Due to the lack of adequate resources within tribal
communities, once funding is unavailable, victim service programs lose
continuity and often victims distrust the help that is available.
Conclusion
Tribes possess the ability to identify and understand the range of
issues in their tribal communities; they are also closest to and
understand what approaches are suitable and have the potential to
create positive change. We must listen to the wisdom of Tribal Leaders
and acknowledge our responsibility to provide Indian tribes adequate
funding much like that afforded to states and territories. Tribes
should be able to sustain not only human resources, but also develop or
expand current programs and services for the immediate needs of crime
victims.
The Bureau of Indian Affairs has the advantage of working alongside
tribes and understands firsthand the severity of the lack of resources
in Indian Country and the impact it has on tribal communities. A tribal
set-aside for Indian tribes to establish and strengthen victim service
programs for crime victims in AI/AN communities would help address this
critical need.
The Chairman. Thank you, Mr. Director.
Chairman Stafne?
STATEMENT OF HON. A.T. ``RUSTY'' STAFNE, CHAIRMAN, FORT PECK
ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX TRIBES
Mr. Stafne. Chairman Barrasso, Vice Chair Tester and
Committee, I am A.T. Stafne. I am chairman of the Assiniboine
and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Reservation.
I would like to thank the Committee for inviting me to
testify. I would like to share with you the considerable need
for services for victims in Indian Country.
We face serious problems at Fort Peck. Our people continue
to suffer from very high rates of poverty, high rates of
homelessness and high rates of alcohol and drug abuse. All
these are leading indicators of violence in the community.
Unfortunately, violence is very prevalent at Fort Peck.
For example, in 2011 violent crime on the reservation was
five times higher than the rest of Montana and almost three
times higher than the rest of the United States. Roosevelt
County, which covers most of our reservation, still has the
highest rate of violent crime in Montana.
Domestic violence is a big part of the crime we must
address. At Fort Peck, during one year from October 1, 2013 to
September 30, 2014, our 911 call center received 718 reports of
domestic violence. This means that almost twice a day, every
day, our law enforcement officers are responding to a domestic
violence call.
The rate of violent crime has serious consequences for our
entire community. But what is most urgent for us is the impact
that it has on our children. Violence accounts for 75 percent
of the deaths of Indian children between the ages of 12 and 20.
Twenty-two percent of Indian children suffer PTSD because they
are exposed to violence.
In 2010, we had six students commit suicide and 20 more who
attempted suicide. During that suicide epidemic, school
officials reported that more than 30 percent of the middle
school children tested positive for sexually transmitted
diseases. At least 20 percent drank alcohol on a weekly basis.
These are children between the ages of 11 and 13. That is
why I am here. We have to do more for our children. We have to
find a way that we can help these children heal.
The Fort Peck tribes have taken a number of important steps
to try and address the needs of the victims. For more than 40
years, we have had an independent court system. Our courts now
have law-trained judges, law-trained prosecutors and law-
trained public defenders. We also have probation officers and
experienced court clerks.
Our tribal code and court opinions are published and
available to the public. Our courts are supported largely by
tribal funds. Because we want to combat domestic violence with
every tool possible, we took steps to implement VAWA. We now
exercise jurisdiction to prosecute non-Indian defendants who
commit domestic violence on our reservation.
In addition, 30 years ago, we established the Tribes'
Family Violence Resource Center. This Center is a primary
resource for victims on our reservation. The Center provides
crisis response and emergency services on a 24-hour basis to
victims of crime and abuse. The Center helps victims with court
proceedings and in finding shelter. It arranges medical care
and provides counseling.
The Center works closely with police in responding to 911
calls. The Center provides services to any victim in need,
whether the victim is female or male, Indian or non-Indian,
adult or child. Most of the Center's work is done by
volunteers.
The demand for services for victims at Fort Peck is
staggering. In 2012, the Center provided service to 1,237
victims, both children and adults. In 2013, the Center provided
services to 708 victims. In 2014, the Center served 886
victims. In short, over this three-year period, the Center was
addressing an average of 79 victims per month.
This Center receives some support through the Justice
Department's VAWA funding. We were also fortunate to receive
some funding from the Justice Department's special Bakken
Initiative grant last year. We are one of the few tribes to
recently be awarded a discretionary competitive from the
Justice Department's Office for Victims of Crime.
But apart from this recent grant, the tribe and our members
have no assistance from the Crime Victim Fund. We need more
help in order to serve victims in our community. Every year,
the States receive a direct set-aside funding from the Federal
Crime Victim Fund. In contrast, tribes must compete for grants.
Only a few grants are awarded to a few tribes each year. And
when the grant ends, the tribe must search for other funds to
replace it.
Tribes need a consistent source of funds, so we can
effectively run these victim assistance programs. Because of
the need in Indian Country, we ask that Congress establish a 10
percent set-aside of the Crime Victim Fund for tribes. This
request is supported by the Attorney Generals' Task Force on
American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence.
The Justice Department Office of Victims of Crime also
recommended an increase in resources to tribal communities.
Although Fort Peck is dealing with some of the highest
rates of violence in all of Montana, we have pulled and
stretched together programs to help victims of violence. But it
is extremely difficult to make the pieces fit together. We rely
heavily on volunteers and short-term discretionary funds.
Our tribes have the capacity to address the problems. But
our needs for victim services are overwhelming. That is why it
is so important to create a more reliable set-aside for Indian
Country.
In conclusion, I want to thank this Committee for holding
this hearing on this very important matter.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Stafne follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. A.T. ``Rusty'' Stafne, Chairman, Fort Peck
Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes
I am A.T. Stafne, Chairman of the Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of
the Fort Peck Reservation. I would like to thank the Committee for the
invitation to testify, and share with you the considerable need for
victim services in Indian country.
The Fort Peck Reservation is in northeast Montana, forty miles west
of the North Dakota border, and fifty miles south of the Canadian
border, with the Missouri River defining its southern border. The
Reservation encompasses over two million acres of land. We have
approximately 12,000 enrolled tribal members, with approximately 7,000
tribal members living on the Reservation. We have a total Reservation
population of approximately 11,000 people.
The Considerable Need for Victim Services at Fort Peck
Nearly half of the people living on the Reservation are below the
federal poverty level. Recent U.S. Housing and Urban Development (HUD)
data shows that nearly 1,600 Indian families residing on our
Reservation have household incomes that range from less than 30 percent
of the Median Family Income to 80 percent of the Median Family Income.
Homelessness is in excess of 10 percent. Further, Roosevelt County,
where most of our Reservation is located, has the poorest health in the
State of Montana. The bad health status is likely due to the rampant
alcohol and drug abuse on the Reservation. Studies on the prevalence of
violence in a community identify poverty, alcohol and drug abuse, and
homelessness as the leading contributing factors to violence. Thus, it
is no surprise that violence is so prevalent in our community.
The Fort Peck Tribes have provided law enforcement and correction
services on our Reservation since 1996 under an Indian Self-
Determination Act contract. We are also one of the first Indian tribes
in the United States to enter into a cross-deputization agreement with
state, county and city law enforcement agencies. Under this agreement,
first ratified nearly fifteen years ago, tribal officers are deputized
to enforce state and local law on the Reservation and state and local
officers are authorized to enforce tribal law. Today, our law
enforcement department consists of 18 police officers and 3 criminal
investigators. This is approximately 50 percent of what is necessary to
properly police a territory and population as large as our Reservation.
The violent crime rate on the Reservation in 2011 was five times
higher than the rest of Montana and almost three times higher than the
rest of the United States. Of the violent crime reported on the
Reservation, almost 40 percent involved alcohol or drugs. We have also
had to confront the plague of suicide that is devastating to far too
many native communities. In 2010, we had six students commit suicide
and twenty more who attempted suicide. There is nothing that tears at
the fabric of a community more than when a child takes her own life.
While these numbers are staggering, they are far better than what
they were in 1995 when the Tribes assumed control of the law
enforcement services. At that time, the murder rate on the Fort Peck
Reservation was twice that of New Orleans. Thus, while we have much
work to do, I want to acknowledge that our law enforcement officers,
tribal court and service providers have done a tremendous job in trying
to keep our community safe for the last twenty years.
Unfortunately, we are again experiencing a significant rise in
violent crime. We attribute the rise in crime to the rapid development
of the Bakken oil fields to our east and increased drug use, in
particular, heroin and methamphetamine.
In recent data summarized in the Montana newspapers, which ranked
the level of violence within each county in the state, Roosevelt County
ranked number one, the highest in violence, with Sheridan County
ranking the third highest in violence. These counties comprise most of
the Fort Peck Reservation. On the Fort Peck Reservation alone, there
are 89 registered sex offenders. And in eastern Montana and western
North Dakota (the Bakken region), there are a total of 392 registered
sex offenders.
We are all too familiar with the statistics regarding domestic
violence in tribal communities: approximately 34 percent of American
Indian and Alaska Native women are raped and 39 percent experience
domestic violence. In Montana, Indian women are 11 percent of the
intimate partner deaths in the State. During a one-year period, from
October 1, 2013 to September 30, 2014, the Roosevelt County/Fort Peck
Tribes' 911 Call Center received 718 reports of domestic violence. This
means that almost twice a day, every day, our law enforcement officers
were responding to a domestic violence call. It is not known how many
more incidents were not reported. What these statistics mean in real
life is that one in three Indian women has experienced some sort of
serious violent attack in their lifetime.
The rise of violent crime has serious consequences for our entire
community, but what is most urgent for the Tribes is the impact it is
having on our children. According to the Indian Tribal Trauma Center,
Indian children are 2.5 times more likely to suffer trauma than non-
Indian children, and violence accounts for 75 percent of the deaths of
Indian children between the ages of 12 and 20. This is leaving a
devastating legacy for our children. As stated in the November 2014
Report from the Department of Justice Task Force on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence, Indian children experience
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) at a rate of 22 percent. This is
the same level as Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans. That means more
than 1 in 5 Indian children in this country is suffering from
battlefield-like PTSD. At Fort Peck, Poplar School officials reported
to the Federal health team dispatched during the suicide epidemic that
more than 30 percent of the middle school children tested positive for
sexually transmitted diseases, and at least twenty percent drank
alcohol on a weekly basis. Again, we are talking about children between
the ages of 11 and 13. These are not independent, headstrong teenagers,
these are babies.
That is why I am here. We have to do more for our children. We have
to do more for the future of our tribe and our nation. We have to find
a way that we can help these children heal. If we do not, my community
and the rest of Indian country will be forever damaged.
The Steps That the Fort Peck Tribes Have Taken to Assist Victims
At Fort Peck, we have long believed that a strong tribal government
is the way that we can best serve our people. That is why for more than
forty years, the Fort Peck Tribes have had an independent judicial
system, including an appellate court. It is through this system that we
try to provide justice to our victims and our defendants. Our judicial
system now includes law-trained judges, law-trained prosecutors, law-
trained public defenders, probation officers, a published tribal code,
and experienced court clerks and court reporters. Our court's opinions
are published and available to the public. Our tribal courts and our
court services--which are also essential to addressing the rights of
victims--are largely supported by tribal funds.
Given the strong foundation of our court and the Tribal Council's
desire to combat domestic violence with every tool possible, the Tribes
elected to pursue the opportunity presented by the Violence Against
Women Act (VAWA) and exercise our inherent jurisdiction to prosecute
non-Indian defendants who commit domestic violence on our Reservation.
We did this--not because we lack good partners in our U.S. Attorney and
local law enforcement--but because this is simply another avenue to
provide justice to the victims. We think providing justice to victims
is an important step in providing them a pathway to heal and move on
with their lives.
The Fort Peck Tribes were also recently notified that we are now a
Substantially Implemented Tribe under the Adam Walsh Act and the Sex
Offender Registry and Notification Act (SORNA). We have worked to
achieve this status since 2009. Our ability to register sex offenders
is another important tool in protecting victims and potential victims.
In addition to providing direct justice to victims, the Fort Peck
Tribal Court provides other resources to victims. For example, we were
one of the first Tribes in Montana to issue Hope Cards. The Hope Card
allows someone, including a child, who has been granted an order of
protection in one jurisdiction to easily prove it in another
jurisdiction. These small durable cards, the size of credit cards,
contain the necessary information regarding the order of protection for
law enforcement to act. This is a small thing, but an important tool
for our victims and law enforcement.
We have also worked to protect victims by establishing specific
procedures to address their needs. For example, the Fort Peck Tribes
are the only jurisdiction in Montana to have established a written Drug
Endangered Children Protocol that sets out the responsibilities of
social services and law enforcement entities for any scenario where
children and drugs are involved.
Another critical step that we have taken to address the needs of
victims was done thirty years ago, when the Fort Peck Tribes
established the Tribes' Family Violence Resource Center. This is the
primary resource for victims on our Reservation. The Center works
directly with tribal, federal and local law enforcement agencies to
provide services to victims of violence.
The Family Violence Resource Center is one of twenty-six domestic
violence shelters in Indian country. The Center provides crisis
response, emergency services and intervention on a 24-hour basis to
victims of physical, psychological, economic and sexual abuse. The
Center works closely with police in responding to 911 calls and in
providing other emergency services to take care of the victim, whether
female or male, Indian or non-Indian, adult or child, to be sure they
are safe and healthy.
The Center also provides victims with legal advocacy services and
assistance in connection with court proceedings. The Center's advocates
work with prosecutors to keep the victim informed of offender charges,
plea status, and release date for the victim's notification and safety.
The Center's advocates also provide the victims with transportation to
the prosecutor's office and courts when needed. The advocates also
assist victims in filing for protection (restraining) orders and child
custody, and by providing referrals to legal lay advocates in civil
matters.
The Center's staff facilitates necessary health care for our
victims, which includes accompanying sex abuse victims to medical exams
to reduce trauma. The Center provides victims with shelter and safety
plans, and crisis counseling (both cultural and secular based on the
victim's choice). The Center operates a crisis hotline and provides
community education. It assists victims by providing transportation to
medical facilities, other resource agencies, and both local and off-
reservation shelters when local ones are full or it is not safe for the
victim to remain on the Reservation. The Center will also provide
victims with replacement clothing and shoes when the victim's clothing
has been confiscated as evidence.
The Center provides special counseling services, through a forensic
interviewer/crisis counselor, for child victims and their non-offending
parent or guardian. For those children who witness the violence, we
treat them as victims as well and provide child friendly/age
appropriate counseling services.
We recently moved the Center to a new facility, which we have named
after Patty McGeshick (Red Bird Woman), a Tribal member who was a
tireless advocate for victims, working any time--day or night--to
ensure that a victim of violence had a safe place to be. Patty lost her
lifetime battle with lupus this past year. She is deeply missed by our
community, but her work continues through her dedicated staff at the
Family Violence Resource Center and the staff at the Tribal courts.
The Need for Additional Resources to Assist Victims
The demand for services for victims at Fort Peck is staggering. In
2012, the Family Violence Resource Center provided advocacy and
services to 642 adult victims and 595 of their children, totaling 1237
victims. In 2013, the total number of victims receiving advocacy and
services was 412 adults and 296 children, for a total of 708 victims.
In 2014, the Center served 519 adult victims and 367 children, totaling
886 victims. In short, over this three-year period, the Center was
addressing an average of 79 victims of domestic violence and sexual
assaults per month. The high number of victims served in 2012 reflects
the significant impact that the Bakken oil boom had on violence
affecting Fort Peck. With the decrease in oil production, we have seen
some decrease in violence and crime, but every year brings new
challenges. These now include meth and other drug-related violence,
which the Center's staff has found is more dangerous and leads to long-
term damaging victimization. Compounded by our proximity to the oil
development activity, the need for victim services is greater than
ever.
The work of the Family Violence Resource Center receives some
support through the Department of Justice Office on Violence Against
Women (OVW) Coordinated Tribal Assistance Tribal Governments Grant. We
were also fortunate to receive some additional funding from the
Department of Justice's Special Bakken initiative grant awarded last
year. This one-time initiative focuses on training for area law
enforcement, advocates and victims' service providers in the greater
Bakken region encompassing eastern Montana and western North Dakota.
The Center works hard to compete for grant funds each year in order to
support its operations.
Much of the work of the Family Violence Resource Center depends on
help from volunteers. The Center currently has five volunteer advocates
who respond to domestic violence across the Reservation, and are on the
weekend call list at the 911 Center. But while these volunteer
advocates work without pay, they, like all other Center staff, must
receive 40 hours of training before they can respond to the crimes of
domestic violence and sexual assault. The Center must fund the cost of
training as well as the related expenses that volunteers incur (such as
costs of providing transportation) to provide services to victims.
Unfortunately, due to funding constraints, combined with the
extensive need for victims' assistance, we handle virtually every case
as a crisis and do not have the luxury of providing systemic and
sustained support to our victims. The Center struggles to meet the
need. When the Center itself does not have the resources, the Center's
dedicated staff will use their own funds to help victims--to do simple
but critically important things, like buy food and baby formula so the
victim can feed her children while they travel to a shelter or while
they wait for other resources to become available.
We are one of the few Tribes in the country to recently be awarded
a discretionary competitive grant from the Department of Justice's
Office for Victims of Crime. Under this grant, the Tribes conduct
community education programs to encourage victims of sexual assault to
report crimes and seek assistance. With this funding, we were also able
to hire a tribal prosecutor to register sex offenders and establish a
crisis hotline for victims. But apart from this recent grant, the
Tribes and our members have not had assistance from the Crime Victims
Fund. The victims we serve do not have access to other victims'
resources. There has been only two times where victims at Fort Peck
qualified for crime victim compensation: one was to replace glasses
that were broken during the domestic violence incident, and the other
was monetary assistance with a funeral. Both incidents took place over
10 years ago.
We need more help in order to serve victims in our community.
Unlike states, which annually receive a direct set-aside of funding
from the federal Crime Victims Fund, tribes must compete for grants.
Our experience with losing our SAMSHA suicide grant program,
notwithstanding our overwhelming need, teaches us that federal grants
are fleeting. It is critical that the Victim of Crimes Assistance Act
be amended to provide tribes a solid and certain funding stream,
instead of requiring tribes to compete for a limited allocation of
funds from federal or state agencies, so we can effectively support our
vitally needed programs. In 2014, States passed through to Tribes 0.2
percent of the funds they received, and only ten tribes received grant
funds directly from the Department of Justice. Clearly, this level of
funding is not commensurate with the level of need throughout Indian
country.
The Department of Justice's own Office of Victims of Crime, in
their Vision 21 Report, called on increasing resources to tribal
communities ``to ensure that victims in Indian country are no longer a
footnote to this country's response to crime victims.'' Given the
disproportionate need in Indian country, we specifically ask that
Congress establish a 10 percent set aside of the Crime Victims Fund.
This request is supported by the National Congress of American Indians
and the Attorney General's Task Force on American Indian and Alaska
Native Children Exposed to Violence.
Finally, I want to thank this Committee for holding this hearing on
this vitally important matter. Although the Assiniboine and Sioux
Tribes are experiencing some of the highest rates of violence in all of
Montana, our Tribes have pulled and stretched together a decent
response for victims experiencing or exposed to violence. However, it
is extraordinarily difficult to make the pieces fit together and we
rely heavily on volunteer services and time-limited discretionary
funding. Our Tribes have demonstrated capacity over decades, but our
needs for victim services are overwhelming and we think it is so
important to create a more reliable set-aside for Indian Country. I
would be pleased to answer any questions and to provide any additional
information that may assist the Committee in its work to help us
address this unmet need.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Chairman Stafne. We
appreciate your comments and your testimony.
We next would like to turn to Judge Dianne Barker Harrold.
Judge Barker Harrold, please.
STATEMENT OF HON. DIANNE BARKER HARROLD, TRIBAL COURT JUDGE,
PAWNEE NATION OF OKLAHOMA; MEMBER, CHEROKEE NATION VICTIM TASK
FORCE
Ms. Harrold. Thank you, osiyo. I am a Cherokee citizen and
I thank the Committee on Indian Affairs for their interest,
concern and commitment to the needs of tribes and their
citizens.
I am a former crime victim from the 1970s, when there was
no recognition of needs or services for crime victims. In the
early 1980s, that began. However, now the needs for crime
victims in Indian Country have yet to be adequately
acknowledged, understood and addressed.
I have served crime victims for almost 35 years, including
being an advocate, an elected State district attorney.
Currently I serve as a training and technical assistance
provider for tribal victim services, funded through the Office
of Victims of Crime, and have been doing that since 2006. I
also serve on the Cherokee Nation's Victim Task Force, created
by Principal Chief Bill John Baker, and am the attorney for the
Cherokee Nation Tribal Council and Chief Judge for the Pawnee
Nation.
Drawing from these many years of Indian Country knowledge
and experience and working with crime victims, I know there are
many unique challenges and unmet needs for crime victims in
Indian Country. Throughout Indian Country the need for
assistance for victim service is extensive, in part because
tribes frequently lack any form of victim services
infrastructure. Where services are available, there are still
major gaps.
Although domestic violence and sexual assault is often
addressed, there are Native victims of many other types of
crimes, which include child abuse, human trafficking, elder
physical and financial abuse, homicide and property crimes such
as burglary or robbery, as well as many others, which shows the
need for support.
For example, victims may need medical attention and other
culturally-appropriate services to address physical and non-
physical injuries resulting from crime. If a homicide occurs, a
home needs major cleanup. Victims of crime need advocates,
emergency shelter, crisis intervention services, cultural
healing practices. And they do lethality assessments and do
safety planning with the advocates and victim services.
Because a lack of transportation is a common issue in
tribal communities, especially in large tribal reservations and
jurisdictional areas, transportation is also a need that needs
to be met by victim advocates as well.
Other things needed in Indian Country include educating
victims about criminal justice system court proceedings, how
their case is being investigated, the status of the
investigation, accompanying victims to court proceedings,
assisting victims in creating victim impact statements for
sentencing, working with survivors of homicide victims,
including related cultural activities prior to funeral services
and finding resources to pay for funeral and burial expenses.
Community outreach to tribal communities is another need.
Truly, service to crime victims helps to provide justice for
crime victims and offender accountability. All crime victims
need ways to heal and recover from victimization. Non-Native
counseling is not the way healing and counseling is conducted
in tribal communities, which is another reason for the need for
more crime victim services in Indian Country, due to the need
for culturally appropriate victim services as well as cultural
healing activities such as talking circles, smudging and
brushing healing which are physical and emotional cleansing
ceremonies, sweat lodges, healing in the arts activities are
some examples that should be noted.
Tribal culture and tradition is unique with each tribe,
which has their culture, tradition, history and historical
trauma. To be successful in Indian Country tribes must be given
the flexibility to incorporate cultural healing and culturally
appropriate victim services.
Building a collaborative system with tribal law enforcement
and victim advocates is also an important part of this process.
I have provided training and technical assistance services to
three tribes that have created that collaboration which
benefitted victims.
Internal and external collaborations with tribes and
service providers is needed to ensure that service providers
understand tribal culture and deliver appropriate services with
a holistic approach if victimization occurs in an urban area
outside of Indian Country.
Tribes also need the resources and support to create
criminal codes to ensure that crimes are addressed, create a
tribal victim rights code and to create a tribal law that and
protect crime victims by being intimidated. If tribes want to
opt-in to implement the Tribal Law and Order Act, it would be a
major cost due to the Act's requirements.
Crime victims in Indian Country are often hesitant about
reporting crimes due to the fact that there are no victim
services to assist them. I have had direct experience in the
past with victims who didn't report that were victimized, and
sometimes the offenders even killed a couple of victims so they
wouldn't tell anybody.
There is also lack of knowledge and understanding that
tribes are eligible for victim's compensation as another
impediment to crime victims in Indian Country. Establishing
State and tribal liaisons will enhance this knowledge and
understanding and facilitate access to victim's compensation
funds for tribal crime victims.
The Oklahoma District Attorney's Council has established a
great cultural victim's compensation policy and has also
established a very beneficial State-tribal liaison.
Criminal jurisdictions in different areas can impact
Service to crime victims, such as Public Law 280 States, where
States have criminal jurisdiction over tribes. So that is
another issue.
There is a misconception and a misunderstanding across the
Country that these tribes have lots of money, because tribes
have casinos and people think that all the money put in gaming
machines goes directly to the tribe but that is not true. There
is truly a need. And as the Chairman said, from Fort Peck,
there is higher poverty rates in tribal communities than
outside Indian Country. High poverty and unemployment generally
correlate with high levels of criminal activity. Indian Country
is no exception.
The major gap is lack of available tribal funding to create
and sustain tribal victim services programs. The Office of
Victims of Crime is really the only Federal agency that
provides specific funding to fund tribal victims services. They
are very dedicated. Director Joye Frost is very committed to
serving Indian Country. Back in the late 1700s, Chief Tecumseh
of Shawnee Nation said ``Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse
turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of vision.''
So there was even a concept about abuse way back.
It has been an honor and a privilege to be able to provide
this testimony. I thank you for your commitment to Indian
Country. I want to say wado, which is thank you in Cherokee. As
a Cherokee prayer blessing, may the warm winds of heaven blow
softly upon your house, may the Great Spirit bless all who
enter there, may your moccasins make happy tracks in many snows
and may the rainbow always touch your shoulder. In Cherokee,
there is no word for good-bye. It is only until we meet again:
[phrase in native language.]
[The prepared statement of Judge Harrold follows:]
Prepared Statement of Hon. Dianne Barker Harrold, Tribal Court Judge,
Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma; Member, Cherokee Nation Victim Task Force
Osiyo (Hello in Cherokee) to everyone who is here today and I want
to thank Chairman Barrasso, Vice Chairman Tester, my Oklahoma Senator
Lankford and this Senate Committee on Indian Affairs for their interest
and concerns and commitment to the needs of tribes and their citizens.
I am a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, was raised by a Cherokee
historian and have always been involved in tribal culture and have
lived within the jurisdiction of the Cherokee Nation my entire life and
am the mother of 3 Cherokee children and grandmother of 13 Cherokee
grandchildren and 2 Cherokee great-grandchildren. My grandfather was a
full blood who received an allotment which is still within the family
in Oklahoma. I am a former crime victim from the 70s when there was no
recognition of needs and no services for crime victims. In the early
80's recognition of the needs and services for crime victims began and
has continued to be more recognized since then. However, the needs for
crime victims in Indian Country have yet to be adequately acknowledged,
understood and addressed.
I have served crime victims for almost 35 years in a number of ways
as an advocate, an elected state district attorney, a tribal court
judge, managing grants to serve crime victims for a tribe and as an
Indian Country expert and consultant. I created a video project about
victim services related to homicide in Indian Country and I have
provided trainings for victim advocates and law enforcement in Indian
Country. Currently, I serve as a training and technical assistance
provider for tribal victim services funded through the Office for
Victims of Crime and have been doing that since 2006. I also serve on
the Cherokee Nation's Victim Task Force created by Principal Chief Bill
John Baker, am the attorney for the Cherokee Nation Tribal Council and
Chief Judge for the Pawnee Nation of Oklahoma. Drawing from these many
years of Indian Country knowledge and experience, I can tell you that
there are many unique challenges and unmet needs for crime victims in
Indian Country.
Many think of crime victim services as limited to legal advocacy,
but this is not the case. Throughout Indian Country, the need for
assistance for victim services is extensive, in part, because tribes
frequently lack any form of victim services infrastructure and where
services are available there are still major gaps. We must also
overcome the misperception that only victims of domestic violence or
sexual assault crimes require additional services. In fact, there are
Native victims of many other types of crimes which include child abuse,
human trafficking, elder physical and financial abuse, homicide and
property crimes such as burglary or robbery, as well as many other
which clearly shows there are crime victims in Indian Country in need
of support.
For example, victims may need medical attention and other
culturally appropriate services to address physical and non-physical
injuries resulting from a crime. If a crime such as homicide, occurs at
a home, major clean-up services may be needed. Victims of crime also
need victim advocates, emergency shelter, crisis intervention services,
emergency services and cultural healing activities. It is also
important to allow for lethality assessments to determine risks and
dangers of victims and create safety plans for victims to avoid re-
victimization and assure protection from perpetrators.
Because lack of access to transportation is a common issue in
tribal communities, especially in large tribal reservations and
jurisdictional areas, emergency shelter and transportation services may
be critical to crime victim safety and recovery. If a victim has no
transportation, they often cannot seek assistance, go to court, obtain
medical care or participate in cultural healing.
Other critical victim services that are desperately needed in
Indian country include educating victims about the criminal justice
system, court proceedings, how their case is being investigated, and
the status of the investigation; accompanying victims to court
proceedings; assisting victims in creating victim impact statements for
sentencing; working with survivors of homicide victims (including
related cultural activities prior to funeral services and finding
resources to pay for funeral and burial expenses); and conducting
community outreach to inform tribal communities about crime
victimization and the services that are available. Truly, service to
crime victims help to provide justice for crime victims and offender
accountability.
All crime victims need ways to heal and recover from victimization.
Non-Native Counseling is not the way healing and counseling is
conducted in tribal communities which is another reason for the need
for more crime victim services in Indian Country due to the need for
culturally appropriate victim services as well as cultural healing
activities such as Talking Circles, Smudging and Brushing healing which
are physical and emotional cleansing ceremonies, Sweat Lodges, Healing
in the arts activities which are some examples. It should also be noted
that tribal culture and tradition is unique with each tribe who has
their own culture and tradition, history and historical trauma. To be
successful in Indian Country, tribes must be given the flexibility to
incorporate cultural healing and culturally appropriate victim services
for victims of crime.
Building a collaborative system with tribal law enforcement and
victim advocates is also an important part of this process. I have
provided training and technical assistance services to three tribes
that have created that collaboration and victims have benefitted as a
result. Internal and external collaborations between tribes and service
providers is needed to ensure that service providers understand tribal
culture and deliver appropriate services with a holistic approach if
victimization occurs in an urban area outside of Indian Country.
Tribes also need the resources and support to create criminal codes
to ensure that crimes are addressed, create a tribal victim rights code
and to create a tribal law that would hold offenders accountable and
protect crime victims by making intimidation of crime victims a crime
in and of itself. If tribes want to opt in to implement the Tribal Law
and Order Act, this will come at a major cost due to the Act's
requirements.
During my years of experience, crime victims in Indian Country are
often hesitant about reporting crimes due to the fact that there are no
specific victim services in their specific tribal communities and they
worry about being intimidated by offenders and offender's family
members to stop victims from pursuing offender accountability. This can
have dire consequences. I have direct experience with several cases
where victims have not reported crimes, offenders re-victimized or
intimidated them and ultimately at least two of the victims were
murdered.
There is also lack of knowledge and understanding that tribes are
eligible for state victim' compensation and is another impediment to
crime victims in Indian Country accessing the resources they need to
become whole. Establishing state and tribal liaisons will enhance this
knowledge and understanding and facilitate access to victim
compensation funds for tribal crime victims. The Oklahoma District
Attorney's Council has established a great cultural victims'
compensation policy and has also established a very beneficial state/
tribal liaison system.
Different tribal and criminal jurisdictions are an issue that can
impact crime victims. Jurisdictional challenges relating to Public Law
280 (PL. 280) further complicate matters for crime victims in Indian
Country. Public Law 280 (PL. 280) states are states that have
jurisdiction on tribal reservations. Although those PL. 280 tribes in
the lower 48 states may have tribal law enforcement, it is state and
federal prosecutors and law enforcement are the ones who investigate
and file those cases but there would be a need for those state agencies
to collaborate with tribes to have a tribal victim advocate to work
with those state entities to ensure culturally appropriate services for
tribal crime victims are available. For the lower 48 non-PL. 280 tribes
that have reservations and their own tribal jurisdictions there is
tremendous need for victim services as well. A major gap is lack of
available tribal funding to create and sustain tribal victim services
programs. Alaska has a different type of PL. 280 jurisdiction which has
more culturally appropriate services since many Alaska State Troopers
are Alaska Natives but due to rural and remote villages, unique and
significant gaps in services remain there as well. I have worked with
several Alaska Native victim programs funded by grants over the years
and am in Alaska at least twice a year; however there is another
witness today who will be focusing exclusively on Alaska.
There is misconception and misunderstanding across the country that
believes tribes have lots of money because many tribes have casinos and
people think that all the money put in gaming machines goes directly to
the tribe but that is not true. There is higher poverty rates in tribal
communities than outside of Indian Country. High poverty and
unemployment generally correlate with higher levels of criminal
activity and Indian country is no exception which is another
justification for the need of funding for victims services in Indian
Country.
Even back in the late 1700s to the early 1800s a tribal leader
spoke about abuse. ``Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the
wise ones to fools and robs the Spirit of its vision.'' Chief Tecumseh
of the Shawnee Nation.
It has been an honor and privilege to be able to provide this
testimony and I am now available to respond to any questions you may
have. WADO (thank you in Cherokee).
Cherokee Prayer Blessing: May the warm winds of heaven blow softly
upon your house. May the Great Spirit Bless all who enter there. May
your moccasins make happy tracks in many snows and may the rainbow
always touch your shoulder.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Your Honor. We
appreciate your testimony. We look forward to the testimony in
a little bit.
We have one more witness to testify, that is Mr. Gerad
Godfrey, the Chair of the Violent Crimes Compensation Board in
the Office of the Governor of the State of Alaska. Mr. Godfrey,
please proceed.
STATEMENT OF GERAD GODFREY, CHAIR, VIOLENT CRIMES COMPENSATION
BOARD; SENIOR ADVISOR, RURAL
BUSINESS AND INTERGOVERNMENTAL AFFAIRS, OFFICE OF THE GOVERNOR,
STATE OF ALASKA
Mr. Godfrey. Thank you. My name is Gerad Godfrey, I am an
Alaska Native. My parents descend from two different Yup'ik
Native villages in the Kodiak Archipelago. I am a member of the
Native village of Port Lions Tribe.
I have spent many years living in Alaska villages and I
have chaired Alaska's Violent Crimes Compensation Board for the
last 13 years. Currently I am senior advisor to the Governor of
Alaska on Rural Business and Intergovernmental Affairs. I thank
you for allowing me to be here today to discuss this most
essential topic of improving victim services in Indian Country
and rural Alaska, which is often defined by villages, which I
will speak to.
I, as does the State of Alaska, greatly appreciate the
Committee's willingness to explore ways to improve victim
services to the indigenous people of America. As this Committee
is aware, Alaska has a substantial Native population, with 229
federally-recognized tribes, which represents 41 percent of all
federally-recognized tribes in America.
During my tenure on Alaska's Violent Crimes Compensation
Board, it has become clear to me that Alaska Natives are
overrepresented as victims or claimants as well as
perpetrators, in comparison to the representation of the
population of Alaska as a whole. They represent an average of
31 percent of crime compensation board claims in Alaska, which
is nearly double the representation of the population of
Alaska. Alaska has the unfortunate distinction of leading the
Nation in sexual assaults, and this statistic is even worse
when isolated to rural Alaska and villages.
While rural Alaska suffers from many social and economic
challenges, such as epidemic drug and alcohol abuse, high
suicide rates, a lack of economic opportunity, a lack of
infrastructure, a lack of telecommunications, high cost of
living and high fuel costs, there is no greater challenge and
social ill than the high rate of violent crime in rural Alaska
and inadequate crime victim responsiveness and services. It is
critical and timely for policy makers at all levels of
government to address concerns of crime and safety in Indian
Country and rural Alaska.
The challenges that are faced in these areas are multi-
faceted. It is important to highlight that our responses to
these challenges must be well-informed, targeted and multi-
faceted if those responses are to meet any tremendous needs.
Accessibility to common services, such as public safety,
health and education are often lacking or insufficient in
addressing some of the social issues people face in the
villages of Alaska. Improving victim services is such a broad
topic and it holds many layers of importance. However, we would
be remiss if we did not drill down into the topic of victim
services to identify the most significant and pressing safety
concerns facing those who live in villages.
Sexual assault is one of the most pervasive traumas that
residents of villages in Alaska face. The Alaska Victimization
Survey reflects that about 59 percent of Alaskan women have
experienced intimate partner violence, sexual violence or both
in their lifetime. That is six out of ten women who experience
violence of this sort. And in rural Alaska, these women often
have nowhere to turn.
In communities without victim services, a victim of violent
crime like a sexual assault, or the protective parent of a
child that is the victim of sexual abuse literally has nowhere
to turn to keep themselves and their families safe. No service
is available to help them heal from the trauma. This lack of
services and lack of ability to appropriately address and heal
from trauma is a vicious cycle that leads to substance abuse,
depression, suicide, increased rates of violence and often
perpetuation of these violent crimes.
To appropriate support victims of sexual violence in Alaska
villages, my recommendation is to implement known best
practices, similar to those already in existence in urban areas
throughout Alaska. To form multidisciplinary Sexual Assault
Response Teams is the most highly effective response in
providing necessary services to sexual assault or child sexual
abuse survivors.
A brief overview of response is, after the victim reports
to law enforcement, an entire SART team responds to the
identified facility, likely a health clinic in rural
communities. The full team is comprised of law enforcement,
forensic nursing, advocacy and the Office of Children's Service
if a juvenile is involved. The full team participates
collaboratively, reducing the need for a traumatized victim to
tell their version of events more than once.
After listening to the victim's account, a forensic nurse
knows exactly where on the body to look to retrieve evidence,
minimizing the trauma of a full forensic medical exam. Law
enforcement has the information needed to begin building their
case, with quickly securing an arrest warrant, and victims are
linked immediately to necessary victim advocacy services,
including shelter programs and counseling.
SART teams improve the services provided to victims of
sexual assault, minimize the victimization of survivors and
lead to greater arrests, prosecution and conviction rates,
making it an effective model to employ to combat sexual
violence and support survivors, while effectively impacting
community safety. Replicating this response throughout rural
Alaska is a challenge due to the resources and implementation.
With additional support funds, this SART response can be
implemented minimally on a regional scale, providing this high
level of service to the best of our ability wherever possible.
Conversations with State and tribal leadership to
understand the needs and desires of each community throughout
Alaska would be instrumental in ensuring the services provided
are essential and welcomed by community members. There exists
components already throughout Alaska that with some linkage
would meet one component of the team, and those resources are
already in place.
For example, the VPSO program, which stands for Village
Public Safety Officer program, would provide public safety for
rural communities in the region through a diverse array of
public safety functions and include more than just law
enforcement duties and activities. The presence of VPSOs in
rural communities has had a significant impact on improving the
quality of life, health and safety in the villages. Most
villages in the Tanana Chiefs Conference region, which is the
interior rural part of Alaska, primarily the off the road
system and it is compromised of 42 villages, do not have
existing public safety services or infrastructure such as fire
prevention and suppression, emergency medical services, search
and rescue and law enforcement officers or facilities.
To highlight the gross lack of service available, I would
like to share with you an existing scenario in Bethel, Alaska,
which is the southwest rural part of Alaska off the road
system. Bethel and the surrounding 56 villages is home to
approximately 6,000 Alaskans. Bethel has staggering rates of
sexual assault and child sexual abuse.
In Bethel and surrounding villages, there is on average one
rape or child sexual abuse case reported every other day. The
aggregate total of cases coming from this region is almost 40
percent of all Alaskan sexual assaults.
As of two weeks ago, victims of sexual assault or child
sexual abuse in Bethel and the outlying villages, after
reporting the incident to Alaska State troopers, were retrieved
by plane from that village and the troopers often would be
delayed in response due to weather on their flight into Bethel.
They would be placed in a hospital with no advocate and receive
no medical treatment or evidence collection. The victim was
then told they had to fly to Anchorage to undergo the SART
exam.
That is entirely unacceptable for various reasons. I would
be happy to elaborate on it if asked.
This was the state of affairs as recently as last week. So
this highlights how desperately vital victim services in rural
Alaska are needed more than ever to keep individuals and
families safe. An influx of funding could help build the
services I highlighted, having an immeasurable impact not only
to Alaskans today but to future generations.
Rape and violence are rising. It is to ensure that
effective services are in place to support Alaskans that
deserve to be supported and safe.
Submitted with my written testimony is a comprehensive
overview by one of Alaska's tribal consortiums. While they do
not represent all the villages and tribes throughout Alaska,
their analysis and overview is applicable and not unique when
applied to villages throughout all of Alaska.
In closing, I would echo my fellow panelists about how
valuable a set-aside would prove in meeting the needs of Alaska
Native victims and helping break the cycle that exists. Thank
you.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Godfrey follows:]
Prepared Statement of Gerad Godfrey, Chair, Violent Crimes Compensation
Board; Senior Advisor, Rural Business and Intergovernmental Affairs,
Office of the Governor, State of Alaska
Rural Interior Alaska/Tanana Chiefs Conference Region
1. About Rural Interior Alaska/TCC Region
Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC) is a regional Native non-profit
corporation in the state of Alaska that provides health and social
services to 42 villages in interior Alaska, 37 of which are federally
recognized tribes. The TCC region follows the traditional boundaries of
the interior Alaska Athabaskan people. The region is spread across
about 235,000 square miles, which is equal to about 37 percent of the
State of Alaska and just slightly smaller than the state of Texas, and
about ten times the area of the Navajo Nation- the largest reservation
in the lower 48 states.
The tribes in the region are Athabaskan Indian that range in
population from 75 to 700 members. Most villages are along the major
river systems of Alaska's interior and the distances between
communities can be vast. A majority of the villages are only accessible
by small aircraft, and sometimes by boats during the summer months.
Seven of the tribes are on the road system, with travel time from
Fairbanks ranging from one to eight hours. In some villages, road
access is over very rough gravel that makes travel difficult and
dangerous depending on the season.
The total population of Native people in the TCC region is
approximately 12,000. About half live in the urban hub center of
Fairbanks, with the remaining 6,000 living in rural villages.
The TCC region is made up of six subregions. The Upper Kuskokwim
subregion contains the following villages: McGrath, Medfra, Nikolai,
Takotana and Telida. The Lower Yukon subregion contains the following
villages: Anvik, Grayling, Holy Cross and Shageluk. The Upper Tanana
subregion contains the following villages: Dot Lake, Eagle, Healy Lake,
Northway, Tanacross, Tetlin and Tok. The Yukon Flats subregion contains
the following villages: Arctic Village, Beaver, Birch Creek, Canyon
Village, Chalkyitsik, Circle, Fort Yukon and Venetie. The Yukon Koyukuk
subregion contains following villages: Galena, Huslia, Kaltag, Koyukuk,
Nulato and Ruby. The Yukon Tanana subregion is made of up of Alatna,
Allakaket, Evansville, Fairbanks, Hughes, Lake Minchumina, Manley Hot
Springs, Minto, Nenana, Rampart, Stevens Village and Tanana.
The economies in the region are predominantly subsistence hunting,
fishing and gathering, and seasonal employment. Unemployment rates in
the villages are high, at least quadruple the national and state rates.
Many families live at or below the poverty level. The cost of living in
villages is estimated to be 30-40 percent higher than the cost of
living in Anchorage or Fairbanks. Accessibility to common services such
as public safety, health, and education are often lacking or
insufficient in addressing some of the social issues people face in the
villages. In the winter months, harsh weather conditions (temperature
extremes of -55) limit the availability and delivery of basic goods and
services.
2. Law Enforcement in the Region: TCC's Village Public Safety Officer
(VPSO)
Program and the Alaska State Troopers
TCC's VPSO Program provides public safety for rural communities in
the region through a diverse array of public safety functions that
include more than just law enforcement duties and activities. The
presence of VPSOs in rural communities has had a significant impact on
improving the quality of life, health, and safety in the villages. Most
villages in the TCC region do not have any existing public safety
services or infrastructure such as fire prevention and suppression,
emergency medical services, search and rescue, and law enforcement
officers or facilities. Those communities that may not require or do
not have the resources to support a full time VPSO still have needs for
other public safety services including public safety education, Drug
and Alcohol Resistance Education (DARE), emergency preparedness plans,
home safety inspection plans, school resource officers, hunter's
safety, emergency responses and officer presence.
TCC currently has unarmed VPSOs designated to 11 villages; Tanana,
Eagle, Allakaket, Tetlin, Fort Yukon, Nulato, McGrath, Huslia, Galena
Rover, Minto, and Northway. VPSO rovers serve the remaining communities
in the region. The VPSO program works in conjunction with the Alaska
State Troopers to meet the public safety needs in rural communities.
Alaska State Trooper detachments or service areas are based out of the
Fairbanks Trooper Post and the Bethel Trooper Post, both of which are
significant distances away from the rural communities.
3. Rising Crime in the TCC Rural Region
VPSOs and Alaska State Troopers are doing a tremendous job given
their limited resources and adverse working conditions. Despite their
best efforts, crime is on the rise (or is likely being reported more
with the increase of VPSOs) in TCC's villages over the past 5 years.
Consistent with the trend, assault, homicide, sexual assault,
harassment, burglary, and theft have all increased from 2013 to 2014.
Of particular concern is assaults make up the majority of reported
crimes, which means there is always at least one victim.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
\1\ Statistics refer strictly to the 6,000 people living in the
TCC Rural Region and exclude Fairbanks, AK and Tok, AK.
4. Need for Victim Services in TCC Region
Victim services in rural Alaska are needed more than ever to keep
individuals and families safe. An analysis of the statistics above is
disturbing: In 2014, of the 6,000 rural residents residing in the TCC
rural region, more than 3,100 incidents of violent crimes to the person
occurred. Stated more bluntly, more than 51 percent of all people
living in villages were victims of violent crimes. Looking at the other
side of the coin is equally shocking: More than 51 percent of all
people living the villages were perpetrators of violent crimes.
The causes for violence in Alaska Native villages vary. TCC VPSO
Coordinator Sargent Jody Potts believes that law enforcement is dealing
with the direct results of historical and generational trauma in rural
communities. Children are being raised in environments where drugs,
alcohol abuse, and violence are tolerated because offenders are not
held accountable and victims have no access to meaningful services.
Whatever the core cause are, victims' service needs must be
addressed now. First and foremost, every village resident must be
protected. Every village must have a law enforcement officer present in
the community. The TCC Five Year Crime Trend graph above indicates that
crime has increased each year since 2010. What has also increased each
year since 2010 is the number of VPSOs in rural communities. This
statistic reveals that when rural residents have access to law
enforcement in their community, they use it. When they do not have
access, it is less likely that crime is reported.
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
If law enforcement cannot physically be in every rural village,
residents must have access to reliable telecommunication services to
contact law enforcement agencies and emergency services. Many villages
in the TCC region do not have reliable long distance telephone and
Internet services. The only reliable telephone and Internet access are
located in the village clinic or school. This does little good to a
victim who needs immediate help and cannot access the clinic or school.
This could be the difference between life and death. There should be no
reason why rural residents cannot have the same access to reliable
telecommunications in their home as the clinic or school located in the
same community. However, due to various federal regulations that govern
telephone and Internet access to health clinics and schools, village
residents are prohibited from ``tapping'' into the same reliable access
points. \2\ This must be addressed.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ See FCC Rules, Regulations, and Orders administered by the
Universal Service Administrative Company at http://www.usac.org/about/
tools/fcc/default.aspx
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Next, all individual victim focused services must consider the
realities of living in an Alaska Native village and be culturally
relevant. For example, in most villages, everyone knows each other.
Victims may refuse medical care because the village's sole health aide
is also the perpetrator's sister, mother, aunt, or other relative.
Victims must have access to immediate medical care where they will feel
safe and comfortable.
Victim retaliation and intimidation are other factors that must be
considered. For example, a perpetrator or his family may retaliate by
excluding the victim from necessary subsistence activities. This leaves
the victim without valuable food resources for the winter and causes a
financial burden because substitute foods must be purchased. The
creation of a fund that helps cover the costs of subsistence activities
by volunteers would be a way to ensure that victims still have access
to subsistence foods while saving limited financial resources.
Lastly, in many domestic violence and other assault cases,
perpetrators intimidate victims by refusing to leave the village or
even the same home they share with the victim, while a criminal
investigation is ongoing. Investigations can often last months. Victims
have no choice but to stay in the same village or home because they do
not have anywhere to go or the resources to support their children on
their own. Creating and implementing services to victims must consider
this reality. Collaborations with Tribal governments, Tribal courts,
and law enforcement agencies are suggested when addressing this issue.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Mr. Godfrey. We
appreciate your coming all the way down from Alaska.
Senator Murkowski has come all the way from Alaska, and you
are recognized.
STATEMENT OF HON. LISA MURKOWSKI,
U.S. SENATOR FROM ALASKA
Senator Murkowski. Thank you.
Thank you, Mr. Godfrey, for your leadership in this and in
so many areas. We truly appreciate what you have shared with
the Committee on the issues that I think we recognize are
beyond troubling. They take an amazing place, a great State,
and bring us to our knees. We have to work on this, so I
appreciate your leadership.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Murkowski.
We will now go to a series of questions. We will alternate
each side and start with Senator Hoeven.
STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN HOEVEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM NORTH DAKOTA
Senator Hoeven. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I would like to
thank both the Chairman, well, first, I would like to thank all
of our witnesses for being here and for your work. I would also
like to begin by thanking both our Committee Chairman and the
Ranking Member for their help in support in passing the Native
American Children's Safety Act as well as other members on the
Committee who co-sponsored the legislation.
What it provides is that for children in foster care on the
reservation, background checks have to be done, not only on the
head of household but on any adults in the home. We are working
now to reconcile our version with the House. Representative
Kevin Cramer led the effort in the House to pass the
legislation there. So now we will reconcile the Senate version
with the House version and it will go to the President for
signature.
So this will become law. I want to begin by, in addition to
thanking members of this Committee, I want to turn to Director
Cruzan and say, one, tell me about your efforts to implement
and make sure that this is enforced. Also, what are the steps
you are undertaking to make sure that foster children on the
reservation are protected when we do have incidents of violence
and crime that we are addressing?
Mr. Cruzan. Thank you, Senator. I am happy to report to you
that we have been working very closely with the Department of
Justice in West Virginia on this very issue.
There is a solution to this. And it is already in existence
in a number of States. There are a number of States right now
that are on it. The official title is called Purpose Code X. It
is a data base system that is run through the National Crime
Information Center. It is, in a nutshell, what the policy is,
and we just implemented this, and we began in a small location
and we will be working our way up.
But for that reason, and I have experienced this myself,
you respond to a call at 2:00 o'clock in the morning, there is
a parent that needs to be arrested for whatever reason. Social
Services arrives and you are looking for somebody to come get
the children. Oftentimes you are worried about putting them in
worse situations, because Grandma shows up and Grandma is sober
and fine, but you don't know who is in the home.
So through this Purpose Code X, we are now able to have
Social Services contact a 24-hour BIA dispatch center, get
those names run immediately. Similar to it would be if you were
pulled over and your driver's license was checked. It happens
literally that quickly. So we are able to feel more comfortable
that we are providing a more safe location for these children,
who are moving from a bad situation into a better one.
I hope that answers the question.
Senator Hoeven. It does. But I also want to ask, what
program or programs do you feel are most helpful for foster
children to make sure that they are safe or in a situation
where they have been victims of a crime, we have the means to
address their needs and get them into a safe environment?
Mr. Cruzan. I am certainly not dodging your question. That
is an area that I think this Purpose Code X will allow law
enforcement to feel comfortable in the emergent situation that
is happening right now. I would probably defer that question to
my counterpart in Social Services within BIA to answer that
more in depth, how they are doing that through Social Services.
Senator Hoeven. I would pose the same question to the other
members of our panel. What program for foster children do you
think is most effective in helping make sure that we address
their needs and get them into a safe environment? Mr. Chairman?
Mr. Stafne. I think you have to have trained personnel,
social workers in BIA. But at Fort Peck, we have this Family
Violence Resource Center staffed by volunteers around the
clock. Every 911 call where there is violence or child issues,
these volunteers go to the place where the call has been to and
they meet with the officers. If they go to the hospital, they
go up to the hospital to see the families. And they work
completely with every department there to make sure that the
children are taken care of. They have a list of all the houses
or foster parents available to take that child immediately.
Senator Hoeven. Ms. Barker Harrold?
Ms. Harrold. As a tribal judge, I do a lot of child welfare
cases. It is always important to know about who can provide
foster care and be protective of children. Always, the basic
need is the best interest of children and how they can be
protected. Because a lot of times it is neglect or physical
abuse, the reasons that child welfare cases occur.
So the need for making sure they are safe is a need.
Senator Hoeven. Mr. Godfrey?
Mr. Godfrey. As far as an ideal model for foster children,
while the need is ever-present in Alaska, and it is extremely
important when dealing with trying to intervene and break the
cycle of violence that is often the product of what leads to
those children being in foster care, I am not an authority on
that specific topic.
So I can speak to what is a good model or an ideal model.
At this time, unfortunately, I can't answer that.
Senator Hoeven. Again, I would like to thank the panel
members for being here. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Okay, thank you. Senator Heitkamp?
Senator Heitkamp. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I am horrified. Who could sit in this room and not be
horrified. One out of almost every three children between the
ages of 11 and 13 in middle school tested positive for a
sexually transmitted disease on Fort Peck. In what world aren't
we horrified?
Your testimony, Mr. Godfrey, I am horrified. I am horrified
by all of this. Because somewhere along the line, Native
American children are getting left behind. And they are getting
left behind because they are in a jurisdictional juggernaut,
many times, or they are in remote locations where it is very
difficult to provide services, and where we don't fund what we
need to fund to break the cycle of violence and abuse.
And so we worry about putting children in foster care. I
worry also, in safe foster care, which is critically important.
Why are they going to foster care in record numbers? That is
another statistic that we haven't even talked about here.
So we need solutions. That is why Senator Murkowski and I
have passionately shepherded a bill through the Senate and we
hope it will get great traction in the House to try and find
systematic response, some legitimate response. I can only tell
you as an attorney general in the 1990s, these numbers
shouldn't shock me. Because I saw the exact same thing in the
1990s. This is not a new problem. Suicide is a new problem and
a new epidemic.
But what is a solution to a devastation of a human being.
And you see it in these numbers. So I am here to ask you, just
give us one idea, and we will start down at that end, one thing
that would make a difference in the work that you do every day
in trying to protect kids.
Mr. Godfrey. Probably the single most valuable thing is
trained personnel to respond and intervene. That requires,
predictably, funding.
Senator Heitkamp. System funding.
Mr. Godfrey. Correct. And so while there are people who are
willing to do that work and it is very, as one would imagine,
very challenging subject matter to deal with, there are people
willing to do it if the funds are there to train them and
support them and help them be successful in what they do.
In Alaska specifically that requires teams that can
mobilize on short notice in small planes to go to communities
and villages that are only accessible by air or boat.
Senator Heitkamp. I will tell you that through my work with
Lisa, I can only say I thought my problems with remoteness were
serious. I can't even wrap my mind around the problem that you
have protecting a child in a village that is literally a three-
hour plane ride away from any help.
Judge?
Ms. Harrold. Remoteness is truly an issue in Alaska,
because I do work with a lot of Alaska grantees. I go up there
a couple of times a year. Still, the remoteness in rural areas
in the lower 48 too are also an issue. Sometimes they don't get
reported. So there continues to be abuse. Also, high suicide
rates are becoming more common in youth in Native communities.
Funding is always a help for culturally-appropriate
programs.
Senator Heitkamp. And I want to conclude with the Chairman.
Chairman, can you offer any suggestions?
Mr. Stafne. Yes. I think you had the answer yourself.
Consistent funding. With consistent funding, we would be able
to track qualified people. No one wants to take a job where you
don't know if after 30 days, 60 days, after six months or even
a year whether you are going to have a job. If you do ride that
out and last a year, maybe you get trained. And you get offered
a steady job somewhere else.
Senator Heitkamp. I just want to make this point to
conclude, that it is ironic that when you look at what might
happen in Williston or Watford City, you have State and local
assistance. We are the primary. This government, the U.S.
government, is primarily responsible for providing the network
of support and the support services for Native American
children.
And I don't know how you can listen to what you have told
us today and what we know, what we hear over and over again,
and not give this government an F in protecting the children in
Indian Country. So we will continue to work to continue to
believe that we can change outcomes if we all pull together for
the children.
Thank you so much.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Heitkamp. Senator Daines?
STATEMENT OF HON. STEVE DAINES,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MONTANA
Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for holding this
hearing on such a critical issue.
Chairman Stafne, it is good to see you here today. It is
great having the Office here as well, I am glad to have you as
a partner working on behalf of Montana and on behalf of Montana
Indian Country. We appreciate it. Thank you for your insightful
testimony.
Senator Heitkamp expressed how I feel about these
staggering statistics. The statistics you pointed out are
equally frightening. On the Fort Peck Reservation you said that
violent crime rates are five times higher than the rest of
Montana, almost three times higher than the rest of the United
States.
You also mentioned that Native children are two and a half
times more likely to suffer trauma than non-Indian children and
violence accounts for 75 percent, violence accounts for 75
percent of the deaths of Indian children between the ages of 12
and 20. This strikes home as a daddy of four kids. It is one
thing to look at statistics. But each one of these children is
a son or a daughter, a grandson or granddaughter, a niece or
nephew of somebody that cares deeply.
So given these tragic statistics, how can Congress better
work with tribes like Fort Peck to reduce the number of tribal
members, especially tribal children, suffering from these
physical and psychological traumas?
Mr. Stafne. I think a lot of it has to do with what Senator
Heitkamp said, consistent funding. We need qualified people to
help. We can advertise a job, we hardly get any applicants,
qualified applicants. We have to hire someone to train them.
And once they get their training, they move on.
Senator Daines. Is that because the offering salaries are
too low?
Mr. Stafne. Yes, I think so. The salary is lower, because
we are trying to save money. We are probably using a grant.
When that grant money runs out, we have no more money to pay
that person. They move on. That happens all the time.
Senator Daines. You mentioned a number of critical services
which are currently available to survivors of physical or
psychological, economic and sexual abuse. What services don't
yet exist that would help these victims in Native communities
recover and return to health?
Mr. Stafne. Oh, boy. I don't know. I want to say services
where we could, I know they exist, but in our land they are
non-existent, partially because we don't have the funding.
Alcohol plays the biggest part in all these crimes, I think. If
we could somehow cure our people of the alcohol problems, a lot
of these situations would not exist.
Senator Daines. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to shift gears here and ask Mr. Cruzan a question. I
appreciate your being here today. I remember when you and I met
over a year ago in my House office, we discussed a number of
important issues regarding law enforcement in Indian Country. I
have spent some time on our reservations across Montana, we
have a lot of open positions, unable to fill them, for law
enforcement. According to the Office of Personnel Management,
completing a background check for one applicant under the BIA
Office of Justice Services takes an average of 105 days. I know
we talked about in some cases we will have men and women
returning from Iraq or Afghanistan who have worn the Nation's
uniform, have had security clearances and yet come back, they
want to serve back in their home, Indian Country, and we have
difficulty getting them cleared.
Additionally, we have been told delays to fill vacancies
have taken as long as a year or sometimes 18 months. It looks
like we have a serious need for efficiency improvements to
improve on the process.
Where are we there? Can you outline the steps? What are we
doing to try to reduce that time?
Mr. Cruzan. Absolutely, Senator, thank you again for that
question. The process now has changed, I think, since we spoke
to improve the efficiency. Because of Indian preference that
the BIA has, we are able to now what we call, I don't think our
HR professionals call it this, but it is commonly referred to
as direct hire. So if a Native American applicant comes in and
says, I am interested in a BIA career, we ask for their resume,
their form 4432, which is their Indian preference, 214, if they
were in the military and their college transcript if they have
them.
We can do a quick, cursory background check, provide that
information to our HR and they can literally do a tentative
offer within that week. There are instances now of employees
actually working for us now that have gone through this
process.
Another exciting thing that we have just sort of fleshed
out with our Federal law enforcement training center partners
and the Department of Interior HR and our own is we want the
ability to make an offer, not wait necessarily for the entire
adjudicated background to occur before we schedule them for
training. So they can sort of run concurrent.
There is a risk there, if for some reason there were an
issue in a background that they weren't suitable for law
enforcement, we would lose that time and that money. But I am
told it is only about 3 percent of the people who we hire who
are through that background process that don't make it through
the background check.
So I am excited about that. I am very anxious to see how
that works out.
The issue with the veterans, to me, honestly, we haven't
gotten an answer that we want. We do think that these men and
women who are serving in higher percentages in Indian Country,
coming home, who have backgrounds cleared, we would be very
interested in discussing ways for them to transition.
Senator Daines. I would hope so. We have these programs,
Helmets to Hardhats, a way to hire veterans. They have put
their lives on the line over in Iraq and Afghanistan, they have
already been cleared with background checks. The problem we
face is, if we delay that, our best people move on and find a
different job. They can't just sit idle waiting for a
background check. I know we have to strike that balance, but I
am thankful for the progress being made. I would particularly
like to see more progress on helping veterans returning here.
They are great role models to bring back home as well.
Mr. Cruzan. Thank you, Senator.
Senator Daines. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Daines. Senator Franken?
STATEMENT OF HON. AL FRANKEN,
U.S. SENATOR FROM MINNESOTA
Senator Franken. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, for this, and Mr.
Co-Chairman, for this very important hearing.
I wish all of our colleagues in the Senate could be here.
Those of us who are on this Committee know very well what
Indian youth face in Indian Country. And Senator Heitkamp
talked about the 1990s and all these different kind of
pathologies existing then. Those are the parents now. And these
things repeat themselves.
We talk about trauma. The trauma alters the way your brain
processes things, makes it impossible or near impossible to do
well in school. Chairman Stafne talked about alcohol. We know
you said that 40 percent of the crime is drug-related.
You start thinking of all these, and when you were asked
what could help us here, you said funding. Funding. And I think
of where, and this problem of funding is right. You need to
attract people to these jobs and have them be real jobs.
Doctors, when they get out of medical school, where do they
want to go? They want to go to a big city emergency room where
they can practice on a lot of people. I would think if you want
to get to know how to deal with kids who have been traumatized
that this is the place to work, this is the place to learn. And
we need to fund you.
But if you look at all the different things we hear about
here, we hear about, where does the problem start? What is the
entry point? Jobs. Housing. How many of these crimes against
these kids happen when there are multiple families living in a
house? Anybody?
Mr. Cruzan. Senator, I would say that would be a factor,
certainly. I couldn't give you a percentage, but certainly,
yes.
Senator Franken. How much of it is involved with drugs and
alcohol? These kids, we fail them on just the schools, on
teachers. We fail them, we fail Indian Country on law
enforcement. We can't keep people in law enforcement there
because they don't have housing. How do you attract someone to
do this kind of job where there is not good housing?
In VAWA, we allowed, we gave tribal courts jurisdiction on
assault, sexual assault crimes when the perpetrator is non-
Indian. Chairman Stafne, it sounds like you have started to do
that.
Mr. Stafne. Yes, we have met all the requirements and we
are utilizing that system now.
Senator Franken. What is that experience like? Has that
started yet? Have you prosecuted anyone?
Mr. Stafne. We started, I haven't been over to the court,
so I haven't heard. But that is probably good news. If it was
bad, it would have come to me. The good news never comes. The
bad news sure does, though.
Senator Franken. Well, you get a lot of bad news all the
time. So that seems to be working?
Mr. Stafne. I think so, yes.
Senator Franken. Well, I am glad we did that. I am a little
like Senator Heitkamp, I will do everything I can to work with
you and Senator Murkowski. I applaud you for your work on
children. Thank you for traveling all this way to come here and
tell us this. I wish I had something to say other than, as far
as I am concerned, you can't get enough funding. We will do
everything we can in this Committee.
But we need to talk to our colleagues who aren't on this
Committee and don't hear this every week. Because they don't
know, I don't think they know. Thank you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Franken. Senator Lankford?
STATEMENT OF HON. JAMES LANKFORD,
U.S. SENATOR FROM OKLAHOMA
Senator Lankford. Thank you. I thank all of you for being
here and being part of this conversation. What you bring to it
is incredibly painful. Judge, it is great to see you. It is
always nice to have another Oklahoma face around, and to be
able to have what you have done, and in your incredibly busy
schedule, one that has you traveling all over the Country,
contributing and working on these issues. Thanks for making
time to be here and to be able to contribute to this
conversation as well. Thank you for all your service there.
Ms. Harrold. And thank you for serving on this Committee.
On behalf of all the tribes in Oklahoma, we appreciate your
service here.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. Let's talk about some success
stories. That is one of the things I like to come back to.
There are 566 tribes around the Country. My question is, who
have you heard of that is having success in dealing with these
issues? What are they doing and who is seeing a percentage drop
in abuse? What do you see that is unique there?
I am confident we have several good success stories. Is
there anyone who wants to jump in on that of any of the areas?
Mr. Cruzan. Senator, I am happy to do that. Speaking
specifically about violent crime, we did. We have been saying
for a long time, if adequately resourced in Indian Country, we
could have a significant impact on violent crime. This is going
back to 2010 and current, so I will be brief.
The high priority performance goal initiative was to reduce
violent crime by a percentage, 5 was the number over a 24-month
period. The initiative was very simple: increased presence has
a dramatic decrease on crime. As I was saying earlier, at the
12-month mark of this 24-month initiative, we saw a greater
than 50 percent increase in violent crime, which was
disturbing. But it wasn't until we began talking to tribal
leaders that they said, it is not more crime that is occurring,
it is more crime that is being reported, because there are
resources out there to do something about it.
So four years later, we continue at those locations to see
crime below where it was at that time. The initiative we are
doing now, as the Chairman said, we see that as well. Alcohol
and drug abuse is a huge problem.
Senator Lankford. Let me ask about that, because that has
been a repetitive theme. Who has the most successful in Indian
Country dealing with drug and alcohol issues? That has come up
numerous times and this circles back to, as you said, not just
a cultural issue or just an isolation issue, but a drug and
alcohol issue as well. So that being a root cause, who is
successful at that?
Mr. Cruzan. I think there are some tribes in Arizona that
do it well. Quite frankly, they have the resources to be able
to. What we have in Indian Country are not violent offenders
first. We have alcohol and substance abusers first who commit
violent crimes. So some of these tribes that do have the
resources to provide alternatives to incarceration, i.e.,
treatment, rehabilitation, I think are seeing some tremendous
successes.
I could give you some specific names.
Senator Lankford. That actually would be helpful. You know
Oklahoma well, also, and you also know what is happening all
over the Country. So I am interested to know, where are we
seeing success. We oftentimes talk about this as a problem, and
there are serious issues.
But we have 566 laboratories all over the Country of
different tribes that are actually engaged, that are trying it.
And with some of them are success stories. I want to be able to
isolate, how did they make that work, how did they make that
connect. Sometimes that might be finances, sometimes it might
be something else. I would be interested to know.
Mr. Cruzan. If I may, I would be happy to work with you or
your staff to get you specific examples and point to true
success stories to potentially be pilots or models for us to
follow in Indian Country.
Senator Lankford. Any other input from anyone on the drug
and alcohol issue specifically, or other success stories on
violent crime?
Mr. Godfrey. I will speak to both questions briefly. I
can't speak to a model necessarily that I am aware of that is
working. What I can do is speak to some of what I have observed
in my time dealing with victims of violent crime in rural
Alaska. The thing that is most effective is responsiveness and
lack of responsiveness. When I am thinking of with victims, and
I will say victims of violent crime and then specifically
sexual assault victims and sexual abuse of minor victims, is if
they don't feel that what happened to them is serious and it
was very bad and somebody cares, our opportunity to restore
them emotionally, spiritually and mentally probably passes.
But beyond that, they also are more likely to perpetuate
that as they grow older, whether it is a boy seeing Mom's
boyfriend or husband beating her up when he drinks, but he only
gets that way when he drinks whiskey and he only drinks whiskey
once a month, so grin and bear it. That is acceptable behavior
for him. But that a daughter would see that that is acceptable
for her to be treated that way and stay in that household.
But that is a domestic violence. As far as the sexual abuse
goes, same thing. If the message is not conveyed, that you're
important, what happened is very serious and we are going to
prosecute this person and we are going to get him in jail and
then justice is served so the healing can continue to go
forward and happen.
So what I see as most effective is highly-trained, highly-
devoted response teams that get in there and respond. Sometimes
it is law enforcement themselves that are multi-disciplined,
because of being in Alaska and the rural nature of the State. I
can't sit here and cite any program.
I can cite another thing that this board I chair has been
able to do, and that is, provide some out of the box types of
compensation for various types of recovery. We rely on a
licensed therapist that is dealing with the victim to recommend
for us and make their case, their professional case why this
would be helping the healing of this child or this teenager.
That has allowed us to do things out of the box. Our enabling
statute in Alaska gives us the latitude and liberty to do that.
But we don't come up with the ideas ourselves, professionals
do. And they make the case, then we fund it.
One of my fellow panelists was discussing culturally-
relevant healing. I couldn't agree with that more. In Alaska
there are numerous culture camps. While it doesn't necessarily
mean culture camp specific for victims of violent crime where
children came from a family of alcoholism, it is the holistic
approach of cultural camps and the spiritual and emotional and
mental support and healing that takes place, and tying them
back to the ancestral land and the ways.
Someone was talking about talking circles, all of those
things. Technology is cut out. You go to a culture camp and you
are isolated there with the elders and the wisdom that they
share. And you do practices like catching animals, trapping,
mending nets, fishing and other things that your ancestors have
done historically. For a lot of these children that go there,
and many of them go because they were, they had a scholarship
or grant to do there, but it wasn't because they were a victim
of crime. That stuff comes out when they talk about the abuse
they are suffering at home. It is a catharsis.
That type of thing is out of the box, but it has a very
high rate of success, when these kids feel valued and tied in
to their culture and their ancestors and where they come from.
As far as alcoholism goes, in Alaska we have some villages
that will vote to be dry or damp or wet. Basically that is
three levels of prohibition or non-prohibition on alcohol.
Obviously, if you are dry, it is hard to get the alcohol and
consume it in the village without lots of planning in advance.
And so I don't know that it resolves alcoholism, but it
certainly takes away the implement, which is alcohol, that
leads to very destructive behavior.
Senator Lankford. Thank you. I yield back.
The Chairman. Thank you very much, Senator Lankford.
Senator Tester?
Senator Tester. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I just want to thank you all for your testimony. It has
been said before but I will say it again, I very much
appreciate your insight into this.
Mr. Godfrey, thank you. You have talked about a number of
things and I think the very first question that was asked, you
talked about funding. Just now you talked about rapid response,
which doesn't come without money.
Senator Lankford, I appreciate your line of questions about
looking for success stories. I could almost guess that the
success stories come with tribes that probably have gaming and
probably have resources. That would be my guess. For those that
don't, we have problems. And if we have ones out there that
have success with the amount of money that we appropriate, I do
want to see that, and I think we all would love to see that in
particular.
If they are having success because of gaming and having
those kinds of dollars, not everybody has access to those
dollars. I can tell you, there isn't a tribe in Montana that
has access to gaming money to the extent that it is going to a
damned bit of good. So I appreciate your testimony.
I would ask you, Chairman Stafne, you said your police
staff is about half of what it should be. I believe that is
correct?
Mr. Stafne. That is correct. That is information I got from
our captain.
Senator Tester. Do you have any idea, of those staff
members, those police members you have, how many are funded by
grants and how many are funded by the Bureau?
Mr. Stafne. No, I don't. I could get that information to
you.
Senator Tester. And I don't expect you to have it, by the
way. But I guess the question I have for you, Darren, when I
point a finger at you there are three pointing back at me, so
you know that. The question is, how under budget is your police
staff for Indian Country. Chairman Stafne said he has half the
number he needs. A fair number of those are funded by grants
where there is no predictability. What kind of budget shortfall
are we looking at?
Mr. Cruzan. Yes, sir. The Tribal Law and Order Act requires
BIA to provide Congress an unmet needs report. The last one
that came out showed that about 48 percent met.
Senator Tester. Forty-eight percent met. So for Chairman
Stafne to say he has about half as many officers, he's above
average?
Mr. Cruzan. Yes, absolutely right. So I don't know his
exact numbers, but it would not surprise me for that to be
exactly right.
Senator Tester. So as we look at this, and look, we are
always worried, we will always need to continue to be worried
about money that we appropriate and doesn't get spent in the
right way. But in this particular situation, it would seem to
me that if we gave you a few more bucks, we wouldn't have to
worry about waste, because you guys are so damned underfunded
right now that you can't get to where you need to be. Is that
right?
Mr. Cruzan. I am not sure how to answer that. I will tell
you this, that being a good steward of the government's money
is very important to me. Yes, I think it would be well spent
and money well-directed.
Senator Tester. And this is compounded because we are in a
process right now where we are going to apply another round of
sequestration to Indian Country and to everybody else that is
not in the Defense Department. So things ain't going to get
better for you guys, right? Is that what you would say?
Mr. Cruzan. That is what I would say if sequestration,
another hit would be coming, yes.
Senator Tester. Okay. Well, we started this thing out in
the opening statements, the testimony here is sobering. The
testimony here is almost criminal, to be honest with you. We
are right now with another generation in Indian Country. And I
just don't think it is going to get better unless we give you
guys the tools to make it better. Do you see another way?
Mr. Cruzan. No, sir.
Senator Tester. I want to express my appreciation to the
Chairman for having this hearing. I also want to express my
appreciation for the set-aside victims fund. It is at 5
percent; we can talk about where that needs to be and I don't
know that we will get good metrics for it. Because if you guys
have 5 percent of the crimes reported now, it is probably a
heck of a lot higher if you were staffed up.
So it may have to be, we may have to try to arm wrestle the
States for a few more bucks. But the bottom line is, I think
the problem is even bigger than the Victims Fund. The problem
is, we have to start a little earlier. I want to thank you,
Judge, for the work you do. Mr. Godfrey, for your coming down
from Alaska, I thank you very much. The testimony was
incredible. You are answering questions, I really appreciate
it.
And for A.T. Stafne, the Chair of the Fort Peck Tribe, who
is probably going to hang his cleats up afterward, it is always
good to have you here in Washington, D.C. You are probably just
as happy to stay at home, I know that, because you live in a
beautiful part of the world. But it is always good to have you
here, Rusty, thank you.
Mr. Stafne. Thank you. I enjoy working with people like
you.
The Chairman. Thank you, Senator Tester. Senator Murkowski?
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for
calling this very important hearing.
I have been on the Indian Affairs Committee since I came to
the Senate. And every few years we have a hearing very similar
to what we have heard today. As Senator Heitkamp reminded us,
this is not new. These are issues that we have been facing for
years, perhaps just at a higher profile.
But Mr. Chairman, I really hope that as an outcome from
today's hearing and what we have had put in front of us again
and the statistics that we have been reminded of yet again
about the horrible violent crime rates that we see among
American Indians and Alaska Natives, two and a half times
higher than national average, Native youth experiencing violent
crimes at a rate of ten times the national average, we just say
these statistics over and over and over again.
I at home remind people that our Alaska Native women are
sexually assaulted at a rate of 12 times the national average.
It is almost like you just become numb.
But think about those victims and how numb they are.
Because in far too many cases, they have asked that their
voices be heard, they have tried to speak up. But the services
have not been made available to them.
In Alaska, we talk about the issues of jurisdiction and
whether or not we have enough State troopers or whether we have
the VPSOs and whether or not they should be armed. But you
know, at the end of the day, and Mr. Godfrey, you spoke to
this, we need to have rapid response.
But if the rapid response doesn't yield anything that
equates to justice at the end, what have we done to let them
believe that they do have value, that their speaking up will
yield a different outcome instead of just yet another instance
of victimization perhaps by the same person?
So if we look to the small things that we might be able to
do to make a difference, prosecuting, well, you can't prosecute
if you haven't collected the evidence, rape kits. I understand,
Mr. Godfrey, that back home in the State, we have a backlog for
rape kits waiting to be analyzed in the State, from the crime
lab there, they say 150 plus backlog.
We have a lack of staff in the State, have a two-year
training adding to the backlog. Sexual assault kits not tested
on a first-in, first-out, but by most critical classification,
leaving victims to wait. So you have a situation where even if
you have gone to the extent to collect the evidence needed, you
are not seeing a rapid response.
But even worse, I was at an event last evening talking
about the situation out in Bethel. I believe you may have been
discussing that when I came in, and I apologize that I did not
hear all of your testimony. But I understand that in Bethel,
YKHC has stopped collecting evidence from rape victims, or had
stopped because of a funding issue. A community of 6,000
people, as you know, and the outlying villages, where there is
nobody to collect the evidence.
So if you can't collect the evidence, there will be no
rapid response, there will be no prosecution, there will be no
justice for that victim. So he or she just gives up, just gives
up, because we haven't been able to take the first step.
Mr. Godfrey, can you confirm whether or not we have
resolved the situation in Bethel? Are they now collecting
evidence from victims of rape? Have we addressed that?
Mr. Godfrey. Yes, Senator. The Governor's Special Advisor
on Crime Prevention and Policy has dealt with that. The
administration running the hospital has seen the light, if you
will. Unfortunately, their problem had been one in which
philosophically they made a comment and indicated that they
thought that was a law enforcement function, not a medical
function, so they don't know why they should have been doing
them in the first place. But the trained personnel they had had
moved on, and they didn't train up anyone else behind that,
those trained SART response personnel.
Senator Murkowski. May I just ask that question, then, the
major hospital in the largest community in the region, you had
one trained person?
Mr. Godfrey. Well, it has been resolved. All I know is the
last, one of the last certified persons to do those tests has
left the community. And they didn't train up anyone else. They
have revised it now and have multiple that are going to be
going through phased training, so they have redundancy in
place.
But yes, there was a block of time and I don't know how
long that was, where literally, if you had someone come in to
do that collection, to do a SART exam, they had to go to
Anchorage. And you hit on it, Senator, that is problematic for
so many reasons, one of them being, the longer somebody waits
to have evidence collected off their body the more degradation
it goes through. So the less viable it is as evidence and more
than likely, you don't make a prosecution.
The highest rates of recidivism in crime generally is the
sexual assault perpetrator. That person is going to do that
again, maybe that person they did it do or someone else or a
series of others. So you really need the prosecution just for
justice purposes, you really need it to help the victim get
whole. But the message the victim gets, if you don't get them
into a timely response, is my goodness, if you have a sexual
assault victim that literally was just raped last night, and
the first thing you tell them, well, don't shower, we have to
collect evidence. And now you are saying, oh, don't shower for
another 12 hours until we get you to Anchorage. But the only
thing she wants to do is shower, obviously.
What is the message? What happens to their psyche? How are
they going to heal and recover? And the despair that sets in,
that is where the alcoholism and self-destructive behavior and
suicide comes in. When that happens at a young age, and the
message you get from the community or society or tribe is, you
don't matter enough, what happened to you is not important
enough for us to prosecute and put this person in jail or to
get you the counseling and therapy you require to become whole
again to try to start your life new and healthy again.
There are so many reasons that is wrong, when you can't
have a SART team, from a psychological and emotional aspect, as
well as the criminal justice aspect. And by the way, I would
say that when a hospital says, well, it is a law enforcement
function, not medical, many rapes involve blunt force trauma,
contusions, lacerations, things like that, those are all
medical. Those are all medically relevant.
I appreciate your taking specific attention on that,
Senator.
Senator Murkowski. It concerns me to such a great deal and
again, the instance we are talking about is one of our regional
hubs. We have so many villages, we have so many sub-regional
clinics where we don't have trained personnel. We don't have
the SART kits. We then have a backlog at the State.
We have a problem in our State, and I apologize to those
who are outside of Alaska. I know you have been working this
issue constructively. But we as Alaskans, at the Federal level
and at the State level, must address these deficiencies that
are so obvious and so glaring, where there is a solution. We
have a lot of problems that extend from all of this. But if we
can't give victims some level of certainty, some level of hope
that their perpetrator is going to be held accountable, we are
never going to make any headway.
Mr. Chairman, I have gone over my time. I would like to ask
very quickly a question to Mr. Cruzan. This is based on the
Committee memorandum that was distributed to us. In a footnote
to our memo, it indicates that the President has proposed to
divert money from the Crime Victims Fund to be used for
purposes other than crime victim services without ensuring that
even the most basic needs of crime victims are met and the
continued viability of the services of the CVF. Why would they
do that?
Mr. Cruzan. Senator, I guess I don't completely understand
the question.
Senator Murkowski. Well, I didn't, either. I have been
trying to get some more information about it. But basically
what I understand is that it was in the President's budget that
he sought to take money from the CVF fund to be used for
purposes other than crime victim services. Now, we have talked
about what can we do to make a difference. Unfortunately, so
much of this comes back to money. Again, if there can be
resources in the Crime Victims Fund, I would think that would
help us.
So if we have funds that are in there, but the
Administration has chosen to take them out to use them for
other purposes, how can they do that, in light of everything
that we have heard?
Mr. Cruzan. Senator, I think that might be a Department of
Justice question.
Senator Murkowski. Will you look into it for me?
Mr. Cruzan. I certainly will, yes, ma'am.
Senator Murkowski. I think we all recognize that we don't
need to be robbing from those very, very limited and meager
pots of funding that could be used to help our victims.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and I apologize for going over.
The Chairman. That is quite all right, very, very important
questions that need to be answered.
Mr. Godfrey, just to follow up a little bit on Senator
Murkowski's questions, in your written testimony you said that
more than half of all the people living in the Tanana Chiefs
Conference Village are victims of violent crime, more than half
are victims. And also more than half of all people in the
villages are perpetrators of the crime. It is an interesting
level of crime in the community to have more than half of both
perpetrator and more than half as victims.
Based on your experience, do you think we could decrease
crime, the victimization and the criminal behavior as well by
expanding access to crime victim services or a better way to
deal with this? It just seems an amazing situation at hand.
Mr. Godfrey. It is remarkable. And when you look at that,
implicit in that percentage of victims and perpetrators is
those victims become perpetrators, obviously. Intervention at a
younger age and education at a younger age, especially in the
isolated communities where it is harder for information and
specialists and advocates in those fields to have a presence, a
consistent presence.
I think a five-year old, four-year old, six, seven, eight,
nine-year old, I didn't want to get into a policy discussion on
this, but I think that if a child in that age range is educated
about appropriate touch and inappropriate touch and what is
acceptable and what is not, they don't then find it so easy to
accept that behavior that is happening to them because an uncle
or grandpa or their older brother or cousin or dad comes in
their room once a week and does something like that.
I would think it is stigmatized in rural parts of Alaska
the way it is at large. Nobody would ever want to be called a
pedophile. And yet the stigmatization that I think we
throughout the Country generally see when someone has that
label, a child abuser or something like that, it is kept so
quiet in rural Alaska. I have seen numerous instances where the
victim, when she was 13 or 14, and this has been going on since
she was 6, say, well, my mom walked in and saw my cousin doing
it to me, but then she turned around and walked out. And
another time she walked in and saw my grandpa, turned around
and walked out. And one time I brought it up and she said, we
don't talk about that. We don't talk about that.
I have also seen where an older woman told her child, it
happened to me, it happens to all of us. That is not something
you talk about. You just live, you will be fine just like me.
And I am looking at those in police reports, when I am
adjudicating these claims.
So I feel like intervening at a younger age, before it
becomes not embraced, but tolerated by young children, that
that is just the way life is.
The Chairman. The follow-up question is, Judge Barker
Harrold, as you opened your testimony, you said that you were a
victim and now here you are as a judge. Your written testimony
refers to the risk of revictimization. I want to ask if you
could describe in a little more detail how and why the gaps in
victim services so often lead to this revictimization.
Ms. Harrold. When there is not victim services people in a
community, there is no one to help them. I have worked with a
lot of Alaska Native groups. In remote villages in Alaska, for
example, a lot of times those crimes don't get reported because
it is a small village and sometimes they get intimidated by
others that don't want to report it. Because going out to a
remote village can take 24 hours or 48 hours depending on the
weather.
But the same thing is true in a lot of the lower 48 as
well, because if they know there is no victim services and no
one to help them get protection, and it is not a negative to
law enforcement, law enforcement is focused on arresting and
investigating more than working with crime victims because of
what they do, that would be a helpful thing to have, a
collaboration, have an advocate work with law enforcement to
have that.
But if people know that there are no services available,
they are not going to repot it because they don't know how it
is going to happen.
The Chairman. Senator Murkowski, did you have a follow-up?
Senator Murkowski. Very quickly, Mr. Chairman. And it is a
follow-up to a comment Mr. Godfrey just made about awareness
and teaching children, our young people, about what is
acceptable, what is not acceptable. A little bit of controversy
right now in the State over legislation that is being
considered. I know the Governor is very support of this, Erin's
Law.
How important do you think legislation like that, that
effectively puts in place sexual assault prevention education,
so that we do have this awareness?
Mr. Godfrey. I think that is extremely valuable. I lived in
Bethel as a child, I went to school in Bethel, I spent a number
of years there. My father was a State trooper assigned to that
post. I remember not learning about that good touch, bad touch
stuff in elementary school there, when I reflect back.
But I do remember when I moved to the urban area, Anchorage
area, that they did have that as part of the curriculum, a
short thing. It wasn't in-depth. But I do recall that a very
young age friends of mine, in third and fourth grade, making
comments that just shocked me, because I was kind of naive. I
was a kid, I was innocent.
And I asked a friend, why is your sister, because she had
been held back from sixth grade, why is your sister so nice
sometimes at recess, and then sometimes she just gets crazy for
no reason? And he told me, I never forgot, because it was an
eye opener for me at that age, he goes, she gets that way, her
counselor said she's always going to be that way because a
cousin and uncle raped her. So we just learn to put up with it.
He was cavalier about it. And I was like, whoa, I have never
known anyone who knew anyone that was raped before, in fourth
grade. That wasn't as uncommon from that point forward in my
life, living in Bethel.
But going to school, moving to the Anchorage area, I didn't
have classmates talk like that. I didn't have classmates
bragging about things they said they were doing that third
graders wouldn't do. Maybe you would say that when you are in
high school.
And then I moved to the urban area and my buddies were
talking age appropriate. It was sort of strange.
I do know we didn't have that type of education in Bethel,
and that type of good touch, bad touch or whatever you want to
call the curriculum. But if someone doesn't illuminate for
young children, this is not right, don't allow this to happen
to you, someone shouldn't treat you this way, and they spend
most of their time in a household and the message is, this is
happening to me, this must be what happens, and they don't talk
about it.
And by the way, Alaska Natives are culturally reserved
people when it comes to communicating. So it is not like they
are going to be predisposed to wanting to talk about it in any
way. But if there is a cultural silence and keeping it behind
closed doors, that is literally what they do. They leave the
house and it is never talked about. When we go back home, that
uncle, that brother, that grandfather, that father, does it.
There are numerous victims I have come across that have been
victimized by three or four different men in the community that
she was related to. Those men typically were abused at some
point when they were younger as well.
The only thing I see that would combat that short of having
the police living in a household, which is ridiculous, is you
educate these kids and counter the message, that message that
is happening in the household, the message through actions.
Obviously the father is not saying, this is what I am going to
do to you, he does it. Counter that in the educational
environment where the State has access and where the tribes may
have access to those children to create some sort of tension
between the action taking place in the household, behind closed
doors, and what society should find acceptable.
Senator Murkowski. Mr. Chairman, thank you for allowing me
to ask another question. I think that given the statistics that
we face in our State and really as you look at Indian Country
across the Country, it would seem to me that we would be
doubling down on our efforts to focus on the prevention, to
focus on the awareness, as whole communities, starting with our
young people, letting them know that this is not acceptable,
that you do not have to tolerate that. And that it is okay to
talk about it, because it is as we talk about it that the
victims will heal and those who are perpetrators will know that
this is not acceptable and it will not be allowed in our
communities.
So there is a lot of discussion about whether or not we
should require this in our schools. Until we can turn our
statistics around in the State, I think we have to. Because in
some of our small communities, where our school boards are
making these decisions, it may be that some of those school
board members are part of our problem. And they don't want to
see these things, prevention, education, included in the
schools.
It is one small thing that we can be doing.
Mr. Godfrey. Senator, if I may add briefly, you nailed it
right there. There are people with a vested interest in a small
community, because if they are not perpetrating it themselves,
they know their brother or their husband is, or they have a
family member that is, and they don't want that seen in the
light of day, they don't want the troopers coming in and taking
them.
My fellow panelists discussed that, the small community
dynamic at work, even if I want to, even if you strike when the
iron is hot and you want to get law enforcement and you get
that person when they are willing to, the dynamic of familial
ties in those small communities, often there are two or three
dominant family names. And when you put report this person,
half or more of that community will turn on you.
I have seen cases where moms or grandmothers say, if you
report it, you know those families aren't going to take you to
fish camp and they are not going to bring you berries in the
fall. How are you going to feed the kids this fall when he is
incarcerated if you do that? Using mental coercion and
manipulation to keep them from doing that.
Senator Murkowski. You are speaking truth.
Ms. Harrold. One more thing about your question about
revictimization, Chairman, is that if an offender isn't held
accountable, they think they can go ahead and keep doing that.
So that happens a lot.
When I was a victim in the 1970s, I went through domestic
violence for three years. There was no services or anything and
I didn't know who could help. There was no shelter or anything
like that, like the services there are now.
There is also years, centuries ago, many years ago where it
was not uncommon for people, women to get raped or molested or
something when they were younger, and then as they got older,
those victims, sometimes they say to their children or
grandchildren, that happened to me, you just expect to be raped
at least once before you get 18. So sometimes that is a bad
message because there has been no services to address those.
So that is different ways how revictimization occurs and
having services, victim services in communities and tribal
communities and people know that they are available, helps to
give those victims a way to seek assistance and get relief and
healing and hold offenders accountable.
Senator Murkowski. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
The Chairman. Thank you.
Chairman Stafne, you have been here listening to all of
this. I just want to ask a question about your written
testimony, referring to substance and alcohol abuse as major
drivers of the significant rise in violent crime at Fort Peck
and elsewhere. Are there specific services that you think would
be most helpful in cases where the substance abuse is leading
to part of this victimization?
Mr. Stafne. Absolutely, yes. And we do have success
stories, I guess. But they are rare. I get very discouraged at
the number of people that go to treatment. As soon as they get
out of treatment, or maybe that very night, we see them out
there tipping the bottle again, probably with drugs. Drugs are
more secretive, they are not like alcoholics.
But every once in a while you get a good report. And we are
staffed by persons who have gone to treatment and that
treatment finally took effect on them. There are good people
working to get the other alcoholics or abusers referred to
them, that they need to create a new life, a new life for your
family, your children.
But it takes a lot of time, but we do have success stories,
I am glad to report. We certainly employ the people, when they
do come back, we try and give them gainful employment to help
them. Sometimes it works. That is when it is a happy time, when
you find somebody that it finally happens, and they realize
that they need to change their life.
The Chairman. Thank you. I appreciate your testimony, all
of you. Mr. Cruzan, let me finish with you. First, you may have
noted previously, with other chairmen, we would have an
Administration person come to testify and then so frequently
they would leave and not hear this compelling testimony. I want
to thank you for listening so attentively.
When Mr. Godfrey was talking, you were focused. I know it
is not just you but your staff that is with you. I know you
have taken these things to heart, what you have heard today.
That is one of the things we have changed in this chairmanship,
is to make sure that when people are here to testify, there is
also an Administration person here at the table who will then
stay to hear the stories that I think are so compelling. And
you hear that from both sides of the aisle.
I don't if you want to reflect a little bit on what you
have heard, what you are going to take away from today's
hearing. I was impressed with how focused you were on listening
to these three experts who know this better than any of us and
had a message to share. I am glad that you and your staff heard
it.
Mr. Cruzan. Thank you, Chairman. I can sum it up in my
philosophy. The people closest to the issues most of the time,
almost every time, are going to know the solution, are going to
have the solution to the problem, if the people in the
positions with the ability to help will ask.
So I think that is what we do. I don't think it is a
Federal Government solution alone, I don't think it is a State
government solution alone. I don't think it is a tribal
government solution alone. I think we are better when we work
together. And that is the philosophy that we have.
I thank you for holding this hearing and I look forward to
working closely with my partners here and the Committee to
address this issue. It is without question, the Committee is on
target. Victims in Indian Country and again, I don't need to
tell you that, we have heard it, it is staggering.
I am very honored to have been here today.
The Chairman. I want to thank all of you for your
testimony. Members can also submit questions, and that may
occur as other members who weren't able to be here heard what
went on today, they may also submit follow-up questions. The
hearing record will remain open for two weeks. I want to thank
all of you for your time, your testimony. The hearing is
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 4:10 p.m., the hearing was adjourned.]
A P P E N D I X
Prepared Statement of Hon. Darla LaPointe, Chairwoman, Winnebago Tribal
Council
Dear Senator Barrasso and Senator Tester:
On behalf of the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska, I submit these
remarks in advance of the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs' June 10,
2015 oversight hearing addressing the need for victim services in
Indian Country. I ask for the support of the Committee in helping crime
victims in our tribal communities get the services they need and
deserve but currently lack. The Committee can do this by supporting
legislative language to ensure an allocation from the Crime Victims
Fund each year for federally recognized tribes. Doing so will make the
Crime Victim Fund available to Native American crime victims, improving
their life-chances and the well-being of their families and
communities.
Adequate Funds Means Consistent Funds
Consistent as well as adequate funding is sorely needed to help
crime victims and their communities in Indian Country. Unlike state and
territorial governments, tribes can only access the Crime Victims Fund
through state pass-through grants or limited grants from the Department
of Justice. But last year the states passed-through less than 0.2
percent of CVF funding, and only to 20 tribes. With 566 federally
recognized tribes in the United States, this meant that 96 percent of
Indian Country lacked access to the Crime Victims Fund in FY 2014,
despite its disproportionate need.
True, some tribes had access to other funds for victim services
programs. We at Winnebago, for example, received CTAS grants from the
Children's Justice Act Partnership for Indian Communities Program and
from the Comprehensive Tribal Victim Assistance Program in 2013 and
2014. But those were the first such grants Winnebago had received since
1996, and even they did not address all of our needs. To be adequate,
funding for victim services must also be consistent. Without regular
and predictable annual funding, the benefits from assisting crime
victims in one year will be eroded or lost in the next.
Current Need
The Winnebago Tribe is headquartered on the Winnebago Reservation
in rural Nebraska, 20 miles south of Sioux City and 80 miles north of
Omaha. Our 120,000 acre reservation is home to over 2500 tribal
members, whose number is expected to double in the next 25 years.
Domestic Violence
In January of this year 10 cases of domestic violence were reported
in our community in addition to 5 cases of sexual violence (not
including incidents involving children), 3 suicide attempts and 4
sexual assaults. These are significant numbers in a community of our
size.
Few things disrupt our hearts, our homes and our communities more
than domestic violence, whose effects reach beyond its immediate
victims. If forced to leave home with their children, survivors of
domestic violence face immediate challenges like finding a new housing,
getting a new job, and ensuring their children's schooling stays on
track. These challenges are never straightforward, and can involve a
host of smaller needs: What good is temporary housing without dishes in
the kitchen or blankets on the bed? How are survivors of domestic
violence expected to travel to new jobs, especially in rural Nebraska?
How, for that matter, can they get their children to and from school
without taking time off from work?
These are some of the victim services the Winnebago Tribe would
like to provide to victims of domestic violence in our community. Right
now we can't. At the moment we can only afford 3 staff members. Their
dedication moves them to do double and triple duty sometimes, but also
risks burning them out. Recruiting staff is also a challenge. Up till
this year, the director of domestic violence services office had been
vacant for two years.
Other services don't go far enough. Our transitional housing
assistance is only available for 30 days. That didn't help one young
tribal member who was forced from her home with her 7 children by an
abusive spouse, and who had to spend two months in a nearby women's
shelter run by a local ministry. Our current program also offers no
assistance in things like the rent deposit for a new home or other
basic needs like silverware, dishes or furniture, the lack of which can
worsen the emotional stress of victims and their families and compound
their suffering.
Culturally Appropriate Healing Services
At Winnebago, we currently have a single mental health counselor-
therapist to serve our tribe's 2500-plus members. That's clearly
inadequate, both for the community's needs and for the counselor's own
well-being. As valuable as non-Native programs can be, they also often
focus on the individual at the expense of the community.
In addition to the services of counseling professionals, we would
like to see our victim services programs draw upon traditional
spiritual resources. Sweat lodges, church support groups, ceremonials
and other traditional practices not only help heal the individual
victims, they help mend the fabric of our community tom apart by crime.
The Department of Justice Office of Victim Services recognizes the
importance of culturally relevant victim services, which have been
successful throughout Indian Country. Funds should be made available
not just to provide traditional healing practices like sweats and
quilts, but to provide transportation when needed to make them
available to those who need them. But again, given our rural location,
transportation can loom large as an obstacle in implementing such
programs successfully.
Conclusion
Establishing an annual tribal allocation from the Crime Victims
Fund will guarantee consistent and adequate funding for crime victim
services within Indian Country. Knowing funding will be available each
year will allow the Winnebago Tribe to plan ways to better serve the
victims of crime and build a stronger community for the long run. In
the short term it could mean adequate staffing for existing programs
and new programs for needs that urgently need to be addressed, like
transportation; housing assistance; legal aid and counseling. In the
long term, it would allow us to develop new programs that are
consistent with our community's traditional practices and beliefs, like
spiritual healing; counseling for staff members who provide victim
assistance; family violence services; appropriate training for service
providers; and assisting victims of crime from our community who have
to navigate legal processes and social services in surrounding, off-
reservation communities.
______
Prepared Statement of Joye E. Frost, Director, Office for Victims of
Crime, U.S. Department of Justice
Chairman Barrasso, Vice-Chairman Tester and distinguished Members
of the Committee, thank you for the opportunity to submit a statement
for the record on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice regarding
the need for improved victim services in Indian Country. I am Joye
Frost, Director of the Office for Victims of Crime (OVC) within the
Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs (OJP). Our mission
is to strengthen our Nation's capacity to assist crime victims and to
provide leadership in changing attitudes, policies, and practices to
promote justice and healing for all victims of crime. OVC administers
the Crime Victims Fund, an innovative method for using fines and
penalties from federal criminals to fund services for victims.
As the Committee is well aware, American Indian and Alaska Native
populations suffer significantly higher crime rates than the rest of
the Nation. \1\ Both Congress and the U.S. Department of Justice have
recognized these pronounced needs. OVC has long administered the
Comprehensive Tribal Victim Assistance Discretionary Grant Program to
help tribes or develop, establish, and operate multidisciplinary,
trauma-informed services for tribal victims of crime. Through the
Children's Justice Act, OVC also provides funding to tribes to improve
the investigation, prosecution and management of child abuse cases.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ Criminal Victimization, 2010, National Crime Victimization
Survey Bulletin, September 2011, NCJ 235508 http://bjs.ojp.usdoj.gov/
content/pub/pdf/cv10.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Starting in Fiscal Year 2010, these two programs became part of the
Department's Coordinated Tribal Assistance Solicitation (CTAS) which
offers tribes a more streamlined, comprehensive grant process. CTAS
gives tribes the flexibility needed to better address their criminal
justice and public safety needs. In Fiscal Year 2014, the Department
awarded CTAS grants to 169 American Indian tribes, Alaska Native
villages, tribal consortia and tribal designees. The grants provide
more than $87 million to enhance law enforcement practices and sustain
crime prevention and intervention efforts in nine purpose areas
including public safety and community policing; justice systems
planning; alcohol and substance abuse; corrections and correctional
alternatives; violence against women; juvenile justice; and tribal
youth programs.
Even with our long-standing efforts we know that victims in Indian
Country remain chronically underserved. \2\ That's why Indian Country
is a key component of OVC's VISION 21 Initiative, a nationwide effort
to expand the vision and impact of the victim assistance field in the
21st century. In 2013, OVC released VISION 21: Transforming Victim
Services Final Report, the first comprehensive assessment of the victim
assistance field in nearly 15 years. The report was a product of a
broad spectrum of service providers, advocates, criminal justice
professionals, allied practitioners, and policymakers who addressed
crime victim issues through a broad range of perspectives.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\2\ OVC Builds Capacity to Serve Crime Victims in Indian Country,
Office for Victims of Crime Fact Sheet, http://www.ovc.gov/pubs/
TribalVictimsofCrime/intro.html.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The report stated that ``Among those most in need of support are
American Indians and Alaska Natives,'' and further emphasized ``the
urgency of finding ways to deliver services more successfully or, in
the case of legal assistance, to deliver services at all. Complex
jurisdictional issues, along with the cultural diversity of tribes and
the basic reality of geography, pose a significant challenge. Rural
Indian reservations may cover vast areas, and the villages of many
Alaska Natives may be remote, even inaccessible, in winter.'' The
report recognized the need to provide adequate support for victim
assistance in Indian Country.
OVC has acted on the report's recommendations. In FY 2014, we
awarded grants through VISION 21 to the Blackfeet Tribal Business
Council; the Tulalip Tribes of Washington; and Wiconi Wawokiya, which
serves the Crow Creek reservation, for tribal community wellness
centers. These centers will go beyond the traditional model of victim
assistance to draw on tribal culture and traditions in developing a
more comprehensive community-oriented strategy. The strategy will
include a full range of intervention, treatment, health and wellness,
prevention, educational and economic development, and cultural
resources.
In FY 2015 OVC issued a solicitation for the Vision 21: Tribal
Victim Services Resource Mapping Project. This program addresses a
critical barrier preventing tribal crime victims from receiving
services--a lack of information. Our grantee will collect information
about services available to American Indian and Alaskan Native crime
victims at all levels, including tribal, state, regional and federal.
The grantee will then develop this data into a state-of-the-art mapping
and referral tool, which will be available to the public. OVC is also
providing over $13.6 million in discretionary grant funding to tribes
and tribal NGOs through CTAS in FY 2015.
Additionally OVC is directing over $830,000 to the BIA for victim
assistance positions and almost $3.5 million to tribal NGOs to support
training, technical assistance and capacity building this fiscal year.
OVC continues to support numerous innovative demonstration projects in
Indian Country, ranging from telemedicine to increase sexual assault
victims' access to expert medical forensic care to mental health and
culturally appropriate services for students in Flandreau Indian School
to a tribal liaison project in Oklahoma that has increased the number
of tribal applications for VOCA formula funding as well as compensation
claims from tribal communities.
Through a statutory funding set-aside, OVC provides critical
support to crime victims in Indian Country through FBI Victim
Assistance Specialists, as well as staff in local U.S. Attorney's
Offices (USAOs). In 2010, OVC increased funding to the FBI Office of
Victim Assistance to support 12 additional positions in Indian Country;
in 2015, OVC is funding seven additional positions dedicated solely to
Indian Country and five positions dedicated to serving Indian Country
part-time. OVC is also providing the Executive Office for United States
Attorneys EOUSA funding this fiscal year for 12 additional positions
specifically to serve Indian Country.
Our sister grant-making component, the Department's Office on
Violence Against Women (OVW), also provides funding for tribes and
victim services in Indian Country through three tribal programs
authorized by the Violence Against Women Act and subsequent
legislation. First, the Tribal Governments Program, which is
administered through CTAS, supports tribal efforts to respond to
domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, and stalking;
enhance victim safety; and develop education and prevention strategies.
Second, the Tribal Sexual Assault Services Program supports tribal
services for American Indian and Alaska Native sexual assault victims.
Third, the Tribal Coalitions Program supports the development and
operation of nonprofit, nongovernmental tribal organizations that
provide education, support, and technical assistance to member Indian
service providers and tribes to enhance their response to victims of
domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault, stalking, and sex
trafficking. In FY 2014, with funding from these three programs as well
as other OVW programs, OVW made 91 awards totaling over $46 million to
tribes and tribal organizations.
In addition, OVW provides technical assistance and training to
tribes and tribal service providers to enhance their ability to serve
victims of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault,
stalking, and sex trafficking. Three of these projects illustrate these
OVW-funded technical assistance initiatives. The National Indian
Country Clearinghouse on Sexual Assault operates a website that
provides a one-stop shop for information on sexual violence against
American Indian and Alaska Natives and includes a toll-free helpline to
provide personalized assistance to Indian Country justice and service
professionals. The Southwest Center for Law and Policy's SAFESTAR
project features a novel approach to providing sexual assault services
in rural and geographically remote areas by training community-based
lay health care providers (such as traditional midwives, medicine
people, and community health aides) to collect and preserve forensic
evidence in sexual assault cases, triage sexual assault-related
injuries and health concerns, and provide referrals to sexual assault
services. The Tribal Law and Policy Institute provides training and
technical assistance to tribal coalitions to increase their capacity to
address sexual assault and sex trafficking in their communities.
The Department also helps tribal victims of crime by implementing
the Violence Against Women Reauthorization Act of 2013 (VAWA 2013),
which is a high priority. A key provision of VAWA 2013 is the special
domestic violence jurisdiction for qualifying tribes. The Department,
along with agency partner the Bureau of Indian Affairs, has worked with
tribes to help those seeking to assert jurisdiction under the ``special
domestic violence criminal jurisdiction.'' The effective date of the
provisions authorizing qualifying tribes to exercise this jurisdiction
throughout Indian Country was March 7, 2015. However, the Act provided
for pilot projects prior to that date.
In short, the United States continues to prosecute domestic
violence and violent crime in Indian Country--including the enforcement
of the new VAWA 2013 assault charges--but it also promotes and
encourages tribal prosecutors to bring domestic violence charges in
their own courts when appropriate.
To that end, collaboration between the United States Attorneys'
offices and tribal prosecutors' offices is continuous and essential.
The Department's enhanced Tribal Special Assistant United States
Attorney (SAUSA) program continues to be an important tool contributing
to improved collaboration. Tribal SAUSAs, who are cross-deputized
tribal prosecutors, are able to prosecute crimes in both tribal court
and federal court as appropriate. These Tribal SAUSAs serve to
strengthen a tribal government's ability to fight crime and to increase
the USAO's coordination with tribal law enforcement personnel. The work
of Tribal SAUSAs also helps to accelerate tribal criminal justice
system's implementation of the Tribal Law and Order Act and VAWA 2013.
Our commitment to crime victims in Indian County and to improving
tribal public safety and criminal justice comes through loud and clear
in the FY 2016 President's Budget for the Department of Justice. It
includes a 7 percent set-aside from OJP's discretionary funds to be
made available for grant or reimbursement programs for flexible tribal
justice assistance grants. The set-aside will provide a consistent
source of significant, tribal-specific grant funding that can be
distributed through a flexible tribal assistance grants model based on
the lessons learned from CTAS. It will also allow OJP increased
flexibility in awarding funds and streamlining reporting requirements.
The funding provided by the set-aside will enable the tribes to focus
on identifying their most important criminal justice priorities and
developing innovative, evidence-based responses to address these
priorities. Based on the funding levels requested in the FY 2016
President's Budget, OJP estimates that this set-aside will provide
$114.4 million to support new and existing tribal justice assistance
programs in FY 2016.
The FY 2016 President's budget also includes $20 million from the
Crime Victims Fund for tribal assistance to continue and expand on our
efforts to act on the VISION 21 recommendations. This would greatly
enhance our work with our tribal partners and the OVW to develop
evidence-based, culturally appropriate victims' services programs for
the nation's tribal communities.
Furthermore, the FY 2016 President's budget requests $5 million for
a new tribal Special Domestic Violence Criminal Jurisdiction program
authorized by Congress in VAWA 2013. This program would provide grants
to tribal governments and their designees to support tribal efforts to
exercise special domestic violence criminal jurisdiction over non-
Indian offenders who commit violence against Indian spouses, intimate
partners or dating partners, or who violate protection orders, in
Indian Country. The Department needs this program to assist tribes in
implementing the tribal provisions of VAWA 2013; the funds may be used
by tribes to implement a broad range of criminal justice reforms,
including updating criminal codes, providing counsel to indigent
defendants, and supporting victims.
The Department of Justice, OJP, and OVC will not waiver in their
dedication to improving the lives of crime victims in Indian Country,
and we would welcome any discussion of how our efforts can be improved.
This concludes my statement, Mr. Chairman. Thank you for the
opportunity to submit this statement on behalf of the U.S. Department
of Justice.
______
Prepared Statement of Robert Starbard, Tribal Administrator/CEO, Hoonah
Indian Association
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. Hoonah Indian Association, a
federally recognized tribe, respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602
(b) be amended to include, ``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as
eligible for the Victim Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our
request that a minimum of 10 percent of authorized funds be
Congressionally appropriated to American Indian and Alaska Native
Tribal governments for the reasons described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state. It is painfully obvious
that the current method of distributing federal victim services funding
is not working for the 229 tribes in Alaska.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners.
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Thomas Rodriguez, Chairman, La Jolla Band of
Luiseno Indians
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June ro, 2015. The La Jolla Band of Luiseno
Indians respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to
include, ``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the
Victim Crimes Compensation fund and that a minimum of ro% of authorized
funds be Congressionally appropriated to American Indian and Alaska
Native Tribal governments for the following reasons described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally-recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from the state, and smaller, resource challenged tribes,
such as those in California and Alaska, too often don't have the
capacity to compete for discretionary grant funding.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
Tribes experience high victimization rates, geographic remoteness,
high poverty, and an underdeveloped tribal-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of tribal
victims . Below are some examples of funding needs for tribal victim
services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. While some tribes provide services for domestic
violence and sexual assault victims, resources for doing so are
woefully inadequate. NEED: For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence
Against Women received applications from tribal governments requesting
approximately $55.6 million for domestic violence and sexual assault
services in its two primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26
million, suggesting an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of California, we have three Native women's
shelters--operated by the Round Valley Indian Tribes (Mendocino county)
and the Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition (San Diego and
Riverside counties). Those programs that do exist reported an unmet
need of over 6o,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED: Building a
shelter program in an additional 4 tribal communities at a cost of
$300,000/year would cost $1,200,000.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner and transportation services are often limited, if
available at all. For Native women in Alaska, forensic exams typically
are only located in hub regions, which means she must travel by plane
to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away. NEED: To fund one
trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for
salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate expert in half of the
566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost
$14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the survivors of homicide victims are rarely funded
but sorely needed, for surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes. Recognizing the disproportionate need for
victim services in tribal communities, the Office for Victims of
Crime's Vision 21 report also called for increasing resources to tribal
communities in order to ``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no
longer a footnote to this country's response to crime victims.''
The Attorney General's Task Force on American Indian and Alaska
Native Children Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent
tribal allocation from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal
allocation from the CVF has also been supported by the National Task
Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a
thousand organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic
violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Carmen O'Leary, Director, Native Women's Society
of the Great Plains
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
The following are the written comments from our organization,
Native Women's Society of the Great Plains, regarding the Oversight
Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in Indian
Country'' held on June 10, 2015. As a tribal organization that works
directly with tribal victim service providers and tribal programs who
work with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault, stalking,
dating violence and other crimes, we see the devastating effects these
crimes have on women and their loved ones. For victims to truly heal,
it is critical that they have access to culturally appropriate crisis
and recovery services, which can be made available to tribes and tribal
programs under funding provided by the Crimes Victim Fund (CVF). For
the following reasons described below, we ask that the unmet needs of
victims on tribal lands be adequately reviewed and considered as a
matter of public policy for long-term solutions and strategy that
ensure that tribal victims of crimes are able to access the CVF.
A Change to VOCA Will Support Local Tribal Responses to High Crime
Rates on Tribal Lands
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans. \1\
\1\ Rennison, C. (2001). Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98.
U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, March, (NCJ 176354).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. \2\ One some reservations, the murder rate is 10
times the national average. \3\
\2\ Tjaden, P. & Thonennes. (2000). The Prevalence, Incidence, and
Consequences of Violence Against Women: findings from the National
Violence Survey Against Women. National Institute of Justice & the
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. http://www.ncjrs.gov/
txtfiles1/nij/183781.txt
\3\ Ronet, Bachman, et al, Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known
(National Institute of Justice 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 1 out of 10 American Indians 12 and older
become victims of violent crime annually. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ 2004 report, American Indians and Crime, A BJS Statistical
Profile, 1992-2002
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. The current method of distributing federal
victim services funding to tribal governments is simply not working for
the Tribes in the Great Plains area where the coalition's membership
serve women. According to data from the Office for Victims of Crime, in
2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of available
funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566 federally-
recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass through
grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding Will Help Provide Adequate Native Village-based
Services
Indian Tribes experience high victimization rates, geographic
remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an underdeveloped
tribally based victim services infrastructure that is the result of the
historic exclusion of tribes from the CVF programs. While we know need
is high, it is difficult to calculate the precise amount needed to
fully meet the needs of victims on tribal lands. Below are some
examples of funding needs for tribal victim services and how CVF funds
could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. While some tribes provide services for domestic
violence and sexual assault victims, resources for doing so are
woefully inadequate.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. Those programs that do exist reported an unmet need of
over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the survivors of homicide victims are rarely funded
but sorely needed, for surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners. Much needed services include criminal
justice advocacy, assistance in applying for victim compensation,
funding to travel to trials that are out of state, legal assistance,
financial counseling if the murdered victim was the sole provider,
mental health counseling or other therapy, and similar services.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 which supports an allocation from CVF disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Vision
21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report, (Washington, DC: OVC,
2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a tribal allocation from the
CVF in its 2014 report. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of
Justice, Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children
Can Thrive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tribal allocation from the CVF has also been supported by the
National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of
more than a thousand organizations that advocate on behalf of victims
of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ NTF Letter to Appropriators, April 15, 2015, available at
http://4vawa.org/4vawa/2015/4/21/ntf-urges-for-increase-funding-for-
federal-programs-that-address-domestic-violence-sexual-assault-dating-
violence-and-stalking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We request a policy shift that will provide for,
through an amendment to VOCA, an annual disbursement from the Crime
Victims Fund to tribal governments. Thank you for this opportunity to
present a summary of recent findings on this issue and for your
leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Michael Sam, Chief, Native Village of Tetlin
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. The Native Village of Tetlin
respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to include,
``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the Victim
Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our request that a minimum of
10 percent of authorized funds be Congressionally appropriated to
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments for the reasons
described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Jane Root, Executive Director, Wabanaki Women's
Coalition
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. As a tribal organization that
works directly with tribal victim service providers and/or tribal
programs who work with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault,
stalking, dating violence and other crimes, we see the devastating
effects these crimes have on tribal victims and tribal communities in
which they live. For victims to truly heal, it is critical that they
have access to culturally appropriate crisis and recovery services,
which can be made available to tribes and tribal programs under funding
provided by the Crimes Victim Fund (CVF). For the following reasons
described below, we ask that the unmet needs of victims on tribal lands
be adequately reviewed and considered as a matter of public policy for
long-term solutions and strategy that ensure that tribal victims of
crimes are able to access the CVF.
A Change to VOCA Will Support Local Tribal Responses to High Crime
Rates on Tribal Lands
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans. \1\
\1\ Rennison, C. (2001). Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98.
U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, March, (NCJ 176354).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. \2\ One some reservations, the murder rate is 10
times the national average. \3\
\2\ Tjaden, P. & Thonennes. (2000). The Prevalence, Incidence, and
Consequences of Violence Against Women: findings from the National
Violence Survey Against Women. National Institute of Justice & the
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. http://www.ncjrs.gov/
txtfiles1/nij/183781.txt
\3\ Ronet, Bachman, et al, Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known
(National Institute of Justice 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 1 out of 10 American Indians 12 and older
become victims of violent crime annually. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ 2004 report, American Indians and Crime, A BJS Statistical
Profile, 1992-2002
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. The current method of distributing federal
victim services funding to tribal governments is simply not working for
the Tribes in the Great Plains area where the coalition's membership
serve women. According to data from the Office for Victims of Crime, in
2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of available
funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566 federally-
recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass through
grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding Will Help Provide Adequate Native Village-based
Services
Indian Tribes experience high victimization rates, geographic
remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an underdeveloped
tribally based victim services infrastructure that is the result of the
historic exclusion of tribes from the CVF programs. While we know need
is high, it is difficult to calculate the precise amount needed to
fully meet the needs of victims on tribal lands. Below are some
examples of funding needs for tribal victim services and how CVF funds
could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. While some tribes provide services for domestic
violence and sexual assault victims, resources for doing so are
woefully inadequate. The USDOJ CTAS grants are highly competitive and
can't begin to fund all the need for services in Indian Country.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. Those programs that do exist reported an unmet need of
over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. There are two Tribal Domestic
and Sexual Violence shelters in Maine but there is need for two more as
the Tribes are located hours from each other.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the survivors of homicide victims are rarely funded
but sorely needed, for surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners. Much needed services include criminal
justice advocacy, assistance in applying for victim compensation,
funding to travel to trials that are out of state, legal assistance,
financial counseling if the murdered victim was the sole provider,
mental health counseling or other therapy, and similar services.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 which supports an allocation from CVF disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Vision
21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report, (Washington, DC: OVC,
2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a tribal allocation from the
CVF in its 2014 report. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of
Justice, Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children
Can Thrive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tribal allocation from the CVF has also been supported by the
National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of
more than a thousand organizations that advocate on behalf of victims
of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ NTF Letter to Appropriators, April 15, 2015, available at
http://4vawa.org/4vawa/2015/4/21/ntf-urges-for-increase-funding-for-
federal-programs-that-address-domestic-violence-sexual-assault-dating-
violence-and-stalking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We request a policy shift that will provide for,
through an amendment to VOCA, an annual disbursement from the Crime
Victims Fund to tribal governments. Thank you for this opportunity to
present a summary of recent findings on this issue and for your
leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Germaine Omish-Guachena, Executive Director,
Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition, Inc.
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. As a tribal organization that
works directly with tribal victim service providers and/or tribal
programs who work with victims of domestic violence, sexual assault,
stalking, dating violence and other crimes, we see the devastating
effects these crimes have on tribal victims and tribal communities in
which they live. For victims to truly heal, it is critical that they
have access to culturally appropriate crisis and recovery services,
which can be made available to tribes and tribal programs under funding
provided by the Crimes Victim Fund (CVF). For the following reasons
described below, we ask that the unmet needs of victims on tribal lands
be adequately reviewed and considered as a matter of public policy for
long-term solutions and strategy that ensure that tribal victims of
crimes are able to access the CVF.
A Change to VOCA Will Support Local Tribal Responses to High Crime
Rates on Tribal Lands
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans. \1\
\1\ Rennison, C. (2001). Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98.
U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, March, (NCJ 176354).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. \2\ One some reservations, the murder rate is 10
times the national average. \3\
\2\ Tjaden, P. & Thonennes. (2000). The Prevalence, Incidence, and
Consequences of Violence Against Women: findings from the National
Violence Survey Against Women. National Institute of Justice & the
Centers for Disease Control & Prevention. http://www.ncjrs.gov/
txtfiles1/nij/183781.txt
\3\ Ronet, Bachman, et al, Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known
(National Institute of Justice 2007).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Approximately 1 out of 10 American Indians 12 and older
become victims of violent crime annually. \4\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ 2004 report, American Indians and Crime, A BJS Statistical
Profile, 1992-2002
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. The current method of distributing federal
victim services funding to tribal governments is simply not working for
the Tribes in the Great Plains area where the coalition's membership
serve women. According to data from the Office for Victims of Crime, in
2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of available
funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566 federally-
recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass through
grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding Will Help Provide Adequate Native Village-based
Services
Tribal communities have sovereignty to establish tribal laws,
however, California is a PL280state that requires state court
participation. This Act transferred federal criminal jurisdiction tothe
State of California without any resources to support the increased
responsibility ofresponding to crimes occurring upon Indian lands. The
impact upon the lives of Native womenon Indian reservations is the lack
of adequate criminal and civil justice and culturally sensitiveservices
to protect women. Often local and tribal law enforcement personnel are
themselves notfamiliar with the myriad of jurisdictional issues,
especially in relation to people living on theIndian reservations. As a
result, many service professionals are confused or unsure of the
uniquebarriers and challenges victims face when attempting to break
free from a violent perpetrator.
Strong Hearted Native Women's Coalition, Inc. was founded in 2005
to bring awareness againstSexual Assault, Domestic Violence, Youth
Violence, and Stalking in North County of the SanDiego County. Native
women from the Indian reservations of Rincon, Pauma, Mesa Grande,Santa
Ysabel, La Jolla, San Pasqual, Los Coyotes, Pala, and Inaja/Cosmit
make-up our coalitionmembership. Over the years, our coalition has
expanded to include tribes from all of SouthernCalifornia as well as
other tribes throughout the state of California.
Our coalition is a member organization of a newly formed national
organization, the Alliance ofTribal Coalitions to End Violence,
(ATCEV), which consists of all the OVW tribal coalitionsthroughout the
country, allowing for a national resource. We are working in our
communities toassist in the essential change needed to reduce Sexual
Assault, Domestic Violence, YouthViolence, Human Trafficking, and
Stalking to Native American women, their families, and theircommunity.
Indian Tribes experience high victimization rates, geographic
remoteness, high poverty and costof living, and an underdeveloped
tribally based victim services infrastructure that is the result ofthe
historic exclusion of tribes from the CVF programs. While we know need
is high, it isdifficult to calculate the precise amount needed to fully
meet the needs of victims on tribal lands.Below are some examples of
funding needs for tribal victim services and how CVF funds couldbe
spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. While some tribes provide services for domestic
violence and sexual assault victims, resources for doing so are
woefully inadequate.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. Those programs that do exist reported an unmet need of
over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. Our coalition recently open our
shelter doors in September of 2014 and has been full the whole time. We
struggle to meet the needs of all our ``guests'' in our Kiicha House.
We rely on very limited funding.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. Our coalition has been working with two Tribal SART
working groups and we have been attempting to work with our local San
Diego County Sheriff's Department and the San Diego District Attorney's
office to work on a way to make this happen. We have the facilities and
the equipment through both Indian Health Services facilities in San
Diego County. Both the San Diego County Sheriff's Department and the
San Diego District Attorney's office have given the working groups
opposition in assisting us. This endeavor would give the County of San
Diego two more SANE facilities in the county and would be located on
the two reservations where the Indian Health facilities are located,
which brings the SANE facility closer to our Native communities.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the survivors of homicide victims are rarely funded
but sorely needed, for surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners. Much needed services include criminal
justice advocacy, assistance in applying for victim compensation,
funding to travel to trials that are out of state, legal assistance,
financial counseling if the murdered victim was the sole provider,
mental health counseling or other therapy, and similar services.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 which supports an allocation from CVF disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.'' \5\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Vision
21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report, (Washington, DC: OVC,
2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a tribal allocation from the
CVF in its 2014 report. \6\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\6\ Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of
Justice, Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children
Can Thrive.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
A tribal allocation from the CVF has also been supported by the
National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of
more than a thousand organizations that advocate on behalf of victims
of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\7\ NTF Letter to Appropriators, April 15, 2015, available at
http://4vawa.org/4vawa/2015/4/21/ntf-urges-for-increase-funding-for-
federal-programs-that-address-domestic-violence-sexual-assault-dating-
violence-and-stalking.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Law enforcement response to these shocking rates of domestic and
sexual violence can be crucial to providing safety, resources, and
protection for survivors and their families. An important foundation
for an appropriate response by law enforcement is for peace offices to
have a clear understand of PL 280 and its implications for their work
in these communities. AB 373 (Medina) would have helped to ensure that
officers who may be responding to calls for service on tribal lands
have the information they need about PL 280. AB 373, would have
required peace officers employed by the agency who work in, or adjacent
to, Indian tribal lands, or who may be responsible for responding to
calls for service on, or adjacent to, Indian tribal lands, to receive
training on Public Law 280 (PL 280). We believe this is a common-sense
requirement that will help increase safety for tribal victims and
enhance law enforcement's response to these calls for service. In 2015
our coalition helped to support Assembly Bill 373 (Medina), which did
not pass because law enforcement does not want to pay for it and so
they opposed this bill.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We request a policy shift that will provide for,
through an amendment to VOCA, an annual disbursement from the Crime
Victims Fund to tribal governments. Thank you for this opportunity to
present a summary of recent findings on this issue and for your
leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI)
On behalf of the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI), we
are pleased to present testimony to the Senate Committee on Indian
Affairs on ``Addressing the Need for Victim Services in Indian
Country.'' American Indians and Alaska Natives experience the highest
crime victimization rates in the country. When crime occurs, victims
and survivors have a variety of needs that may include mental health
counseling, appropriate medical care, support during criminal justice
proceedings, and emergency financial and housing assistance. Complex
jurisdictional issues, along with the cultural diversity of tribes and
the basic reality of geography, pose a significant challenge for crime
victims in need of services in Indian Country. Since the passage of the
Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) in 1984, the federal government has
provided significant support to crime victim services programs across
the country. As is unfortunately too often the case, Indian Country has
largely been left out of this effort. Crime victims on tribal lands
still struggle to access even the most basic services. As the Committee
considers this important issue, we urge you to support amendments to
VOCA that would appropriately recognize the important role tribal
governments play in providing services to crime victims in their
communities.
Crime Victims Fund
Since its creation in 1984 through VOCA, the Crime Victims Fund
(CVF) has been the federal government's primary funding source for
supporting crime victim compensation and assistance. Each year millions
of dollars are deposited into the fund from the penalties assessed
against convicted criminals. The CVF was founded on the basic premise
that money from federal criminals should be used to help crime victims.
The VOCA statute allocates funds made available from the CVF for a host
of purposes, including a small discretionary tribal grant program
through the Children's Justice Act to improve the investigation and
prosecution of child abuse cases in tribal communities. There is
generally about $2.7 million available for 566 Indian tribes each year
in this program. The bulk of CVF funds are distributed to state and
territorial governments as a formula grant, which they then sub-grant
to victim assistance programs in their jurisdiction. Tribal
governments, however, do not receive a similar formula distribution
from the CVF. Other than the tribal CJA program, Indian tribes are able
to access CVF funds for victim services only via sub-grants from the
states, or by competing for very limited resources that the Department
of Justice chooses to make available from its discretionary allocation.
Both of these mechanisms have failed to provide adequate funding for
tribal victim services programs.
NCAI recently submitted a request to the Office for Victims of
Crime (OVC) under the Freedom of Information Act asking for information
about sub-grants made by states to programs serving American Indian and
Alaska Native victims over the past five years. NCAI received the
attached spreadsheets in response, * which show that pass-through
funding has proven wholly unsuccessful in distributing funds to tribal
victim service providers. According to data from OVC, from 2010-2014,
the states passed through 0.5 percent of available funds to programs
serving tribal victims, less than $2.5 million annually. New Mexico,
where American Indians make up 10.7 percent of the population,
subgranted less than 1 percent of total available funds to programs
serving Indian victims during that time period. Oklahoma, a state that
is frequently held up as a place where the VOCA sub-grant process is
working and where the Indian population is 12.9 percent, has never sub-
granted more than 5.5 percent of its funds to programs serving Indians
victims. And in Alaska, where Alaska Natives make up 19.4 percent of
the population, the state of Alaska reports that from 2010-2013 it sub-
granted between 0 and 3.9 percent of funds received through VOCA to
programs serving Native victims. The vast majority of existing tribal
victim service programs we have spoken to report that they are not able
to access these funds at all.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
* The information referred to has been retained in the Committee
files.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Given that pass-through funding is not reaching tribal victims,
tribal governments must largely rely upon the discretionary grant
funding made available by OVC. OVC originally established a Victim
Assistance in Indian Country (VAIC) discretionary grant program in 1989
in response to revelations about multiple victim molestations
perpetrated by Bureau of Indian Affairs teachers in several reservation
communities. \1\ In attempting to identify services for the child
victims, OVC realized that ``funding to on reservation victim
assistance programs was virtually non-existent.'' \2\ VAIC funding was
awarded for a three year period to state applicants who had partnered
with tribal programs. OVC hoped that structuring the grant program to
require state-tribal collaboration would help integrate tribal programs
into the state VOCA programs and that the states would continue to fund
the tribal programs after the federal grant ended. The states did not
continue funding tribal programs at the conclusion of the three-year
grant, however, and in 1998 OVC discontinued the failed pass-through
model and began funding tribal programs directly. \3\ Today this
program is known as the Comprehensive Tribal Victim Assistance Program
(TVAP).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ CCAN, ``History of Federal Victim Assistance Services and
Programs in Indian Country,'' Upon the Back of a Turtle, (1998),
available at http://www.icctc.org/B-Ch%204%20victim%20asst%20svcs.pdf
\2\ Id.
\3\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
While the TVAP is an improvement over the pass-through model used
previously, its success is hampered by the low level of funding
available and the short-term discretionary nature of the grants.
Approximately $3 million has been available annually through this
program in recent years. Tribes must compete against one another to
access these funds, and fewer than 10 tribes receive these grants each
year for a three-year term, with no guarantee that this funding will be
renewed. \4\ Too often when a grant ends, tribal programs must
completely shut down. As the Committee considers this critical issue,
our foremost request is that tribal victims services are not set up as
another short-term grant program. Tribal governments need sustainable
funding to meet the needs of victims into the foreseeable future, not a
short-term program at risk of disappearing soon after it is fully
established.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\4\ OVC reports that with the significant increase in disbursements
from the Crime Victims Fund for FY 2015 they will be funding 24 tribal
programs for FY 2015, instead of the usual 8 programs. We anticipate
that total funding will be about $10 million.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Last year, NCAI adopted Resolution ANC-14-048 (attached) urging
Congress to create an ``above-the-cap'' reserve in the Victims of Crime
Act for tribal governments, or alternatively, to establish a 10 percent
allocation from CVF disbursements for tribal governments. The Attorney
General's Task Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. \5\ A 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking. \6\ OVC has also
recognized the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities. Its Vision 21 report singled out tribal communities and
called for increasing resources in order to ``ensure that victims in
Indian Country are no longer a footnote to this country's response to
crime victims.'' \7\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\5\ Office of Justice Programs, United States Department of
Justice, Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence: Ending Violence so Children
Can Thrive, (Washington, D.C.: OJJOP, November 2014) (http://
www.washingtonpost.com/r/2010-2019/WashingtonPost/2014/11/17/Nati. . .,
accessed June 8, 2015).
\6\ NTF Letter to Appropriators, April 15, 2015, available at
http://4vawa.org/4vawa/2015/4/21/ntf-urges-for-increasefunding-for-
federal-programs-that-address-domestic-violence-sexual-assault-dating-
violence-and-stalking.
\7\ Office of Justice Programs, U.S. Department of Justice, Vision
21: Transforming Victim Services Final Report, (Washington, DC: OVC,
2014).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
In recent years, annual disbursements from the CVF have been about
$700 million. Collections, however, reached as high as $2.8 billion in
2013, leaving a balance in the fund of more than $13 billion. There has
been significant pressure on Congress to make this money available for
crime victims, and Congress significantly increased the disbursements
from the CVF for FY 2015 to $2.3 billion. Despite this three-fold
increase, none of the money was directed to Indian tribes. There is
language in the FY 2016 Budget Resolution that will likely result in
even higher disbursements this year. Without additional action by
Congress, however, Indian tribal governments will continue to have no
direct access to critical CVF funds, and victims in Indian Country will
once again be left behind.
Need for Victims Services
American Indians and Alaska Natives experience the highest rates of
violent victimization in the country. The rate of aggravated assault
among American Indians and Alaska Natives is roughly twice that of the
country as a whole (600.2 per 100,000 versus 323.6 per 100,000). \8\
The Bureau of Justice Statistics has estimated that 1 out of 10
American Indians 12 and older become victims of violent crime annually.
\9\ At the same time, the historic lack of funding for tribal victims
services programs means that the infrastructure for providing victims
services in tribal communities is woefully underdeveloped. The services
that are available are provided by a complicated and fragmented system
that includes federal, state, tribal, and private actors. Programs
struggle to find stable sources of funding and often close when grant
funds run out. There is no comprehensive compilation of the services
that are available in Indian Country, nor a comprehensive analysis of
the gaps. The information that is available, however, makes clear that
many of the most vulnerable Native victims do not have access to the
services they need.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\8\ Rennison, C. (2001). Violent Victimization and Race, 1993-98.
U.S. DOJ, Bureau of Justice Statistics, March, (NCJ176354).
\9\ 2004 report, American Indians and Crime, A BJS Statistical
Profile, 1992-2002
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Child Advocacy Centers
Children's Advocacy Centers (CACs), for example, are a recognized
best practice for providing a child-focused, multidisciplinary response
to child abuse, especially child sexual abuse. Children who receive
services at CACs are twice as likely to receive specialized medical
exams and significantly more likely to receive referrals for
specialized mental health treatment. \10\ American Indian and Alaska
Native children are 50 percent more likely to experience child abuse
and sexual abuse than white children. \11\ Due to exposure to violence,
Native children experience post-traumatic stress disorder at a rate of
22 percent--the same levels as Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans and
triple the rate of the rest of the population. \12\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\10\ Randall Cooper, ``Children's Advocacy Centers and Indian
Country,'' Update: National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, vol.
24, no 2 (2014), available at http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/
Update%20Vol24_No2.pdf.
\11\ Children's Bureau, U.S. Department of Health and Human
Services, Child Maltreatment 2011, 28 (2012). Rates of child
maltreatment in certain states are even more alarming. According to
data from the Department of Health & Human Services, Native children in
Alaska experience maltreatment at a rate more than six and a half times
the rate for white children. In North Dakota, the rate of maltreatment
for Native children is more than three times the rate for white
children.
\12\ Attorney General's Advisory Committee on American Indian/
Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence, supra note 3, at 38.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Despite the increased victimization risk for Native American
children, very few CACs exist on tribal lands. While some tribal
communities may be served by CACs off the reservation, the average
driving distance to a CAC from tribal lands is 62 miles. For more than
100 tribal communities, the driving distance is between 100 and 300
miles. \13\ For example, a child abuse victim on the Rosebud
Reservation in South Dakota must travel two and a half hours across the
state (or more in bad weather) to reach a CAC. \14\ Even where tribal
CACs exist, tribes struggle to find stable funding to maintain the
programs. For example, the Eastern Shoshone Tribe opened a CAC on the
Wind River Reservation in 2013 after an existing CAC operated by the
Northern Arapaho Tribe ran out of funding and closed. \15\ The new CAC
is dependent on a three-year federal grant with no guarantee that
funding will be renewed after the grant period ends.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\13\ Randall Cooper, ``Children's Advocacy Centers and Indian
Country,'' Update: National Center for Prosecution of Child Abuse, vol.
24, no 2 (2014), available at http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/
Update%20Vol24_No2.pdf
\14\ Id.
\15\ Rebecca Martinez, ``Child Advocacy Center Opens on Wind River
Reservation,'' Wyoming Public Media, January 24, 2013, available at
http://wyomingpublicmedia.org/post/child-advocacy-center-opens-wind-
river-reservation.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Domestic Violence Shelters
Nearly 61 percent of Native women are assaulted during their
lifetime. One local study found that 1 in 12 Native women experience
violence perpetrated by their husband every year. \16\ On some
reservations, the murder rate of Native women is 10 times the national
average. \17\ Domestic violence shelters provide essential services to
victims of domestic violence. In addition to emergency housing for a
woman and her children fleeing abuse, they often provide counseling,
advocacy, legal services, and referrals to other services. There are
currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters in operation.
Those programs that do exist struggle to find sufficient funding to
maintain their operations. The domestic violence shelter on the Pine
Ridge reservation, for example, closed 8 years ago. Advocates report
that in order to access shelter, they must transfer victims-and often
their children-at least 100 miles one way to a shelter in Rapid City.
When shelter space is not available in Rapid City, advocates drive
victims 700 miles to Sioux Falls. \18\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\16\ R. Bachman, et al, ``Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known,''
(2008), available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/
223691.pdf.
\17\ R. Bachman, et al, ``Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known,''
(2008), available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/
223691.pdf.
\18\ Conversation with advocates from the Pine Ridge reservation on
June 2, 2015 at the Women Are Sacred conference.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Emmonak Women's Shelter, the only domestic violence shelter
located in an Alaska Native village, has faced similar challenges. Like
so many victim services programs in Indian Country, the shelter is
reliant on short-term, discretionary funding from the federal
government in order to remain operational. This two-bedroom shelter
serves 500 women a year from 13 surrounding Native communities. Given
the geographic isolation of the region, it is generally the only option
for local women seeking to escape abuse. In operation since 1978, the
shelter was forced to temporarily close in 2005 after the state of
Alaska eliminated funding for this and a number of other rural services
for Alaska Natives. Even while closed, battered women sought refuge
there. Met with locked doors, women climbed surrounding trees and even
hid in trash cans to escape their abusers. The shelter was able to
reopen months later after securing funding from a tribal non-profit,
and months after that, it received its first federal grant. \19\ The
shelter temporarily closed again in 2012 after running out of its DOJ
funding due to high fuel costs during an especially brutal winter. The
shelter was able to reopen after obtaining $30,000 in private donations
and a $50,000 emergency grant from the Bureau of Indian Affairs. Staff
took pay cuts and rationed fuel in order to conserve the little funding
they had. \20\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\19\ Timothy Williams, In Remote Alaska, Financing Puts a Rare
Refuge at Risk, N.Y. TIMES, May 23, 2012, at A3.
\20\ Timothy Williams, With Grant, an Alaska Women's Shelter, N.Y.
TIMES, July 6, 2012, at A15.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners and Sexual Assault Response Teams
Access to services for sexual assault survivors is similarly
limited. Approximately 34 percent of Native women are raped in their
lifetime, and nearly half will experience sexual violence other than
rape within their lifetime. \21\ When Native women are raped, they are
more likely to experience other physical violence during the attack,
their attacker is more likely to have a weapon, and they are more
likely to have injuries requiring medical attention. \22\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\21\ The National Intimate Partner and Sexual Violence Survey
(NISVS): 2010 summary report, Atlanta, GA: National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention
(2011).
\22\ R. Bachman, et al, ``Violence Against American Indian and
Alaska Native Women and the Criminal Justice Response: What is Known,''
(2008), p. 36, available at https://www.ncjrs.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/
223691.pdf.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Sexual Assault Examiner (SAE) and Sexual Assault Response Team
(SART) programs have been shown to improve both the care of survivors
of sexual assault and criminal justice outcomes in sexual assault
cases. \23\ SAEs and SARTs are instrumental in facilitating immediate
access to appropriate health care and other services for victims and
for minimizing re-victimization by the justice system. A 2014 study
used GIS mapping to evaluate proximity of trained forensic examiners to
650 census-identified Native American lands. The study found that more
than two-thirds of Native American lands are more than 60 minutes away
from the nearest sexual assault forensic examiner. \24\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\23\ Jennifer Giroux, Ashley Juraska, Eric Wood & Lindsey Wood,
Sexual Assault Services coverage on Native American Land, 10 Journal of
Forensic Nursing, 92, 92 (2014).
\24\ Id.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Conclusion
We expect that disbursements from the CVF this year may well exceed
$2.5 billion. Particularly at a time when funding is significantly
increasing, it would be unconscionable to continue to ignore the needs
of the most victimized population in the United States. Now is the time
to make sure that crime victims in tribal communities have access to
the crime victim assistance and compensation that they desperately
need. Creating a dedicated tribal funding allocation from the CVF would
provide a stable source of funding for Indian tribes to develop the
victims services infrastructure that is taken for granted in much of
the rest of the country. We look forward to continuing to work with the
Committee to address this issue.
Attachment
The National Congress of American Indians--Resolution #ANC-14-048
TITLE: Support for a dedicated Tribal Set-Aside in the Victims of Crime
Act (VOCA) Fund
WHEREAS, we, the members of the National Congress of American
Indians of the United States, invoking the divine blessing of the
Creator upon our efforts and purposes, in order to preserve for
ourselves and our descendants the inherent sovereign rights of our
Indian nations, rights secured under Indian treaties and agreements
with the United States, and all other rights and benefits to which we
are entitled under the laws and Constitution of the United States, to
enlighten the public toward a better understanding of the Indian
people, to preserve Indian cultural values, and otherwise promote the
health, safety and welfare of the Indian people, do hereby establish
and submit the following resolution; and
WHEREAS, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) was
established in 1944 and is the oldest and largest national organization
of American Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments; and
WHEREAS, the Crime Victims Fund, administered by the Office for
Victims of Crime (OVC) within DOJ's Office of Justice Programs (OJP),
was initially established to address the need for victim services
programs, and to assist tribal, state, and local governments in
providing appropriate services to their communities; and
WHEREAS, Congress passed the Victims of Crimes Act thirty years ago
and did not include Indian tribes in the original distribution of
funds; and
WHEREAS, the Fund is financed by collections of fines, penalty
assessments, and bond forfeitures from defendants convicted of Federal
crimes, but until now, tribes have only been eligible to receive a very
small portion of the discretionary funding from the Fund; and
WHEREAS, in FY 2000, Congress began limiting the amount of Fund
deposits that could be obligated each year. This was to provide a
stable level of funding available for these programs in future years
despite annual fluctuations in Fund deposits; and
WHEREAS, in $2.8 billion and as a result the Fund now holds
balances in excess of $10 billion enough under the current spending cap
to last 12 years; and
WHEREAS, OVC and OJP officials have recognized the great need to
strengthen victims services on tribal lands and, thus, are proposing
this new set-aside to help meet that need; and
WHEREAS, the new tribal funding is requested as part of OVC's
Vision 21 Initiative, a strategic planning initiative based on an 18-
month national assessment by OJP that systematically engaged the crime
victim advocacy field and other stakeholder groups in assessing current
and emerging challenges and opportunities facing the field; and
WHEREAS, Indian nations and tribal service providers require
essential resources to respond to violence perpetrated against American
Indian and Alaska Native women, as well as to provide services to women
victims seeking assistance.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the NCAI does hereby support the
increase in the amount of money released from the Crime Victim's Fund
to include a dedicated funding stream for Indian tribes to meet the
dire needs of tribal victims; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NCAI does hereby support the
creation of an ``above the cap'' reserve in the Victims of Crime Act
(VOCA), or alternatively, a 10 percent VOCA tribal set-aside, that
would fund tribes and tribal government programs and non-profit, non-
governmental tribal organizations, located within the jurisdictional
boundaries of an Indian reservation, Alaska Native Villages, and Indian
areas that provide services to Native women victimized by domestic and/
or sexual violence; and
BE IT FINALLY RESOLVED, that this resolution shall be the policy of
NCAI until it is withdrawn or modified by subsequent resolution.
CERTIFICATION
The foregoing resolution was adopted by the General Assembly at the
2014 Mid-Year Session of the National Congress of American Indians,
held at the Dena'ina Civic & Convention Center, June 8-11, 2014 in
Anchorage, Alaska, with a quorum present.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Casimero Aceveda Jr. President, Organized
Village of Kake
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. The Organized Village of Kake
respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to include,
``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the Victim
Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our request that a minimum of
10 percent of authorized funds be Congressionally appropriated to
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments for the reasons
described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Carl Jerue, Chief, Anvik Tribal Council
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. The Village of Anvik
respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to include,
``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the Victim
Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our request that a minimum of
10 percent of authorized funds be Congressionally appropriated to
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments for the reasons
described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Darlene M. Pete, Tribal Administrator, Native
Village of Nunam Iqua
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. The Native Village of Nunam
Iqua respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to
include, ``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the
Victim Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our request that a
minimum of 10 percent of authorized funds be Congressionally
appropriated to American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments
for the reasons described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Melvin R. Sheldon, Jr., Chairman, Tulalip
Tribes of Washington
[GRAPHIC(S) NOT AVAILABLE IN TIFF FORMAT]
______
Prepared Statement of Hon. Ivan M. Ivan, Chief, Akiak Native Community
Dear Chairman Barrasso,
Thank you for the opportunity to provide written comments regarding
the Oversight Hearing on ``Addressing the Needs for Victim Services in
Indian Country'' held on June 10, 2015. The Akiak IRA Council
respectfully requests that 42 U.S.C. 10602 (b) be amended to include,
``Federally recognized Indian tribes'' as eligible for the Victim
Crimes Compensation fund. It is further our request that a minimum of
10 percent of authorized funds be Congressionally appropriated to
American Indian and Alaska Native Tribal governments for the reasons
described below.
A Change to VOCA is needed to Support Local Tribal Responses to High
Crime Rates on Tribal Lands as Recommended by the Indian Law &
Order Commission Report, ``A Roadmap for Making Native America
Safer''
American Indian and Alaska Natives experience the highest crime
victimization rates in the country.
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely
to experience violent crime than other Americans.
Approximately 34 percent of American Indian and Alaska
Native women are raped and 61 percent are assaulted in their
lifetime. One some reservations, the murder rate is 10 times
the national average.
Due to exposure to violence, Native children experience
rates of post-traumatic stress disorder at the same levels as
Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
Despite these devastating rates of victimization in tribal
communities, Indian tribes have largely been left out of the Crime
Victims Fund (CVF), which is the federal government's principle means
of providing resources for crime victims.
It is beyond debate that Alaska Native women are suffering extreme
rates of domestic violence and sexual assault--rates that are
disproportionately higher than that suffered by other women in the
state and across the nation. There is much work that needs to be done
immediately to combat this crisis, to protect Alaska Native women from
violence, to increase and strengthen local life-saving services and
justice to Native women survivors of this violence. Providing essential
accessible resources to Indian Tribes that reach the villages in Alaska
will account for successful and fair administration of crime victim
funding. It is also crucial for the equitable distribution of life-
saving resources to Alaska tribal governments.
Unlike state and territorial governments, who receive an annual
formula distribution from the CVF, Indian tribes are only able to
access CVF funds via pass-through grants from the states or by
competing for very limited resources administered by the U.S.
Department of Justice. According to data from the Office for Victims of
Crime, in 2014, the states passed through $872,197.00--0.2 percent of
available funds--to programs serving tribal victims. Of the 566
federally recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received pass
through grants from their respective state.
The competitive grants from USDOJ have been equally problematic.
Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants each year for a three-year
term, with no guarantee that this funding will be renewed.
Unfortunately, without additional action by Congress, Indian tribal
governments will continue to have no direct access to critical CVF
funds.
Appropriate Funding is needed to provide adequate Native Village-based
Services
The villages in Alaska experience high victimization rates,
geographic remoteness, high poverty and cost of living, and an
underdeveloped Alaska Native village-based victim services
infrastructure that is the result of the historic exclusion of tribes
from the CVF programs. While we know need is high, it is difficult to
calculate the precise amount needed to fully meet the needs of victims
in Alaska Native villages. Below are some examples of funding needs for
tribal victim services and how CVF funds could be spent.
Tribal Domestic Violence and Sexual Assault Services
Native American women are assaulted at rates two and a half times
the national average. Alaska Native women are disproportionately
victimized at the highest rates across the country. According to the
Indian Law and Order Commission report, A Roadmap for Making Native
America Safe, Chapter 2, Reforming Justice for Alaska Natives: The Time
Is Now, Alaska Native women are ``over-represented in the domestic
violence victim population by 250 percent; they comprise 19 percent of
the population, but 47 percent of reported rape victims.''
While some tribes provide services for domestic violence and sexual
assault victims, resources for doing so are woefully inadequate. NEED:
For FY 2014, the USDOJ's Office on Violence Against Women received
applications from tribal governments requesting approximately $55.6
million for domestic violence and sexual assault services in its two
primary tribal grant programs. OVW provided $33.26 million, suggesting
an unmet need of at least $22 million.
Tribal Domestic Violence Shelters
There are currently fewer than 40 tribal domestic violence shelters
in operation. In the State of Alaska, there is only one Native village-
based Native women's shelter located in the entire state--the Emmonak
Women's Shelter, which has been operating since 1979 and has been
woefully underfunded. More often than not, the Emmonak Women's Shelter
has not received federal or state funding and remained operational with
volunteer assistance and donations. Those programs that do exist
reported an unmet need of over 60,000 shelter bed nights in 2013. NEED:
Building a shelter program in an additional 50 villages and tribal
communities at a cost of $300,000/year would cost $15 million.
Sexual Assault Forensic Examiners
The rate of sexual violence in Indian Country, including all of
Alaska's tribes far exceeds rates of sexual violence in other
communities in the United States. More than two-thirds of tribal lands,
however, are more than 60 minutes away from the nearest sexual assault
forensic examiner. With over 229 Indian tribes represented in Alaska,
the vast majority of villages are located in the remote parts of Alaska
where there are no roads; access is by boat, snow machine or airplane
depending on climatic conditions. For Native women in Alaska, forensic
exams typically are only located in hub regions, which means she must
travel by plane to a major hub that may be over 200 air miles away.
NEED: To fund one trained examiner in half of the 566 tribal
communities at $50,000 for salary and benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for Sex Trafficking Victims
Sex trafficking victims need specially designed services, including
victim advocates to connect sexually exploited youth throughout the
state with culturally appropriate support and services they need;
shelters and housing; and training for criminal justice and child
protective services professionals who come into contact with such
victims.
According to the State of Alaska Task Force on the Crimes of Human
Trafficking, Promoting Prostitution and Sex Trafficking 2013 report,
there is ``a lot of gaps in information due to the underground nature
of the crime and the tendency of trafficking victims not to self-
report.'' Although lacking in data, the Task Force acknowledges that
``trafficking have occurred (and likely are occurring) in Alaska, which
is why the State of Alaska has gone to great lengths to create a task
force to look at the prevalence of the crimes of human trafficking and
sex trafficking in Alaska; the former Governor introduced an omnibus
bill addressing trafficking (which strengthened penalties for
trafficking); and in 2012 the Alaska legislature amended its sex and
human trafficking statutes. NEED: To fund one trafficking advocate
expert in half of the 566 tribal communities at $50,000 for salary and
benefits would cost $14 million.
Services for the Survivors of Homicide Victims
Services for the surviving spouses, children, and other affected
family members and partners of the victims of homicides are rarely
funded but sorely needed. Between 2004-2007, Alaska Natives were 2.5
times as likely to die by homicide than Alaskans who reported ``White''
as their race, and 2.9 times as likely to die by homicide than all
Whites in the United States.
Much needed services include criminal justice advocacy, assistance
in applying for victim compensation, funding to travel to trials that
are out of state, legal assistance, financial counseling if the
murdered victim was the sole provider, mental health counseling or
other therapy, and similar services. NEED: Iowa is the rare state that
has committed to supporting regional services for survivors of homicide
and other violent crimes. In FY 2014, the state used $393,441 in
federal grant funds to support 4 regional programs for survivors of
homicide and other violent crimes. Creating 25 such programs for tribal
victims would cost approximately $2.5 million.
There is Wide Support for a Creation of a Tribal Funding Stream from
the CVF
Last year, NCAI, the largest national organization of American
Indian and Alaska Native tribal governments, adopted Resolution ANC-14-
048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent allocation from CVF
disbursements for tribes.
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.''
The USDOJ's report on American Indian and Alaska Native Children
Exposed to Violence similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation
from the CVF in its 2014 report. A 10 percent tribal allocation from
the CVF has also been supported by the National Task Force to End
Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of more than a thousand
organizations that advocate on behalf of victims of domestic violence,
dating violence, sexual assault and stalking.
Conclusion
No dedicated tribal funding stream currently exists under the VOCA
for Indian tribes to administer programs to compensate and provide
assistance to tribal victims of crime. This lack of funding to Indian
tribes is unacceptable given the extremely high rates of violence
including the severity of violence committed against tribal victims of
crime. The USDOJ statistics document the well-known fact that violence
against Indian women is more than double that of any other population
of women; yet local services are lacking or do not exist in many tribal
communities and Alaska Native villages. While states and territories
receive an annual formula amount from the VOCA fund, the reality is
that Indian tribes do not receive such an allocation and this must be
remedied immediately. We urge an amendment to VOCA to direct 10 percent
of the annual disbursement from the Crime Victims Fund to tribal
governments. Thank you for this opportunity and for your leadership.
______
Joint prepared statement of Ruth Flower and Hannah Evans, Friends
Committee on National Legislation
Dear Senators:
As advocates for our respective faith traditions and the values
they uphold, one area of particular concern for us is our nation's
relationship with Native Americans and their tribal governments. We
write to you today to address two concerns about the release of funds
collected through the Crime Victims Fund.
As you know, the Crime Victims Fund (CVF) provides critical funding
to states for services for survivors of sexual and domestic violence.
Collections for this fund, which come from perpetrators of violent
crimes, have accumulated impressively. According to the Department of
Justice, this fund had a balance of more than $13 billion in FY 2013.
While nearly $2.8 billion was collected in 2013, the fund only released
about $700 million each year for the past several years. For FY 2015,
Congress released $2.36 billion, for which we are deeply grateful.
Our concern is that the CVF is not being utilized to its fullest
potential. Many victims do not receive the services they need because
Congress has not mandated that the Fund disperse what it collects on an
annual basis. A more substantial, stable source of support would enable
local service agencies to help more victims make their lives whole
again.
A second concern is in regard to access to these funds by Native
American tribal governments. Native American women are particularly
vulnerable to violence, with violent crimes occurring on reservations
at about 2.5 times the national average, and murders of Native women at
10 times the national average on some reservations. Yet tribal
governments do not have direct access to the Crime Victims Fund as
other governments do. Tribal governments must ask states to share their
allocation from the Crime Victims Fund, or apply for a federal grant.
Tribal governments need a consistent and reliable source of funds for
programs that serve victims of violence on their reservation, and
perhaps even more importantly, for programs that prevent and address
the root causes of violence.
Violence has a particularly devastating impact on youth. Since
Native Americans are victimized by crime at disproportionately high
rates, each generation of Native youth is permanently injured by
violence, whether they are victim themselves, or they see the effects
of violence in their families and in their community. The funds
provided through Crime Victims Fund and related federal grant programs
can help to interrupt this cycle and, as much as possible, make victims
whole.
To address these two problems, we urge you to enact legislation
that would require the Department of Justice to annually disperse from
the Crime Victims Fund an amount equal to the average of the past three
years' deposits, so that all victims of crime can adequately access the
support they deserve.
Secondly we ask that Congress create a dedicated funding stream
from the Crime Victims Fund for tribal governments so that this
particularly impacted community has direct access to funding to provide
continuity of care to victims of crime. Finally, we ask that if
legislation is not passed to resolve these issues, appropriators set
aside adequate and dedicated funding from the Crime Victims Fund for
tribal governments.
Congress can act to ensure than no rape crisis center needs to have
a waiting list, no safe house needs to turn away a victim--leaving her
vulnerable to her abuser. No counseling, support, and prevention center
would need to minimize these important types of assistance, in favor of
emergency interventions to stop the beatings. As people of faith
committed to ensuring all victims of crime receive adequate,
consistent, and reliable support, we urge you to enact these simple and
just policy recommendations.
American Friends Service Committee
Franciscan Action Network
Jesuit Conference of Canada and the United States
Network: A National Catholic Social Justice Lobby
Office of Social Justice of the Christian Reformed
Church Pax Christi USA
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Sisters of Mercy of the Americas--Institute Justice Team
Union for Reform Judaism
United Church of Christ, Justice and Witness Ministries
United Methodist Church-General Board of Church and Society
Friends Committee on National Legislation
______
Letter Submitted by Jerry Gardner, Executive Director, Tribal Law and
Policy Institute
Honorable John Culberson, Chairman
U.S. House of Representatives
Honorable Chaka Fattah, Ranking Member
House Appropriations Committee
Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, Science & Related Agencies,
Washington, D.C.
RE: AVAILABILITY OF CRIME VICTIMS FUND FOR TRIBAL
GOVERNMENTS
Dear Chairman Culberson and Ranking Member Fattah,
On behalf of the Tribal Law and Policy Institute (TLPI) , a Native
American owned and operated non-profit organized to promote the
enhancement of justice in Indian country and the health, well-being,
and culture of Native peoples. I am writing to ask for your help in
addressing a long-standing inequity that leaves American Indian/Alaska
Native victims of crime without access to the assistance and
compensation that others receive. Specifically, we are requesting that
Indian tribes be included as direct recipients of the annual
distributions from the Crime Victims Fund (CVF).
American Indian and Alaska Natives are 2.5 times more likely to
experience violent crime than other Americans. Due to exposure to
violence, Native children experience rates of post-traumatic stress
disorder at the same levels as Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans.
However, only a tiny fraction of CVF monies, the federal government's
principle means of providing resources for crime victims, are made
directly available to tribes.
Currently, state and territorial governments receive an annual
formal distribution from the CVF. Tribes are eligible to apply to a
state for funding, but only 0.2 percent of available of funds
($872,197) were actually distributed in 2014. Ofthe 566 federally
recognized tribes in the country, fewer than 20 received a pass-through
grant from a state.
The competitive grants from the Department of Justice (DOJ) have
been equally problematic. Fewer than ten tribes receive these grants
each year for a three-year term, with no guarantee that funding will be
renewed. Often when a grant ends, tribal programs must completely shut
down. Given that much of Indian Country is geographically isolated, if
tribal programs are not available, then victims have no access to help.
Last year, the National Congress of American Indians (NCAI) adopted
Resolution ANC-14-048 urging Congress to establish a 10 percent
allocation from CVF disbursements for tribal governments.
NOW THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED, that the NCAI does hereby support
the increase in the amount of money released from the Crime
Victim's Fund to include a dedicated funding stream for Indian
tribes to meet the dire needs of tribal victims; and
BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the NCAI does hereby support the
creation of an ``above the cap'' reserve in the Victims of
Crime Act (VOCA), or alternatively, a 10 percent VOCA tribal
set-aside, that would fund tribes and tribal government
programs and non-profit, non-governmental tribal organizations,
located within the jurisdictional boundaries of an Indian
reservation, Alaska Native Villages, and Indian areas that
provide services to Native women victimized by domestic and/or
sexual violence. \1\
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
\1\ National Congress of American Indians Resolution #ANC-14-048,
``Support for a dedicated Tribal Set-Aside in the Victims of Crime Act
(VOCA) Fund,'' (June 11, 2014), available at http://www.ncai.org/
attachments/
Resolution_setxfZPHiQTTzySUNFbXPGMQbWeImEpTlwnDJOrYdpnOLIJlyiU_ANC-14-
048.pdf
Recognizing the disproportionate need for victim services in tribal
communities, the Office for Victims of Crime's Vision 21 report also
called for increasing resources to tribal communities in order to
``ensure that victims in Indian Country are no longer a footnote to
this country's response to crime victims.'' The Attorney General's Task
Force on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to Violence
similarly called for a 10 percent tribal allocation from the CVF in its
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
2014 report.
Recommendation 1.4.E Congress shall establish a much larger
commitment than currently exists to fund tribal programs
through the Department of Justice's Office of Justice Programs
(OJP) and the Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding. As an
initial step towards the much larger commitment needed,
Congress shall establish a minimum 10 percent tribal set-aside,
as per the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA) tribal set-aside,
from funding for all discretionary Office of Justice Program
(OJP) and Victims of Crime Act (VOCA) funding making clear that
the tribal set-aside is the minimum tribal funding and not in
any way a cap on tribal funding. President Obama's annual
budget request to Congress has included a 7 percent tribal set-
aside for the last few years. This is a very positive step and
Congress should authorize this request immediately. However,
the set-aside should be increased to 10 percent in subsequent
appropriation bills. Until Congress act, the Department of
Justice (DOJ) shall establish this minimum 10 percent tribal
set-aside administratively. \2\
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\2\ ATTORNEY GENERAL'S ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN INDIAN AND
ALASKA NATIVE CHILDREN EXPOSED TO VIOLENCE, U.S. DEP'T OF JUSTICE,
REPORT OF THE ADVISORY COMMITTEE ON AMERICAN INDIAN AND ALASKA NATIVE
CHILDREN EXPOSED TO VIOLENCE: ENDING VIOLENCE SO CHILDREN CAN THRIVE
59, Recommendation 1.4.E (November 2014) [hereinafter ENDING VIOLENCE
SO CHILDREN CAN THRIVE REPORT], full final report found at: http://
www.justice.gov/sites/default/files/defendingchildhood/pages/
attachments/2015/03/23/ending_violence_so_children_can_thrive.pdf
A 10 percent tribal allocation has also been supported by the
National Task Force to End Sexual and Domestic Violence, a coalition of
more than a thousand organizations that advocate on behalf of victims
of domestic violence, dating violence, sexual assault and stalking
In recent years, annual distributions from the CVF have been about
$700 million. Collections, however, reached as high as $2.8 billion in
2013, leaving a balance in the fund of more than $12 billion. There has
been significant pressure on Congress to make this money available for
crime victims, and Congress significantly increased the distributions
for FY 2015 to $2.3 billion. Despite this three-fold increase, none of
the money was directed to Indian tribes. There is language in the FY
2016 Budget Resolution that would remove any incentive for
appropriators to return to the lower level of disbursement, and we
expect that disbursements from the CVF this year may well exceed $2.5
billion. With this significant increase in funding, now is the time to
make sure that crime victims in tribal communities are no longer shut
out of the crime victim assistance and compensation that they
desperately need.
We urge you to include language in the CJS appropriations bill that
will direct a portion of the disbursements from the Crime Victims Fund
to tribal governments. We greatly appreciate your leadership on this
issue.
[all]