[Senate Prints 114-22]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]



                                                         S. Prt. 114-22

THE TRIBAL LAW AND ORDER ACT FIVE YEARS LATER: NEXT STEPS TO IMPROVING 
                 JUSTICE SYSTEMS IN INDIAN COMMUNITIES

=======================================================================

                               ROUNDTABLE

                               BEFORE THE

                      COMMITTEE ON INDIAN AFFAIRS
                          UNITED STATES SENATE

                    ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS

                             SECOND SESSION

                               __________

                           FEBRUARY 25, 2016

                               __________

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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

                              ----------                              
                                                                   Page
Roundtable held on February 25, 2016.............................     1
Statement of Senator Barrasso....................................     1

Andrews, T. Michael, Majority Staff Director And Chief Counsel...    66
Walters, Anthony Minority Staff Director And Chief Counsel.......    67

                               Witnesses

Beadle, Mirtha, Director, Office of Tribal Affairs and Policy, 
  Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, U.S. 
  Department of Health and Human Services........................    11
Broken Leg-Brill, Patricia, Deputy Associate Director for 
  Corrections, Office of Justice Services, Bureau of Indian 
  Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior.......................    53
Brunelle, William, Director of Public Safety/Chief of Police, Red 
  Lake Reservation...............................................     9
Cladoosby, Hon. Brian, President, National Congress of American 
  Indians; Chairman, Swinomish Tribe.............................    25
Cotton, Beverly, Director, Division of Behavioral Health, Indian 
  Health Service, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services...    51
Crawford, Hon. Stacie, Chief Judge, Fort Peck Tribal Court, 
  Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes...................................    31
Dolson, Charles, Executive Director, Red Lake Band of Chippewa 
  Indians........................................................    76
Dossett, John, General Counsel, National Congress of American 
  Indians........................................................    69
Frazier, Hon. Harold, Chairman, Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.......    72
Hart, Hon. Kami, Children's Court Judge, Gila River Indian 
  Community......................................................    55
Jaeger, Lisa, Tribal Government Specialist, Tanana Chiefs 
  Conference.....................................................    29
Jordan, Daniel, Former Council Member, Hoopa Valley Tribe........    70
Little, Dave, Associate Director, Field Operations, Bureau of 
  Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior................     4
Melvin, Patrick, Chief of Police, Salt River Pima-Maricopa Indian 
  Community......................................................     3
Russo, Richard, Vice Chairman of Law and Order, Cheyenne River 
  Sioux Tribe....................................................    77
Teton, Patrick, Chief of Police, Fort Hall Police Department, 
  Shoshone-Bannock Tribes........................................     6
Thompson, Jason, Assistant Director, Office of Justice Services, 
  Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior......     5
Thorne, Jr., Hon. William A., Roundtable Facilitator.............     3
Tingle, Tricia, Associate Director, Office of Tribal Justice, 
  Bureau of Indian Affairs, U.S. Department of the Interior......    32
Toulou, Tracy, Director, Office of Tribal Justice, U.S. 
  Department of Justice..........................................     7
Trottier, Ken, Supervisor/Criminal Investigator, Fort Peck Agency     5
Tuell, Loretta A., Attorney, Washington, DC......................    67
Urbina, Hon. Alfred, Attorney General, Pascua Yaqui Tribe........    28
Whitener, Hon. Ron, Chief Judge, Tulalip Tribes..................    32
Williams, Sprint, Senior Case Manager, Muscogee (Creek) Nation 
  Reintegration Program..........................................    50

                                Appendix

Blake, Hon. Richard C., President, National American Indian Court 
  Judges Association (NAICJA), prepared statement................    83
Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians, prepared statement............    84
Vondall-Rieke, Monique, J.D., Director, Tribal Justice Center, 
  Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP), prepared 
  statement......................................................    86
White Earth Reservation Tribal Council, prepared statement.......    85


 
THE TRIBAL LAW AND ORDER ACT FIVE YEARS LATER: NEXT STEPS TO IMPROVING 
                 JUSTICE SYSTEMS IN INDIAN COMMUNITIES

                              ----------                              


                      THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 25, 2016


                                       U.S. Senate,
                               Committee on Indian Affairs,
                                                    Washington, DC.
    The Committee met, pursuant to notice, at 1:30 p.m. in room 
216, Hart Senate Office Building. Hon. John Barrasso, 
Chairman of the Committee, presiding.

                             Opening Prayer

    Mr. Cladoosby. I want to thank Senator Barrasso and your 
staff for all the work you are doing on this issue. The Senator 
has so graciously asked me to open this roundtable with a 
prayer. So if you would all stand and pray in your own way.
    Creator God, Heavenly Father, we are so very grateful for 
this beautiful day, for this opportunity to gather here as a 
group to talk about a very important issue. We thank you for 
the leadership that has been assembled in this room that you 
have chosen for this day, from Senator Barrasso to the tribal 
leaders, to other elected officials. Thank you for choosing 
them for this day. May they be filled with wisdom and knowledge 
and understanding as they deal with these most important issues 
that affect our people on a daily basis.
    As we try to overcome this generational trauma, Lord, may 
this be one of the tools, one of the avenues that we can use to 
make our children's generation and the next seven generations 
better at our homelands. Bless our time together today, bless 
our conversations. In Jesus' name we pray, Amen.

           OPENING STATEMENT OF HON. JOHN BARRASSO, 
                   U.S. SENATOR FROM WYOMING

    Senator Barrasso. Thank you very much, President Cladoosby. 
Thank you for your leadership. Thank you for the prayer.
    I want to welcome everyone here today. I'm John Barrasso, 
Senator from Wyoming, Chairman of the Senate Committee on 
Indian Affairs. Today, the Committee is hosting a roundtable on 
the Tribal Law and Order Act Five Years Later. The question is, 
what are the next steps to improve justice in Indian 
communities?
    This was passed in 2010. The Act represented a first step 
in addressing the unacceptable crime rates that were burdening 
Indian communities. It is based upon five fundamental 
principles. Number one is increased response and 
accountability. Number two, encourage greater cooperation 
between law enforcement agencies. Number three, provide tribal 
justice officials with additional tools to combat crime. Number 
four, improve programs to strengthen tribal justice systems. 
And then number five, improve data collection and information 
sharing on Indian Country crime.
    We held an oversight hearing in December of 2015 on how 
this law was being implemented. The Committee has received 
testimony and additional information that shows that several 
challenges still remain. Based on the most recent information 
from the Department of Justice, crime rates for most violent 
and property crimes remain rather high. It is clear that more 
work needs to be done.
    In 2015, the Committee also held other hearings on drugs 
and alcohol abuse, on juvenile justice and on victims of crime. 
During a field hearing we had on the harmful effects of 
dangerous drugs in Indian Country, the U.S. Attorney of 
Wyoming, Kip Crofts, and this was a hearing in Wyoming, pointed 
out that ``We need prosecution but we need treatment and 
prevention of drug and alcohol abuse.'' His words echo the one 
continuing and pervasive theme of all these hearings: the 
interrelationship between drugs, alcohol and crime.
    The Tribal Law and Order Act recognized the key roles the 
Departments of Justice, Interior and Health and Human Services 
play in addressing these problems. The cooperation and 
collaboration of these agencies among themselves and with 
tribes remains a key to reducing crime. To that end, we have 
assembled three panels of Federal and Tribal officials to 
provide recommendations for the next steps in improving 
criminal justice. Those panels will cover law enforcement, 
court systems and re-entry and recidivism.
    So I want to thank all the witnesses for being here and 
sharing their thoughts with us today. I also want to thank the 
Tribal leaders in the audience for attending this roundtable 
today. After the panel discussions, there will be time for 
public comments.
    The discussion will not end today. The Committee will 
continue to engage with tribes and other stakeholders on what 
additional improvements should be made to reduce crime in 
Indian communities. The goal of the roundtable is to find out 
what is working and what improvements need to be made, from 
you, the experts.
    In the Tribal Law and Order Act, several provisions have 
been sunsetted. Perhaps now is the time to consider a 
reauthorization of some portions of the Act.
    I look forward to the recommendations from today's 
roundtable. Before we start, I want to introduce and extend a 
special thanks to the roundtable facilitator, the Honorable 
Judge William A. Thorne, Jr. Judge Thorne has had a long and 
distinguished career as a jurist, 34 years as both a State and 
Tribal judge. He has served in tribal courts in Utah, Idaho, 
Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona, Nevada, Montana, Wisconsin, 
Washington, Michigan and California.
    In 1986, Judge Thorne was appointed by the Governor as a 
tribal judge for the State of Utah. In 2000, he was appointed 
to the Utah Court of Appeals, where he served until retiring in 
2013. He is a Pomo Coast Miwok Indian, enrolled with the 
Federated Indians of the Graton Rancheria, California.
    Judge Thorne has also served on numerous task forces and 
boards of organizations which focus on foster care, child 
protection, juvenile justice and domestic violence. He is 
currently vice president of the National Indian Justice Center, 
a non-profit that trains tribal court and other personnel 
around the Country.
    I am pleased, Judge, that you could join us today and I 
know that you will do an excellent job moving the discussion 
along.
    At this time, I would like to turn the roundtable and the 
discussion over to Judge Thorne. Thank you very much. Welcome, 
please begin.

     STATEMENT OF HON. WILLIAM A. THORNE, JR., ROUNDTABLE 
                          FACILITATOR

    Mr. Thorne. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
    It always seems odd to turn my back to the bench. I want to 
thank you all for coming today.
    What I hope to do today is to do things differently than 
most Congressional hearings, where somebody gets up, they have 
10 minutes, they read a statement and then the next person 
reads their statement. We are going to leave the record open 
today, so you can submit something afterwards if you would 
like.
    So what I would really like to do today is get you to 
engage in a discussion about what is working and what isn't. 
Somebody said something, and if that is what is happening in 
your community or with your experience, please say so. If it is 
different, please say that. It is not as if you are challenging 
the person, saying no, that is not right. It is just in my 
community or in my experience, it is different.
    What we want to do is leave all the ideas on the table. We 
are not going to try and prioritize them. We are not going to 
try and say one is the first thing to do. We want to put all 
the ideas on the table so the staff and then the members have a 
chance to work through those things. So this is really an idea-
generating session, rather than testimony as such.
    I also want to give you a chance to really start talking 
about what is working and not working with the Tribal Law and 
Order Act. So Chief Melvin, let me start with you, since I had 
to pick somebody, you had the most stars on your shoulder. So 
we will start with you.

 STATEMENT OF PATRICK MELVIN, CHIEF OF POLICE, SALT RIVER PIMA-
                   MARICOPA INDIAN COMMUNITY

    Mr. Melvin. Well, thank you. Good afternoon, everyone. My 
name is Patrick Melvin. I am the Chief of Police of the Salt 
River Pima-Maricopa Indian Community in Scottsdale, Arizona, 
just outside of Phoenix.
    We have a lot of stuff that is working. We have challenges, 
but I think I can start off by saying transparency and 
accountability lead to the success of some of the programs that 
we are experiencing now.
    Mr. Thorne. Can you give me a couple of examples?
    Mr. Melvin. Absolutely, Judge, sir. Thank you.
    One of the main programs is our special relationship with 
our U.S. Attorneys. We have a great relationship. 
Unfortunately, that relationship was strengthened about a year 
and a half ago, almost two years ago, when we lost one of our 
officers in the line of duty. It involved a tribal crime, 
happened on tribal land. With the relationship that we have 
built, as opposed, when they decided to prosecute, it has 
definitely built the relationships.
    I think, however, one of the strengths is the relationships 
and collaboration prior to beginning with that unfortunate 
incident. Our relationships have been strengthened and they 
have helped us, we have actually four special U.S. Attorneys 
that we have in our community. Those collaborations and 
relationship have definitely helped us bring cases that have 
been able to be prosecuted successfully.
    Mr. Thorne. Those relationship were in place before the 
crisis?
    Mr. Melvin. Before the crisis, which definitely helped when 
the crisis occurred.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Little? Tell us who you are.

STATEMENT OF DAVE LITTLE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, FIELD OPERATIONS, 
                BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. 
                   DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Mr. Little. Thank you, Your Honor. I am Dave Little, I am 
the Associate Director of Field Operations for the Bureau of 
Indian Affairs. I am basically in charge of the law enforcement 
within Indian Country as far as the BI Direct Service programs. 
Then we also oversee the tribal programs and fund them and 
assist them with technical assistance.
    Some of the things that are and are not working, first, I 
have to use the word resources.
    Mr. Thorne. Everybody needs more resources.
    Mr. Little. I won't use the ``F'' word, but I will use the 
word resources. With our limited resources, we trying to 
basically clean up our own BIA departments and then help the 
tribal departments. We have developed some initiatives, which 
are called Corrective Action Support Team, which we go into our 
police departments and we will spend a week, two weeks and we 
will make sure that we abiding by all the policies and 
procedures that we have, as the Chief said, for our 
transparency. Then we will offer that to the tribes and assist 
them with it.
    Mr. Thorne. So you make a local report, then, about what 
you found and what you are working on?
    Mr. Little. Correct.
    Mr. Thorne. And do you do that for non-BIA departments as 
well?
    Mr. Little. Yes. We have just started that. Hoopa Tribe was 
our first one, and we are getting that report out to them, 
meeting with them this month. And trying to build up their 
police department also.
    Mr. Thorne. Is that on request, or do you choose?
    Mr. Little. They came in and requested it.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Yes, Chief.
    Mr. Melvin. Can I go back? I just wanted to compliment the 
BIA, specifically Director Little. They have made training very 
accessible to my department and to the departments in Arizona. 
So that accessibility at the Indian Police Academy in Artesia, 
New Mexico, has made it very good for chiefs like myself to be 
able to send my officers. They advertise and market on a 
regular basis. And that is very advantageous to build the 
professionalism of my department.
    So, much appreciated.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Thompson?

  STATEMENT OF JASON THOMPSON, ASSISTANT DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF 
              JUSTICE SERVICES, BUREAU OF INDIAN 
            AFFAIRS, U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Mr. Thompson. Good afternoon. My name is Jason Thompson, I 
am the Assistant Director with the Bureau of Indian Affairs, 
Office of Justice Services. I have been here in D.C. in that 
capacity for almost six years now. So through the 
implementation of TLOA, to the degree that it has been 
implemented.
    I think a couple of the success stories, at least internal 
to BIA-OJS is the training is certainly an area that has 
improved. With running the risk of kind of overlapping with 
VAWA a little bit here, because there are some absolute 
connections for us, training, with the next panel, that they 
will discuss, courts and those sorts of things.
    But TLOA really opened the door for us to start doing more, 
or allowing more State training for basic police, for officers 
coming aboard. That has been a huge success for us, and I think 
for most of the tribes that are utilizing that. Our special law 
enforcement commissioning has changed drastically because of 
TLOA. We have rebuilt the process on that and opened up an 
office that manages that.
    Mr. Thorne. And that is the cross-deputization process?
    Mr. Thompson. It is cross-deputization, yes, at least with 
us. Not with counties, but for the special law enforcement 
commissions with us. Those are two things that I would really 
highlight as TLOA making vast improvements for us in those 
regards.
    I think some things that are not working as well yet from a 
law enforcement perspective are, the resources are always going 
to be an issue that is talked about. There are a lot of things 
in TLOA that really are going to require that we find some 
resources eventually to be able to bring those things aboard. I 
think probably our tribal partners should speak to those more 
so than even I should.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Trottier?

 STATEMENT OF KEN TROTTIER, SUPERVISOR/CRIMINAL INVESTIGATOR, 
                        FORT PECK AGENCY

    Mr. Trottier. My name is Ken Trottier, I am the Supervisor 
and Criminal Investigator from the Fort Peck Agency out of 
Poplar, Montana.
    We are a 638 program. But the BIA keeps a close eye on us. 
Some of the things that are working for us, we have had them in 
place for several years prior to TLOA. But I think TLOA 
enhanced some of these areas, such as our cross-deputization 
agreement. We were very fortunate to have that in place since 
1999.
    Mr. Thorne. Cross-deputizing with the county or with the 
State or with both?
    Mr. Trottier. We are cross-deputized with five agencies: 
the Highway Patrol, Roosevelt County, the Fort Peck Tribes, the 
City of Wolf Point and Valley County, which has a small portion 
on the reservation.
    Since TLOA has started, we now have a lawyer judge, we now 
have a lawyer in the public defender's office. Well, actually, 
let me take that back. We have two lawyer judges. Judge 
Crawford is in attendance today and she will be on the second 
panel.
    We have enacted some enhanced sentencings already, I 
believe to the tune of about a dozen of them. And like was 
mentioned earlier, VAWA is closely related to TLOA. We have had 
some prosecutions of non-tribal members in the tribal system.
    Some of the things that aren't working for us, as I kind of 
heard a couple people mention, is resources and of course 
manpower. With better resources, more manpower, we would be 
able to better enhance these areas.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Teton?

 STATEMENT OF PATRICK TETON, CHIEF OF POLICE, FORT HALL POLICE 
              DEPARTMENT, SHOSHONE-BANNOCK TRIBES

    Mr. Teton. Hi, I am Patrick Teton. I am the Chief of Police 
for the Fort Hall Police Department, for the Shoshone-Bannock 
Tribes in Idaho.
    Initially, some of the positives are, we utilize the 
Central Violation Bureau of Citations, which are the 
misdemeanor citations. And those we utilize at our casino and 
sometimes our gas station. Those are for just misdemeanor 
thefts or misdemeanor crimes. So we are actually able to deal 
with non-Indians if they commit crimes on the tribal property. 
Before, in the past, we weren't able to do anything.
    Mr. Thorne. So you issue them a citation?
    Mr. Teton. We issue them a citation.
    Mr. Thorne. And where does that go?
    Mr. Teton. That goes to the Federal court. They can either 
pay the fine or else show up to the Federal court in Pocatello 
and fight it or take care of the fine and just pay it.
    So that has been good for us, because in the past we would 
just have to call county or State, and sometimes they would 
respond and sometimes they wouldn't. That gives us the ability 
to do something, anyway, as far as enforcing the law on our 
reservation. That has been a positive since TLOA.
    Communication with our U.S. Attorney's office, that has 
increased. It was increased a lot initially. It has kind of 
fell back a little now. But just because we have increased 
communication doesn't mean necessarily we have increased 
indictments. We still have a high rate of declinations coming 
from the U.S. Attorney's office.
    Mr. Thorne. What kind of a rate?
    Mr. Teton. Probably at least 50 percent, 50 to 60 percent.
    Mr. Thorne. And are those on the misdemeanors or the 
serious?
    Mr. Teton. No, the serious. On the more serious crimes.
    Mr. Thorne. On the serious crimes. Okay.
    Mr. Teton. Yes. The positives of that, with TLOA, we have 
gotten a lot of training and have been able to send some of our 
staff to the NAC in South Carolina and get them trained. So 
that has been a positive.
    Also more training with the BIA and of course, the FBI. For 
us, the FBI sometimes are not able to assist in investigations 
because they have other things that they are looking at, other 
priorities. So with us, all our investigators go to Glencoe and 
they are able to present their cases in the Federal court 
system, so they are able to just take the case from the 
inception all the way to the end.
    Mr. Thorne. Have they utilized the Federal resources, crime 
labs and so forth?
    Mr. Teton. Yes, we are able to work with the FBI and 
utilize those resources. All our officers have gotten the 
special law enforcement commission. So that has been a 
positive.
    One of the things that we ran into, we do a monthly 
statistical report to the Bureau of Indian Affairs. I am not 
sure what happens with those. We don't get like a quarterly 
report on what the statistics are, but I think that would 
probably help and assist. Because a lot of times they say, 
well, it is all dependent upon the statistics that you provide. 
And we provide them, but I am not sure where they go after we 
provide them. Thank you.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Mr. Toulou?

STATEMENT OF TRACY TOULOU, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF TRIBAL JUSTICE, 
                   U.S. DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE

    Mr. Toulou. I am Tracy Toulou, I am the Director of the 
Office of Tribal Justice.
    I think Ken Trottier probably said it very well just a few 
minutes ago, and that is this Tribal Law and Order Act really 
enhanced a lot of ongoing activities and gave us an opportunity 
to improve on those.
    At the Department of Justice our relationship with tribes 
is based on our government-to-government relationship in 
recognition of tribal sovereignty. So tribal solutions to 
problems on reservations are the best, because you know your 
people and what is going on. It should be our job to help at 
the Department of Justice.
    There are a number of parts to the Tribal Law and Order Act 
we think have enhanced our ability to do that. We think one of 
them is the tribal liaisons, where we have Assistant U.S. 
Attorneys who are assigned to work with tribes in the area. 
Often it is a one-on-one basis, sometimes a tribal liaison will 
have a number of different tribes. But that allows the tribe to 
get used to the prosecutor who is going to be working with 
them, and the prosecutor to better understand the tribe.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there a process for feedback about whether 
that relationship is working?
    Mr. Toulou. There a couple of different ways. One, the U.S. 
Attorneys have an annual consultation with the tribes. That 
actually came at the same time as the Tribal Law and Order Act 
through a deputy Attorney General order. There is ongoing 
communication, and I think most tribal liaisons are down on the 
reservations on a regular basis. And there is my office, which 
was made formal in the Tribal Law and Order Act, which tribes 
always have the opportunity to call if they think they need 
something outside of the district.
    Mr. Thorne. I guess I was trying to be polite and say, if 
somebody has a problem with the U.S. Attorney's office, where 
do they take it to somebody who can solve that?
    Mr. Toulou. Well, it depends upon what the problem is. A 
lot of problems can happen. But one of the things that can 
happen is a call to us. I would say, as we were getting ready 
for this meeting, for example, I saw Chairman Seki in the back, 
from Red Lake, there were some issues he was having with the 
communications with the FBI. That came into my office through 
that conversation. We contacted the U.S. Attorney's office. The 
tribal liaison from Minnesota went to Red Lake on Monday with 
the ASAC from the FBI, and I don't know if they solved the 
problem, but they started a dialogue. So there is a mechanism 
for that.
    The other thing that we think the Tribal Law and Order Act 
has helped with as far as communication with tribes is the 
Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys program. What that is, tribal 
prosecutors and tribal attorneys become cross-designated in the 
Federal system. And that has improved that conversation, too. 
So what we don't want is we don't want to wait for a problem 
where somebody has to come to me or the U.S. Attorney. We want 
the opportunity for prosecutors to talk to prosecutors. I think 
that has helped in that particular area.
    The other thing I think has been pretty successful under 
the Tribal Law and Order Act is, we have been working hard to 
provide better access to criminal data bases to tribes. We have 
now, we have just rolled out the Tribal Access Project, which 
allows tribes to directly hook in through their own kiosk.
    Mr. Thorne. What is the average time it takes for them to 
make an inquiry until they get a report back?
    Mr. Toulou. Once it is up, and it has taken a while to get 
this up, and we are just deploying now, I want to be forthright 
about that, one of the things we can talk about is additional 
deployment, it is instantaneous. They have the kiosk, the kiosk 
has a direct link into NCIC, the FBI system. It has a 
fingerprint reader, it has a camera on it, there you have the 
same access as any other law enforcement in the Country.
    Mr. Thorne. And how many tribes have that access now?
    Mr. Toulou. We have just started deployment. There are ten 
in the initial program. I got some feedback just Monday, I was 
down in Tucson and there was a tribal prosecutor from Umatilla 
there and said, it is fantastic. We are doing it in a phase, it 
is called the user feedback stage. But we would expect with 
funding, with resources, to have it out very broadly fairly 
quickly.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have a plan for roll-out, how many a 
year you are going to be adding?
    Mr. Toulou. It depends on how much money we get, sir, 
honestly. We have ten this year, and we have asked for an 
additional $3 million for next year to continue that roll-out.
    Mr. Thorne. And if you got that, how many would you be able 
to roll out?
    Mr. Toulou. My understanding, this is an estimate, and I am 
getting over my head, so I am going to have to go back on 
anything else, it runs about $20,000 per unit to get it up, 
installed and everybody trained. Then after that it drops off. 
Because that is buying the hardware, getting the initial 
training. I went to law school, I don't do math. But we could 
figure out exactly what that is.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Brunelle?

STATEMENT OF WILLIAM BRUNELLE, DIRECTOR OF PUBLIC SAFETY/CHIEF 
                OF POLICE, RED LAKE RESERVATION

    Mr. Brunelle. Yes, sir. Thank you for inviting me today. I 
am William Brunelle, I am the Director of Public Safety, Chief 
of Police of Red Lake Reservation. And quite frankly, we have 
had some success with the Tribal Law and Order Act, but 
actually it hasn't been really very effective for Red Lake. I 
would like to emphasize that one of the things I noted about 
the Act was, some of the particular language was increase 
coordination and communication with the Federal, State, tribal 
and local law enforcement agencies, empower tribal governments 
with the authority, resources and information necessary.
    Mr. Thorne. Are you getting that?
    Mr. Brunelle. In my opinion, no. And I will state the 
reason why.
    First of all, I think that the intention of the Act I think 
was on basically, I think it was meant well. But at the same 
time, it failed to introduce the financial resources to become 
effective, particularly with Red Lake.
    Mr. Thorne. Where would the finances have to go? Is that 
what you were talking about, cooperation at the Federal level, 
State, county?
    Mr. Brunelle. I am talking about the finances that should 
actually go to tribal law enforcement along with the BIA. I 
know that for the last five years, there have been increased in 
BIA's funding. Unfortunately, if you take a look at the last 
five years, you will see that the increases have actually been 
decreased for law enforcement services, including BIA and self-
governance programs.
    So effectively there has not been any increase, but overall 
there has been for the BIA. So you are not using or aiming the 
resources where they should be, for one thing.
    The other thing is that we do appreciate the fact that some 
of the funding did address the relationships between the U.S. 
Attorney's office and tribes by implementing liaisons, U.S. 
Attorney liaisons. That has improved our relationship between 
Red Lake and the tribes.
    The other thing that we face, which is a large and immense 
problem, something that we daily face, is the lack of the 
authority of tribal governments, particularly Red Lake, over 
non-Indian people who are committing crimes within the exterior 
boundaries of the reservation.
    Mr. Thorne. What has prevented Red Lake from being able to 
utilize the authority of TLOA to prosecute?
    Mr. Brunelle. For one thing, Red Lake of course is a closed 
reservation. It lies in the State of Minnesota. It is 
basically, State of Minnesota, it is also a P.L. 280 
reservation. And the majority of their reservations do have 
contractual law enforcement agreements with the State of 
Minnesota. Our licensed peace officers can enforce State law, 
and applicable county attorneys, whether it be a county or a 
city, or your local law enforcement, whether it be a sheriff's 
department or city police, in addition to the tribal police, 
can issue, make arrests and jail the person where the offense 
occurred and have them successfully prosecuted. Whereas, at Red 
Lake, we don't have that luxury.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there something that would help you do that?
    Mr. Brunelle. I think the funding and the authority of 
tribes to once again, address the Oliphant decision.
    Mr. Thorne. Particularly in a P.L. 280 setting?
    Mr. Brunelle. Correct. Well, I think it is applicable 
throughout the Nation, even to other reservations that are not 
P.L. 280.
    I think somehow the U.S. Attorney's office does have the 
authority. But there is such a gray area in identifying law 
enforcement authority over Indians, non-Indians, versus where 
the offense occurred, if it was on ceded land.
    Mr. Thorne. You are talking about checkerboard problems.
    Mr. Brunelle. Yes, sir. So I think that, and the other 
thing is, some of these crimes, or these offenders who are not 
Indians, if they commit a crime, for example, at Red Lake, and 
it is a non-Indian against a non-Indian, we would assume and 
hope that your local county attorneys would prosecute and that 
we could forward those cases.
    Mr. Thorne. Do they do that, or do they not?
    Mr. Brunelle. Well, it depends. It goes from county to 
county.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. So you have better relationships with 
some counties than others?
    Mr. Brunelle. Yes. There is no consistency in that, sir. 
And the other thing is, the U.S. Attorney at times, by no fault 
of their own, some cases just don't elevate to the point where 
they should be considered being charged. And where we may see 
as it being, in our eyes, basically a non-Indian has committed, 
it could be a victimless crime, such as bringing in a large 
amount of drugs into the reservation, and particularly, say, 
for example, marijuana, but they have not met the substantial 
amount of weight, but yet maybe it is something they are not 
interested in and the county attorneys won't charge.
    So at times we find it necessary to have the resources and 
the authority to prosecute those people. Unfortunately, it just 
doesn't exist. I am hoping at some point that when this Act is 
looked at again that maybe we can potentially address that.
    Mr. Thorne. But resources are a threshold issue for you to 
be able to do that?
    Mr. Brunelle. Yes, sir. The other thing is just having a 
lack of law enforcement officers. We push 18,000 calls of 
service per year amongst a substantially less -
    Mr. Thorne. How many officers do you have?
    Mr. Brunelle. I have actually 16 patrol officers. If I were 
try and follow the suggested BIA amount of officers of 2.8 is 
what I was told, whether that is true or not, per 1,000 service 
population, then we are substantially short of what we need. So 
for patrolling----
    Mr. Thorne. Yes, if you are doing 24/7, that doesn't leave 
very many out there at a time.
    Mr. Brunelle. Yes, sir. So the Act itself has been 
effective to a certain extent. We had previously mentioned in 
conversations that we were going to talk and bring things that 
we needed to address. I feel like I have done that here in some 
of the things.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you.
    Ms. Beadle, you would ordinarily be on the law enforcement 
panel, but I understand you have a scheduling conflict. So if 
you would introduce yourself and tell us what SAMHSA is doing 
to help.

STATEMENT OF MIRTHA BEADLE, DIRECTOR, OFFICE OF TRIBAL AFFAIRS 
                AND POLICY, SUBSTANCE ABUSE AND 
          MENTAL HEALTH SERVICES ADMINISTRATION, U.S. 
            DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

    Ms. Beadle. Thank you, sir. We were excited to be involved 
here. We specifically made time to be sure that we were part of 
this conversation.
    I am Mirtha Beadle, I am the Director of the Office of 
Tribal Affairs and Policy at SAMHSA within the Office of Tribal 
Affairs and Policy. It is the Office of Indian Alcohol and 
Substance Abuse which was created by TLOA specifically to 
coordinate Federal efforts around the Indian alcohol and 
substance abuse problem that is occurring in tribal 
communities.
    The important part about this is that we have been working 
very well together. What I mean by we, it is the Department of 
Health and Human Services, both SAMHSA and IHS, the Department 
of Justice, also BIA and BIE. And what is I think a model here 
is that we are not just collaborating, we are talking 
routinely. We have monthly meetings and everyone shows up.
    We are really talking about the hard issues and how to 
press the work under TLOA related to Indian alcohol and 
substance abuse. That is working remarkably well.
    Mr. Thorne. So you are having regular meetings. Is 
something coming out of that that is making a difference?
    Ms. Beadle. It is. Every single meeting we talk about the 
requirements under Indian alcohol and substance abuse, where 
are we, what needs to be done, how are we pushing this forward 
to make a meaningful difference for tribal communities. So that 
part is really working.
    I think the challenge is, and actually, I will add one more 
point. One of the areas that we are working on is training, and 
training tribal representatives to develop tribal action plans. 
What is wonderful about that portion of TLOA is that it pulls 
together individuals across areas within a tribe to be able to 
make sense of how they want to advance that work.
    Mr. Thorne. How many tribal action plans have been created?
    Ms. Beadle. I don't have a number with me.
    Mr. Thorne. Ballpark?
    Ms. Beadle. Honestly, I don't know. I can get back to the 
Committee with that. I do know that there were a series of 
tribal action plans that were developed years ago. There was a 
guide, if you will, on those action plans.
    The part that I want to share that relates back to your 
question is, we have been doing a great job of providing 
training for tribal communities on developing tribal action 
plans. And like my colleagues on this panel, the challenge is, 
tribes have told us, we don't have the funds to develop these 
plans and then implement them. Because there aren't resources 
to do that.
    So we can provide all the training that we can. It doesn't 
necessarily always result in a tribal action plan.
    Mr. Thorne. Do tribes get to access the HHS programs that 
States do?
    Ms. Beadle. I am going to speak for SAMHSA specifically. 
You will have IHS later today. But tribes are really accessing 
SAMHSA's programs very well. There is a difference between some 
of the mandatory funding and discretionary funding. We have 
focused on ensuring the tribes have open access to every single 
program that SAMHSA supports, as long as there is not a 
legislative prohibition for tribes participating.
    Mr. Thorne. Are there any legislative prohibitions that are 
in place that you are aware of that a revision of TLOA could 
address?
    Ms. Beadle. Not specifically. I think the issue is, how 
creative we can be in assuring the tribes can use available 
resources to develop these tribal action plans, not only in 
SAMHSA but in DOI and DOJ as well.
    But I do want to emphasize that tribes are ready and they 
want to develop these plans. We have very proactive involvement 
of the U.S. Attorneys' offices, great relationship. The issue 
is, we can only go so far. And so how do we help tribes make 
that next step to be able to develop these plans and implement 
them, which is what we are working on right now.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. From the law enforcement community, 
my guess would be 90 percent of the problems that you deal with 
are alcohol, substance abuse related or have an issue along 
that line. Do you get the services that you need to fix the 
problem once you have made the arrest and once they have been 
prosecuted?
    Mr. Thompson. This is Jason Thompson. I would like to at 
least voice one position on that.
    I think where we struggle is, I know we have three 
different panels, and we are kind of leaning into another one 
here.
    Mr. Thorne. It is all related, though.
    Mr. Thompson. Exactly. I think that once we make arrests in 
the field as law enforcement officers, and we have made arrests 
for someone who has a chronic alcohol or substance abuse 
problem, and we bring those folks over, far too often the 
problem that we see is the only place for them to go is to 
jail. So we have an overtaxed facility that is old, we have too 
few staff. Unfortunately, the population that we are watching 
is 80 percent substance abuse, chronic substance offenders. 
Whereas the 20 percent of the population who is committing 
violent crimes, they are a small piece of what we do.
    But there is not a lot of places for us to send those other 
folks, for them to receive the type of treatment that they 
need, the type of training and education programs that exist 
out there. So what ends up happening is, we either contract 
with the facility that provides that, at expense to either 
Bureau of Indian Affairs or tribes or depending on however they 
fund that, or they go to jail. So that is where we are stuck. I 
don't put that on SAMHSA as your issue, necessarily. But I 
think from that substance abuse perspective, this is something 
that we see across Indian Country at every location, minus the 
very few who have contracted or compacted their own substance 
abuse programs and are doing that very efficiently and 
effectively, those are not the norm. They are the rarity for 
us.
    So that is a huge problem for us on every level. Because it 
taxes law enforcement, it taxes corrections, it taxes the 
resources that are already limited that we have already heard 
about.
    Mr. Thorne. I suspect it is 10 percent of the people that 
are 80 percent of your problem?
    Mr. Thompson. That is absolutely correct.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Anybody else have similar problems? Mr. 
Teton?
    Mr. Teton. Yes, we face the same issues as far as alcohol 
and drugs go. We do our best to combat it. A lot of times we do 
have folks who are incarcerated that need the different types 
of resources as far as alcohol counseling goes, drug counseling 
goes.
    I think the real issue, because it is just not a law 
enforcement problem or a courts problem or even when they are 
introduced back into the community, I think it is a problem 
that stems a lot, we need to deal with it a lot sooner, whether 
that be education or some kind of programs before these kids 
get into the system. Because right now, we are trying to combat 
a problem at almost the end of the problem, which is arresting 
them or them going to court, when the problem happened years 
before with like education maybe in elementary school or junior 
high school or before they have a problem, let's try to deal 
with them there so we don't end up dealing with them in jails 
or the court system.
    I think we are kind of going at it backwards, where we need 
to be more proactive, we need to involve more agencies or more 
departments in this issue, because it is not going away, it is 
just getting worse. The drugs that they are out there creating, 
I mean, they are a dime a dozen. You deal with one today, and 
all of a sudden there is another offshoot of four different 
types of that kind of drug.
    So it is one of those issues where we need to combat it at 
an early stage, before it enters the court system, before they 
get involved with law enforcement.
    Mr. Thorne. Jail doesn't solve the user problem.
    Mr. Teton. It doesn't. The user problem, that is an 
individual issue. That is an individual choice they go through. 
So it is helping them make better choices in the future, and 
that has to start at an early age.
    Mr. Thorne. Chief?
    Mr. Melvin. Thank you. I would like to compliment my chief 
colleague, Chief Teton. He mentioned something and I know 
community-based policing and community policing is a buzz word. 
But it goes back to what are we doing with our youth, catching 
them at an early age. Having a program like the Police Explorer 
program, that is one of our community outreach or engagement 
programs with our youth. What that does is that we get them at 
an early age, starting at age 14. Not only is it teaching them 
citizenship, teaching them right and wrong, but it engages 
them, keeps them busy.
    Also, we use it as a route to getting employment in public 
safety, employment on the police department. A lot of times, 
the communities want to have community members or Natives as 
part of their police department. That is an excellent 
opportunity, getting them at a younger age, when they are 
young, so that we can keep them on track. Policing, as you 
know, the background investigation, the polygraph 
investigation, all the stuff that is going to be a disqualifier 
later, if you get them early enough and start teaching them and 
engaging them, and showing them that law enforcement can be a 
great career, it also keeps them so that they are eligible when 
they become of age.
    Mr. Thorne. So you are guiding them, so whether they want 
to become a police officer, or if they want to go to law 
school, or if they want to become a nurse or whatever, they 
have those options available.
    Mr. Melvin. We try to keep them away from the fire 
department, but we do try to keep them going into law 
enforcement.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Melvin. But we do have an excellent record. In our 
community, they are in different areas. But they are good 
citizens.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have substance abuse programs available 
in your community for youth?
    Mr. Melvin. Absolutely we do. And sometimes, if they are 
incarcerated, there is in our department of corrections, we 
have a youth program that helps them with education. But also 
as an alternative sometimes, as opposed to being incarcerated, 
we do have programs that will help them, not only them but 
their families, to help engage them and get them back into the 
community. Those programs work hand in hand with the police 
department, our department of corrections and the social 
services program within the Salt River community.
    Mr. Thorne. Mr. Brunelle and then Ms. Beadle.
    Mr. Brunelle. I want to congratulate you on having that 
Explorers program. We did have that at another law enforcement 
agency I was at at one point. It is an excellent program for 
tribal youth.
    Red Lake has a couple of things going, and like others, the 
majority of the offenses, the arrests, the situations we deal 
with are either alcohol or drug related. But we are taking a 
couple of steps in combatting these issues. We have a couple 
different things going, as I had mentioned, one of those being 
a pilot program for alternatives to incarceration. We 
identified, along with partnering with the BIA, a group of 
cohorts, a number of kids that we arrested three years ago. We 
have kept track of those kids for the last three years. The 
purpose, obviously, is to ensure that they are not getting in 
as much trouble, to offer them alternatives for treatment, to 
work with them one on one.
    Along with that, we are also in the process of opening a 
juvenile detention center that had sat vacant for a number of 
years due to funding issues, which obviously I brought that up 
earlier. Nevertheless, we are on the right road here. These 
kids we are keeping track of, we have seen some success with 
them.
    Along with that, we are also having, we have another pilot 
program called Tiwahe. I don't know if some of you have seen, 
in December we had an officer, basically we had distributed 
$20,000 cash to the community. I used the law enforcement 
officers just before Christmas, it was authorized by the Tribal 
Council as part of the Tiwahe Initiative to build and develop 
community relationship between law enforcement. Along with 
another, working with other programs, Chemical Health, Family 
and Children's Services, detention, with a whole heart of 
decreasing and mostly eliminating these types of situations, 
but also to affect the present generation that we have and also 
adopting projects for parents, along with children, and 
reaching them as well.
    By going back to the $20,000 cash, it went viral for our 
police department. It had over a million hits. It was really 
something to see. I will tell you, my guys were never ever so 
proud, and neither was I, along with the Council. You couldn't 
ask for a better feeling.
    Mr. Thorne. It is nice to feel successful, isn't it?
    Mr. Brunelle. And it was. The relationship, just something 
that, it improved immensely.
    So Red Lake is taking a positive step and moving in a 
direction. But obviously we have to count on financial 
resources from the outside. We appreciate them, they are very 
much welcome. We hope to continue to move in that direction, 
along with hopefully recurring funding, base funding, to 
continue that movement as well.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Ms. Beadle, what can SAMHSA do to 
help?
    Ms. Beadle. Sir, thank you for the opportunity to share 
this point. I do have to leave in just a couple of minutes and 
wanted to be able to add a couple of points that hopefully will 
contribute to discussions around improving TLOA.
    Two points. I had a meeting yesterday with the SAMHSA 
Tribal Technical Advisory Committee, tribal leaders who come in 
to talk with us about substance abuse, mental health 
priorities. One of the issues that came up was around 
prevention, the conversation around how do we keep kids out of 
the system. Interesting enough, this might seem like a simple 
comment, but it was a powerful comment. The point was, tribal 
leaders said to us very strongly that they want to have funding 
to support prevention. Now, SAMHSA has a range of prevention 
programs that tribes are accessing.
    But the point was, how do you define prevention? After 
school programs, evening programs for youth, a whole range of 
activities, some of which are not supportable through certain 
programs. So how do tribal leaders have an opportunity or what 
is the opportunity for tribal leaders to help define what is 
preventing these young people from engaging in substance use or 
engaging in opportunities that might land them in detention or 
some other facility.
    So I think clarifying prevention and the expectation around 
prevention within the language of TLOA is an important point.
    Mr. Thorne. Are there limits in there now, or is it just an 
administrative interpretation of what prevention is?
    Ms. Beadle. I think certain programs have legislative 
language around what can and cannot be done in terms of 
activities. It is clarifying what that means.
    Mr. Thorne. Could you get us a list of what those 
restrictions might be, so they can be addressed?
    Ms. Beadle. Sure, we can do that. One other example. We had 
a meeting with a tribal leader this week and his team around 
providing mental health to individuals in their community on a 
continuum. So SAMHSA's programs provide mental health services. 
An example, we were talking about drug courts. Beautiful 
relationship between SAMHSA, DOJ and Interior on drug courts. 
DOJ supports the establishment of those courts. SAMHSA provides 
funding to provide mental, actually substance abuse services 
for those individuals that end up in tribal courts.
    The question is, how might there be continuous services for 
people who do end up in detention or in a facility, so that the 
opportunity for them to continue to receive services and not 
give them up are made available to them? This is a very 
important conversation, a lot of details, a lot of issues that 
play into that. But we do have to talk about the continuum of 
services, not just in the drug court setting, but beyond drug 
courts and that individual's release from prison or from some 
facility.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there a mandate anywhere you are aware of 
within HHS for States and State subdivisions to share resources 
with tribal partners?
    Ms. Beadle. I am not aware of a mandate. But tribes, and 
this is an area that requires other discussion, can work with 
their States to assure that there is support.
    Mr. Thorne. As long as both sides are willing. But there is 
no directive any place that says, you should at least be 
talking with the tribes in your jurisdiction, to try and work 
jointly?
    Ms. Beadle. There is language that basically says, for 
States who are applying for SAMHSA's block grants, that SAMHSA 
encourages those States to consult with tribes as they support 
their programs. These programs, though, are specifically 
behavioral health. It doesn't delve into justice systems, 
necessarily. But there might be language elsewhere that might 
be supportive. I am not aware of that language. But we do 
encourage States to do that.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Thank you.
    Ms. Beadle. Thank you, sir. And thank you to the panel 
members.
    Mr. Thorne. Law enforcement community here at the table 
talk about lack of training seeming to be one of the things 
that is working. DO you have enough access to it? Do you need 
specific training that is not yet available?
    Mr. Melvin. If I may, I will start off.
    I think some of my panel colleagues were talking about the 
declinations coming from the Assistant U.S. Attorneys and 
Federal court. I think additional training would definitely 
help in that regard, so that we can decrease that number.
    However, I also feel that the enhanced sentencing 
opportunities would also increase if we had the proper training 
and less declining of certain cases. In my agency, I don't have 
an issue with training. We have a lot of training, sometimes we 
have issues with having enough people to fill the training. But 
I think, if we received additional training, it would lessen 
the cases that are declined and more cases would be able to be 
prosecuted.
    Mr. Thorne. So in the declination reports that you get 
back, is the reason for the declination things that you could 
link to training?
    Mr. Melvin. It doesn't say training, per se.
    Mr. Thorne. But you can see the issues related to it?
    Mr. Melvin. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Mr. Little. Your Honor, one of the things that we have 
started working with our Department of Justice partners, the 
Bureau of Indian Affairs and the FBI have started a join 
academy training program It's an Indian Country criminal 
investigators training program, it is a three-week program at 
the Indian Police Academy.
    We just did our pilot program and we are planning on 
running several. It is open to our BIA tribal partners and our 
FBI. It goes through the different crimes and helps them to 
understand how to better process a crime scene out in Indian 
Country of what we see out there every day. We have really good 
feedback from our pilot, which just ended a few weeks ago. 
Hopefully we can offer that more.
    Mr. Thorne. I noticed you had some U.S. Attorneys 
participating in the training.
    Mr. Little. Correct.
    Mr. Thorne. So you got direct feedback.
    Mr. Little. Yes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Trottier?
    Mr. Trottier. Sir, we have seen some increased training 
since TLOA. That has been provided by the BIA, the U.S. 
Attorney's office and the FBI.
    Mr. Thorne. Is it the kind you need?
    Mr. Trottier. Absolutely. For instance, we have had some 
drug trafficking training, human trafficking in Indian Country 
training, domestic violence training, and of course, we had the 
three-week investigator training.
    What is going on now versus the past is, they are bringing 
it to us rather than us having to send people, at department 
expense, of expensive training somewhere. It is coming right to 
the Fort Peck Reservation. I bring that up because, keep it 
coming guys.
    Mr. Thorne. That is one of the successes then. Mr. 
Thompson?
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, thank you. I think training is an area 
that we have done a great job with. But it is certainly an area 
that I would never recommend or suggest is something that we 
have achieved. We have not laid hold of it completely.
    The reason I say that is, when you start to think about 
TLOA, we think about SLECs and we think about some of these 
other things. Enhanced sentencing is a piece of this that maybe 
from the law enforcement piece of it we are not dealing with 
quite the same way. But we need to understand that better. I 
think that we do a really good job in our courts with training 
and coming out and training our courts people and our attorneys 
there in what this means and what law was going to look like 
and how that goes.
    I had some folk who are here in the room, in fact, meet 
with me yesterday and bring one of these issues up. I know VAWA 
is not TLOA, I know it is its own thing.
    Mr. Thorne. They are certainly touching each other.
    Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. There is a great deal of overlap 
there. I think that some of the areas, I don't say that we have 
failed that, but an area certainly that we need to get behind 
quickly is making sure that our uniformed folks understand what 
that means, what VAWA means, what enhanced authorities there 
are there, what enhanced sentencing capability there is. So 
that while we are out there, we operate kind of in a vacuum as 
law enforcement officers sometimes. We go to the academy or we 
go to this training, and we get legal training and go out and 
we go back to work.
    I have been a police officer for over 21 years, and I can't 
tell you the last time that I went back for a legal update. But 
I know they happen, I know it exists. We have the advantage of 
having U.S. Attorneys we deal with and those sorts of things to 
kind of keep us in the move there. But these are huge updates. 
TLOA and VAWA are huge updates that have happened. I don't know 
that I would suggest that we from BIA, anyway, have done as 
good a job as we could and we need to going forward, making 
sure those uniformed folks really understand what that is and 
what that means.
    Mr. Thorne. From our tribal partners, do you get the U.S. 
Attorneys coming and helping you train your officers? Or is it 
two separate spheres?
    Mr. Brunelle. From Red Lake, we do meet with the U.S. 
Attorney, basically the liaison. I sit down with her, we talk 
about the trainings that we need.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have her actually training your 
officers?
    Mr. Brunelle. She does train the officers, along with 
Assistant U.S. Attorneys. But a major problem that we have, 
though, is that we cannot make direct referrals from Red Lake. 
Red Lake law enforcement can't, because of course we don't have 
the Cushard [phonetically] cards. We have not really 
entertained the idea, either, because of the sovereign nation 
status.
    So that is an issue with us, not to mention it is difficult 
to really determine the amount of declinations that we are 
getting from the U.S. Attorney's office because we don't have 
direct access to that information. So we in turn have to 
forward a case to the FBI, the FBI forward to the U.S. 
Attorney's office and then they make a decision.
    Mr. Thorne. You can forward directly to the U.S. Attorney's 
office?
    Mr. Brunelle. No. No, sir.
    Mr. Thorne. You say because of certifications?
    Mr. Brunelle. Well, I don't think it's necessarily 
certifications. I don't really know the reasoning or the 
understanding or the position of the U.S. Attorney's office for 
the State of Minnesota. But I can assure you that our officers 
are trained and at times above and beyond that of our local 
colleagues.
    Mr. Thorne. But you don't have a direct pipeline to the 
U.S. Attorney?
    Mr. Brunelle. No, sir.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you?
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, sir, we do.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have a direct pipeline to the U.S. 
Attorneys?
    [Simultaneous conversations.]
    Mr. Thorne. Is that a problem that somebody needs to take a 
look at with Red Lake?
    Mr. Brunelle. Correct.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Mr. Melvin. Additionally, Judge, if I may, I think the 
relationship that our chief prosecutor in our community, Jeff 
Harmon, has with the Assistant U.S. Attorney is definitely 
beneficial for the future of our cases. Also, you mentioned a 
pipeline directly to the AUSAs. We actually do, and that 
definitely helps as far as training. And I know my colleagues 
have mentioned that before. It is very important but it is 
also, I think, this Act has allowed us to have direct access to 
the attorneys, which is beneficial.
    Mr. Thorne. If the prosecutors can tell you what it is they 
need or what was deficient in this case, then that can get 
fixed.
    Mr. Melvin. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. If it is just a wall, then neither side really 
helps the other. How about at Fort Hall?
    Mr. Teton. For us, our U.S. Attorney, our AUSA there 
locally doesn't do the training. We end up sending our guys to 
the NAC over in South Carolina, so they do get training there.
    The only issue that we have found with that is that, for 
example, one of our guys went to the strangulation training 
they had. He came back, did a case, point blank the way they 
taught him at the training in South Carolina, submit it and it 
got declined. The AUSA gave his reasoning, which wasn't the 
same as the training taught. So he didn't understand that part 
of, well, we are doing it exactly the way you guys are training 
this and then when we submit it, it gets declined. He didn't 
understand that.
    I think that might be the downfall of them not doing the 
training locally, to tell us what exactly they are looking for.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there anything that prevents your liaison or 
other AUSAs from training your department directly about what 
they want?
    Mr. Teton. No, other than time. I think that is probably 
it.
    Mr. Thorne. On cross-deputization, do any of you have 
problems getting cross-deputization so that you can make 
arrests, refer cases to either Federal court or to county and 
State court for offenders?
    Mr. Melvin. In the Salt River Police Department, we don't 
have issues with that. Matter of fact, we have some of our 
officers that are on Federal task forces as we speak right now. 
That has allowed us now, all of my officers are also State 
certified. So if we are on a task force in the State of 
Arizona, we can make arrests and prosecute in whatever court 
that is appropriate.
    So we don't have issues with that. That has definitely 
helped us with our prosecution.
    Mr. Thorne. Good. Mr. Thompson?
    Mr. Thompson. Yes, Your Honor, I think one thing that is 
important to denote with cross-deputization, whether you are 
talking about Federal or not, there are a couple of issues out 
there that really impact this. First of all, whether the states 
recognize tribal and BIA law enforcement in the State peace 
offices is a huge issue.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there anything that you know of in 
legislation that prevents the barrier, or is it just choosing 
not to work?
    Mr. Thompson. As I understand it, it is State constitutions 
that denote whether they recognize those law enforcement 
agencies as State peace offices.
    Mr. Thorne. Under State law.
    Mr. Thompson. A secondary issue is that in some places, we 
have great relationships with county sheriff's departments. 
That works very well for us. And some places, that is just not 
the case. In some places there are historical issues that go 
back many, many years that create a difficult working 
relationship between counties and tribes. I think from a law 
enforcement perspective, you will have a hard time finding a 
law enforcement officer that stands up here and tells you, it 
is better for us to not have a cross-deputization.
    Mr. Thorne. That is not a solution.
    Mr. Thompson. That is not a solution always. And in some 
cases, it is not an option at all. You talk about the tribal 
sovereignty issue, some tribes don't think that that's the way 
they want to go. And that is absolutely their right to make 
that decision. And some counties are just not willing to do it.
    So that becomes a problem for us from that perspective, 
whenever you start talking about non-Indian offenders within 
the exterior boundaries of the reservation, how do we address 
those things. Well, if you have a county cross-commission, you 
are able to pick them up, you take them to the county jail, you 
cite them there. It is their issue anyway, you are just doing 
their job for them.
    So that is great, it gives you the opportunity to take care 
of it. But in those States that don't recognize or where those 
counties or tribes can't make that work out, it is really a -
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have a solution to suggest?
    Mr. Thompson. I don't have a solution. And that is why I 
bring it up, this group probably needs to, or somebody----
    Mr. Thorne. Needs to sit down and tackle that.
    Mr. Thompson.--needs to sit down and tackle that issue. At 
some point, we have to be able to say that look, we have proven 
that Indian Country law enforcement is well-trained, we have 
proven that they can do the job that everybody else can do. Why 
do we not recognize those peace officers across the United 
States?
    Mr. Thorne. So maybe you need a facilitator, you need a 
lawyer to make sure the laws are clear. Then you need somebody 
who can sit down with everyone in the room and hammer out an 
agreement.
    Mr. Thompson. Probably it is a legislative issue in that 
regard.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Teton?
    Mr. Teton. In Idaho, they don't recognize tribal law 
enforcement as peace officers.
    Mr. Thorne. How do you solve that?
    Mr. Teton. We solved it by utilizing the CVB, as far as 
getting cross-commissioned, that is not an option. As far as 
our tribal council believes, we police everything on the 
reservation. So that is what we try to do.
    Mr. Thorne. And you refer them to Federal court if that is 
what you need to do?
    Mr. Teton. Yes.
    Mr. Thorne. But that is at least, at least that part is 
successful?
    Mr. Teton. Yes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Mr. Melvin. Judge, if I may, I am very familiar with the 
Idaho situation. A lot of times, I just heard a story from a 
chief in Idaho just the beginning of this week, in that he had 
the highly-trained canine animal, but was not given the proper 
respect as a peace officer. So I think Director Thompson summed 
it up perfectly, Indian Country, sometimes our training is even 
more so than on the State side or on the outside, so to speak. 
And to acknowledge peace officers as peace officers, I think is 
very important.
    So I think there needs to be additional discussion on 
acknowledging peace officers, police officers, not only in 
Indian Country but being able to access or engage non-Natives 
and Indian Country land.
    Mr. Thorne. Mr. Trottier?
    Mr. Trottier. The State of Montana recognizes when our 
officers go through the Indian Police Academy or what now is, 
it is still under the Federal Law Enforcement Training Center. 
However, they require that we go through a one-week bridge 
course that is put on by the Montana State Academy. It works 
out very well.
    And in turn, in order for us to cross-deputize a non-member 
agency, they have to go through a course that we put on, which 
is cultural sensitivity and cultural diversity, which is about 
an eight-hour course.
    Mr. Thorne. So a bridge course, one way or the other, might 
be part of a solution.
    Mr. Trottier. Correct.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Before the panel wraps up, I want to 
give each of you at least one minute for anything that you want 
to make sure is absolutely on the table, that somebody is going 
to pay attention to that we haven't talked about yet. If we 
have talked about it, assume that the staff will follow up. You 
can follow up with the staff about it.
    But if there is something that we haven't talked about that 
needs to be considered under TLOA, here is your chance. Mr. 
Brunelle, you were last before, so we will make you first.
    Mr. Brunelle. Just a couple of quick things. I know we 
talked about the jurisdiction, but we at Red Lake, we are not 
public law. We propose that these law enforcement agreements be 
revisited at a national level. Because our plan was to enter 
into contractual law enforcement to deal with the State of 
Minnesota, not to local counties or to local sheriffs, who at 
the whims of county elections or personnel issues can pull 
those agreements at any point in time.
    So that is one thing I would ask that the group consider.
    Mr. Thorne. In other words, facilitating State-level 
agreements, rather than just county?
    Mr. Brunelle. Yes, sir.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. What else?
    Mr. Brunelle. And then the other thing of course is talking 
about going back to visiting the Oliphant decision. We have a 
situation where a couple of things, one of where is a tribal 
member, a 15-year old boy was murdered. It is unsolved. We have 
been working with the FBI. It has kind of created a strained 
relationship.
    So as far as who has jurisdiction, whether or not the 
suspect was a non-member or a member, these are the types of 
things that we deal with on a daily basis. I think in our 
opinion, it has to be revisited again.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there something that would help with that?
    Mr. Brunelle. Well, I think you could train your local 
county attorneys or your city attorneys and let them know that 
they do have jurisdiction over certain types of offenses that 
occur in Indian Country, regardless if it's a P.L. 280, because 
we already know contractual law enforcement agreements exist 
here. But if it is a State that does not have P.L. 280, I think 
these people need to be educated and have it explained to them, 
what authority they do have as a governing agency or entity, 
holding people who are committing crimes within tribal lands 
that are non-Indians or non-Band members and holding them 
accountable.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Chief?
    Mr. Melvin. Thank you, Judge. One of the things I would 
like to say, and I will try to keep it short, to a minute, is 
enhanced sentencing. Recently we had a case inside of the Salt 
River Pima-Maricopa Indian community involving an aggravated 
assault with several other charges that was engaged against one 
of our community members.
    I think, if we, and I will tell you this, working along 
with the U.S. Attorney's office, we were able to get a seven-
year sentence that is going to be served within the Salt River 
community. So I think that kind of collaboration is very 
important. And with that type of collaboration, we will be able 
to get more.
    But I would like to be able to, if we are talking Tribal 
Law and Order Act, to be able to, if the proper, if you have 
the proper things in place to be able to even enhance that 
sentencing so that the community member can serve the sentence 
directly in the community. I know nine years is now, but I 
think if you have appropriate facility and appropriate training 
and appropriate everything in place, that we can enhance the 
sentencing that can serve there in the community.
    Mr. Thorne. Besides resources, very quickly, what do you 
need?
    Mr. Melvin. Besides resources, I think just continued 
collaboration and conversations with our partners here and with 
DOJ. I know grants is an issue, we try to seek out all the 
grants we can.
    Mr. Thorne. It is tough running a department on grants, 
from year to year.
    Mr. Melvin. You cannot. You have to have other alternative 
resources.
    Mr. Thorne. Hard to keep employees in place if they are not 
sure they have a job when they can go across the street and 
work someplace else.
    Mr. Melvin. Absolutely. And being an urban community, an 
urban reservation, we have four cities that, one foot in the 
Salt River community, the other foot could be in Scottsdale, 
Tempe or Mesa, Arizona.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Little?
    Mr. Little. Sir, one of the things I would like the 
Committee to address that would help my tribes that we serve, 
our direct service tribes, I know that TLOA talked about 
retention and recruitment. One of the things that I am having 
the hardest time with is recruiting and retaining who go to 
similar reservations within our BIA direct service programs. 
Some of that has to do with our housing program. From what I 
have talked with our OFMC, our facilities management people, 
the rates are set, and it is a legislative issue, the rates are 
set based on a formula. My GS3 police officer in the middle of 
the Hopi Reservation can't afford $1,500 rent which is attached 
to the Flagstaff rent, and that is what I have to use on the 
Hopi Reservation.
    So they tell me this is a legislative issue. So that would 
be one thing. I have numerous houses sitting vacant because 
they can't pay the rent. So to get one of my police officers in 
there, we had to block off some of the rooms so we cut down the 
square footage, so he could fit into the house.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Little. Is that a fix? For that immediate, I guess it 
was. But it is more of a legislative thing, because it is.
    Mr. Thorne. That is a recruiting thing, to get in there. 
What do you need to keep your good officers in place?
    Mr. Little. Pay raise would be good. But they are doing, 
actually we are keeping, one of the other issues that I was 
talking about as far as retaining is maybe a little bit easier, 
or we need some kind of a waiver, a legislative waiver on our 
Indian preference. Chief, they have a 125 police officers for 
their 10,000 tribal members. Look at Hopi, I have 20 officers 
for the same amount of tribal members. And so one of the things 
is, they can go out and reach out, hire a lot of, from very 
different walks of life. Whereas I have to rely on my Indian 
preference first. Which I agree, I am a tribal member, hire the 
tribal members first. But if there is not, make it easier for 
us to go out and recruit veterans and others.
    Mr. Thorne. What is the barrier to that? Indian preference 
just simply says they get scored a little bit more. It doesn't 
say you can't hire somebody else.
    Mr. Little. No, but----
    Mr. Thorne. No?
    Mr. Thompson. The interpretation of Indian preference by 
the government is that it is Indian applicants only, unless 
there are no Indian applicants.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Thompson?
    Mr. Thompson. Thank you very much. I would very much like 
to thank the tribal leaders who are here, and Chairman Barrasso 
for being here, and for the continued focus on Indian Country 
law enforcement. I think one of the things we have experienced 
over the last few years, we kind of let the increased focuses, 
improved communication between tribes and the Federal 
Government agencies. I think that is critically important to 
us, sitting down and having these conversations and not walking 
away feeling like we had a conversation and now we are all 
going back to do what we have always done.
    I do think that as far as TLOA is concerned, I think the 
reauthorization of the Bureau of Prisons pilot that was 
initiated initially, as tribes begin to start to take advantage 
of enhanced sentencing, you are now going to talk about taxed 
detention facilities that now have people in them for three 
years or five years.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you think the BOP pilot was a success?
    Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. If we are going to allow tribes 
to take advantage of that and be able to sentence those folks, 
then the Bureau of Prisons is the most prepared to take care of 
those types of inmates for us. Certainly we would like to see 
something there, I don't want to step on Bureau of Prisons, a 
partner of ours, just saying that that reauthorization would 
certainly be helpful to us.
    Mr. Thorne. It worked and you would like to see more.
    Mr. Thompson. Absolutely. And one more issue, we talked 
about recruitment, being able to find those folks, I think some 
of that goes back to what Chief Melvin has talked about and 
Chief Teton has talked about, if we can catch folk earlier and 
prevent the issues that we have from substance abuse and those 
types of issues earlier, we have a much broader candidate pool, 
even from a law enforcement perspective. And that may seem like 
a stretch to people, but in Indian communities, it is not a 
stretch.
    Mr. Thorne. It is a job.
    Mr. Thompson. It is a job. If we can find folk within those 
local communities who have not made that mistake and have not 
gone down the wrong road and are prepared to enter a law 
enforcement job, then we have people who want to stay in those 
communities and they are linked to those communities and their 
families are there. They have grown up there, they know the 
people. They know how to deal with the crimes in a way that you 
and I can't. So absolutely, they know the culture. I don't have 
to train them on the culture, they are the culture.
    So those are issues, I think, that we have to focus on. If 
they get lost in school and they get lost in parenting and they 
get lost in social services, law enforcement is not going to 
find them for you in that regard.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Trottier?
    Mr. Trottier. Sure, can I save up my one minute and come 
back in six months and take 30 minutes?
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Thorne. That is beyond my power.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Trottier. Other than resources and some of the other 
stuff that everybody has mentioned, one issue that I would like 
to bring up, and it might not be for the Committee, but it 
probably is right up Mr. Toulou's alley, is every three years 
we change Assistant U.S. Attorneys. And what happens with us is 
we just get one trained up to I guess you could say how we want 
them, and they're gone. And we start fresh again. It generally 
takes a good year to a year and a half to get that AUSA up to 
snuff. Once we are rocking and rolling, they are gone again.
    So that would be one issue that maybe Mr. Toulou can take 
back. Other than that, I share -
    Mr. Thorne. Or for that part, maybe DOJ.
    Mr. Trottier. DOJ, sure.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Teton?
    Mr. Teton. I appreciate the time today. One of the things 
we would like to see is, as I mentioned before, the training. 
If we could get it a little closer than having to go all the 
way to South Carolina. We just opened a new justice center and 
we have a training room, so we would be available to host 
anything that was like in the northwest. Also, we would like to 
see more coordination as far as the statistics I mentioned, 
where do they go and what do the statistics look like.
    Mr. Thorne. When the reports get filed, you would like to 
get a copy, at least, of them, the circulation, so you can see 
what is going on?
    Mr. Teton. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Compare yourself to other places, as well as 
see what they say about you?
    Mr. Teton. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Toulou?
    Mr. Toulou. Yes, there is probably a lot around resources, 
but that is not what we are talking about in the Tribal Law and 
Order Act. It is an authorization statute. But actually, Mr. 
Thompson stole my thunder. I think we would like to see the 
Bureau of Prisons pilot project reauthorized. We think it was a 
successful project. BOP is interested in seeing it go forward, 
the Department would be interested in seeing that extended. We 
think it provides tribes with an opportunity to place dangerous 
offenders in appropriate facilities. So that would be an easy 
fix.
    So I think that is one we would like to see happen.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. I want to thank you all for your time. I 
know this is a long way to come and sort of an unusual format. 
But please follow up with the staff on anything that was 
raised, or as you are on the plane home, something occurs to 
you that was missed, please follow up with them. We want to get 
all those ideas on the table. Because when we can get this 
reauthorized, when we can get the amendments done, we want to 
make sure that they work, that we are moving in the right 
direction to make tribal communities safe for the people who 
live there.
    Please join me in a round of applause for our panel 
members.
    [Applause.]
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you.
    Mr. Andrews. Judge, before everyone goes, President 
Cladoosby would like to address the first panel and have a few 
words. At this time, I would like to call on President 
Cladoosby to address you from NCAI.

         STATEMENT OF HON. BRIAN CLADOOSBY, PRESIDENT, 
  NATIONAL CONGRESS OF AMERICAN INDIANS; CHAIRMAN, SWINOMISH 
                             TRIBE

    Mr. Cladoosby. Thank you, Mike. I want to thank our 
superheroes here, who do a great job for Indian Country. I have 
a law enforcement agency back home and it is a thankless job, a 
lot of times, but it is necessary. Thank you, Judge, thank you 
for your 34 years of dedication to not only State courts but 
tribal courts. Very commendable.
    Mike and Tony and the rest of the staff here, thank you for 
listening to us. This is a very, very important issue. Let 
Senator Barrasso know that we greatly appreciate this time, 
this opportunity.
    My name is Brian Cladoosby Spee-Pots. Spee-Pots. I am the 
President of the National Congress of American Indians. I am 
also the Chairman of the Swinomish Tribe that is located about 
an hour north of Seattle. I will try to keep my remarks brief, 
because I need to get to the USDA by 3:30.
    Thank you for giving us the time to talk about this issue. 
I will just take one minute to explain Swinomish to you. We 
live on an island. We have about 7,000 acres of land. We have 
made law enforcement a top priority. We are the only tribe in 
Washington State to be certified. We are only the second tribe 
in the Nation to be certified, so we have put a top priority on 
law enforcement at Swinomish.
    We have just about 20 officers to serve about 7,000 acres 
and about 4,000 individuals that live in our community. A 
report came out recently that said the safest place to live in 
Skagit County is on the Swinomish Indian Reservation. So it 
works. Law enforcement works. It is a good deterrent.
    You mentioned alcohol and drug abuse. It is across the 
Nation. If we could eliminate drug and alcohol abuse, they 
would be like the Maytag repairmen waiting for a call.
    So just a little bit about Swinomish. And the BIA provides 
about 10 percent of our funding for our law enforcement, 10 
percent. We have made the commitment that this is a top 
priority, so we have to take that other 90 percent out of our 
general fund to fund this. Big issue across Indian Country.
    So NCAI, we cannot say this enough, that we need to 
prioritize reauthorizing the Tribal Law and Order Act. We need 
to, number one, all of the authorizing funding under the Tribal 
Law and Order Act is expiring this year. So first and foremost, 
we need to make sure that that is reauthorized.
    Juvenile justice is so important. Our kids are our most 
precious resource. The Tribal Law and Order Act was a vehicle 
to address that issue. The tribal justice systems now have 
nearly five years of experience with implementing this law. We 
will continue to collect proposals to continue to make the 
technical amendments to improve this law. Very important, it 
has to be a living, breathing document.
    I concur that the Bureau of Prisons tribal prisoner pilot 
program must be made permanent. It expired November 24th of 
2014. The pilot was for four years. And in that short time, the 
program is only beginning to work, but it works extremely well. 
So first and foremost, be repetitive on that point, please. 
They need to hear us loud and clear.
    The Federal Bureau of Prisons, they have supported the 
continuance in its report to Congress, required by the Tribal 
Law and Order Act. So we have concurrence from the Federal 
Bureau of Prisons on this.
    Just a little side note. My father is 82 years old. His 
Indian name is Kel-Kahl-Tsoot. He is the great-grandfather to 
my two grandchildren. And his great-grandfather was also Kel-
Kahl-Tsoot. If you look at the Point Elliott Treaty of 1855, 
you will see my dad's great-grandfather put his ``X'' on that 
treaty in 1855. That wasn't that long ago when you think about 
it in those terms. My dad is a great-grandfather to my 
grandchildren, and his great-grandfather signed the treaty for 
us.
    It is very interesting, that boiler-plate treaty in the 
Pacific Northwest, I am not sure how many of your tribes have 
it, but it specifically said that no white man will be allowed 
to reside on the Swinomish Indian Reservation without 
permission. It is interesting, it says that, no white man. And 
we have been having trespass issues ever since 1855. And we 
continue to have trespass issues. And we need to update 18 
U.S.C. 1165 regarding trespass, because still today, tribes are 
dealing with trespass issues across the Nation, whether it be 
exclusion orders, whether it be lease issues, whatever. They 
are just misdemeanor offenses. We need to address it adequately 
to make it a deterrent for these that continue to trespass on 
Indian lands.
    Juvenile justice, very, very important. As you know, our 
juveniles face disproportionate exposure to violence and 
poverty. They end up in the system and the majority of them 
become habitual offenders.
    From the Tribal Law and Order Commission 2013 report on 
juvenile justice and the Attorney General's Advisory Committee 
on American Indian and Alaska Native Children Exposed to 
Violence 2014 report, an AG report recommended that rather than 
incarcerate Native juvenile offenders, tribes implement 
culturally appropriate rehabilitation measures. It goes on to 
say that incarceration of Native juvenile offenders only 
exasperates an already precarious situation. When placed in 
juvenile detention facilities, youths are placed in generally 
unsafe, abusive, ineffective and horribly expensive situations 
that tend to push them further into a life of crime.
    It finishes by saying ``It is therefore necessary for 
tribal juvenile justice system to be able to fashion 
appropriate alternatives aimed at rehabilitation and 
treatment.'' The Tribal Law and Order Report recommends more 
dollars, more resources. And the Juvenile Justice and 
Delinquency Prevention Act of 2002, the JJDPA, when you think 
about funding, currently the aggregate amount of funding 
provided by the JJDPA for all of Indian Country, all 567 
federally-recognized tribes, equals the amount apportioned to 
one State. One State gets as much funding as 567 federally-
recognized tribes. That is sad. And NCAI is recommending that 
at least a minimum of 10 percent of the funds available be set 
aside for tribes.
    Both the TLOC report and the AG report recommended that 
Congress authorize additional and adequate funding for tribal 
juvenile justice programs in the form of block grants and self-
governance compacts.
    Finally, something that is also very sad, the Victims of 
Crime Act funding. For those of you that don't know what the 
Victims of Crime Act funding is, it is an act that was created 
in 1984. It is budget-neutral. It does not cost the Federal 
Government one penny, because the money the government collects 
for these funds is collected from those who commit the crimes. 
Let me give you an example. From 2009 through 2013, the Crimes 
Victim Fund collected an average of $2 billion a year, but only 
disbursed an average of $700 million of that $2 billion a year 
from 2009 to 2013. In 2015, and I believe in 2016, they 
increased that to $2.3 billion in 2015, and $2.3 billion in 
2016. You have to ask yourself, if you look at a report on the 
victim statistics across the United States, who would be 
leading those statistics in violence against their individuals? 
What group would be leading that statistics in violence against 
their women? The Native Americans would.
    If they funded this based on who had the most crime 
committed against them, we would get the lion's share of the 
funding. But because of the way it is set up, it goes to the 
State and the tribal leaders know what that is like, when the 
feds have that devolution and they give that money to the 
State, and we have to fight for those monies with everybody in 
the State, it doesn't work out too well.
    So NCAI passed a resolution calling for at least 10 percent 
of the distribution of the Crime Victim Funds be directed to 
trial governments.
    In closing, P.L. 280. It doesn't work. I don't know if that 
is news to anybody in here. I don't know if it is a revelation 
for some people in here. But under the Tribal Law and Order 
Act, we had reassumption, and I believe White Earth and maybe 
Mille Lacs might be in the room and they know what I am talking 
about. I know Hoopa is in the room, represented right here. And 
they know they would love, in California, to have this.
    The Tribal Law and Order Act has some great success 
stories. It is a great tool for Indian Country. But it needs to 
be reauthorized. There need to be some tweaks to it. And we 
need to continue to work as a team on this, as a team. NCAI is 
continuing to collect date to help in this endeavor.
    Thank you and I am just going to make it to the USDA. Thank 
you, and if you have any questions, Judge, I would be willing 
to try and answer them. If not, I will excuse myself.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you, we appreciate it.
    Mr. Cladoosby. Thank you very much. Thanks, Mike.
    [Applause.]
    Mr. Thorne. We are going to take a very short break, then 
we will ask the second panel to come up.
    [Recess.]

                        Panel Two--Court Systems

    Mr. Thorne. Welcome back to the second panel.
    I am hoping this one will be a little more lively. Police 
officers, when they appear before judges, tend to be very 
respectful, very calm. That is what we had with the last panel.
    This time we have judges and lawyers. Hopefully we can live 
up to the saying that if you have four lawyers in a room you 
have at least six opinions. So please, feel free to disagree. 
Feel free to say yes, but, or no way. But let's have a robust 
discussion about what these issues are.
    So this panel deals with the court system and TLOA. I am 
going to ask each of you to introduce yourselves, where you are 
from and let's start off with one thing that you have seen as a 
success on what TLOA has been able to do in your community, 
relating to your court system. Judge Urbina, if you will start, 
please.

STATEMENT OF HON. ALFRED URBINA, ATTORNEY GENERAL, PASCUA YAQUI 
                             TRIBE

    Mr. Urbina. Good afternoon. My name is Fred Urbina. I am 
from the Pascua Yaqui Tribe. I guess one success that I can 
talk about today is the SAUSA program that we have implemented 
on the tribe.
    Mr. Thorne. Which program?
    Mr. Urbina. The SAUSA program, the Tribal Law and Order Act 
SAUSA program. So we have four SAUSAs that work in our tribal 
prosecutors office.
    Mr. Thorne. Special AUSAs, right.
    Mr. Urbina. Special Assistant U.S. Attorneys, yes, sir.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Mr. Urbina. So that program has really been helpful to us 
in prosecuting both major crime cases, sexual molestations of 
children, also the VAWA pilot project that we started. We have 
prosecuted or investigated at least 26 cases regarding non-
Indian defendants on the reservation.
    So the SAUSA program helps us coordinate what we are doing 
in a multi-jurisdictional environment. So as that program has 
been instrumental, Tracy Toulou and the U.S. Attorney's Office 
in Arizona has helped set that up. We have a tribal liaison 
that works out with us on the reservation. Her name is Ree 
Wong. They work directly with our prosecutors. The Department 
of Justice Indian Country Justice Fellow, I think it is Theresa 
Arsay, also works on the reservation.
    So they work to staff these cases and bring these cases 
federally. I think in 2008, when we met with the U.S. 
Attorneys' office, they informed our tribal council that there 
was no crime on the reservation because of the numbers.
    [Laughter.]
    Mr. Urbina. So through this program, the prosecutions have 
increased. Declinations have increased, of course, because 
prosecutions are occurring. There are some problems with it, of 
course, there are still some challenges with that program. We 
have asked the U.S. Attorney to address the program and develop 
a protocol or a SAUSA manual that would help not only our tribe 
but other tribes with this process.
    Right now, there are no official rules or protocols for 
this program.
    Mr. Thorne. So it is just up to the individual AUSA?
    Mr. Urbina. Correct. So this would help solve some of these 
questions that come up during this process when we are deciding 
where to bring this case.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Ms. Jaeger, can you tell us 
how TLOA is doing in Alaska?

STATEMENT OF LISA JAEGER, TRIBAL GOVERNMENT SPECIALIST, TANANA 
                       CHIEFS CONFERENCE

    Ms. Jaeger. Yes, thank you, I appreciate the opportunity to 
be here.
    My name is Lisa Jaeger, I am neither an attorney nor a 
judge. But I am a tribal government specialist. I have had the 
opportunity to work with Alaska tribes, villages, for 35 years, 
for a long time, in trying to help build tribal courts, build 
tribal governments there. So I have a lot of on the ground 
experience there with tribal courts.
    Just a quick picture, we have 229 federally-recognized 
tribes in Alaska. Everyone says, well, how many tribal courts 
are up there, which is a very difficult question to answer. 
Because that is a big question. But I can tell you at about any 
given time, about a third of them are handling active cases. 
Mainly these are domestic relations, they are dealing with 
child protection, domestic violence, juvenile cases. It has 
been a long struggle to gain jurisdiction authority to do this.
    So one of the things with the tribal Law and Order Act, in 
terms of the enhanced authority, of course, that doesn't help 
us in Alaska, because of the lack of reservations. But one 
thing that has been helpful, it was actually the case, when the 
Commission report came out in 2013, there was a special chapter 
just on Alaska, about just horrific statistics on the amount of 
sexual abuse and things like that. I hate to report, but since 
2010, we have really seen the increase in methamphetamines and 
heroin. It has reached the remote parts of Alaska. Violence can 
get even more significant with those drugs.
    But right after that commission report came out, we 
received very shortly after that a plan, or a draft agreement 
from our State Attorney General to divert misdemeanor cases to 
tribal courts in Alaska. And we have been negotiating with the 
Attorney General on this since then. So it has been a couple of 
years we have been trying to work with them.
    We have come close, but the main problem at this point in 
time is that the State of Alaska wants a waiver of sovereign 
immunity for the tribes to just do sentencing for these State 
misdemeanor cases.
    Mr. Thorne. Is the purpose of the sovereign immunity waiver 
to prevent liability for the institution that is going to hold 
them?
    Ms. Jaeger. Exactly.
    Mr. Thorne. Maybe we could solve that with insurance?
    Ms. Jaeger. I am not sure. It is such a complicated waiver 
of sovereign immunity here. It is hard enough for the lawyers 
at the Attorney General's office to even get how this would 
actually play out on the ground. No less for a tribe to 
understand exactly. I don't think that tribes are likely going 
to sign on to this agreement.
    So I don't know that this is going to be the avenue. I am 
thinking, with the reauthorization, kind of the one thing would 
be to look at Alaska to see if there could be at least a pilot 
project or some kind of a limited extended jurisdiction over 
limited subjects or something like that for jurisdiction.
    But there has been a lot more activity now with the State 
of Alaska putting out olive branches and things like that to 
help work with tribes. This is definitely on the increase.
    Mr. Thorne. So you would like some help with negotiating 
with local jurisdictions on facilities, holding people and 
other cooperation?
    Ms. Jaeger. With that, if it is already in State, if it is 
already State case, we have a very recent plan now where tribes 
can actually be intervenors in State criminal cases, so that 
they can participate in sentencing there, do the culturally 
appropriate, more restorative justice type sentencing. That is 
something that has just come up. The Division of Juvenile 
Justice is offering diversion programs for juvenile cases to 
our tribal courts.
    So there is a lot of progress that is being made. We are 
doing a lot of sentencing circle on State criminal cases. But 
still, the hang-up is this, and that is kind of the real 
ability of the tribes to deal with those low level misdemeanor 
type cases, have the authority that helps to prevent, in the 
future, those things growing. And we are being very, very 
successful when we can deal with them, especially with circle 
sentencing, this very, very basic, holistic approach to dealing 
with a crime at a village level.
    So we are still looking, probably, for a fix on our 
jurisdictional problem.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Judge Crawford, Fort Peck, how 
has TLOA affected our community?

   STATEMENT OF HON. STACIE CRAWFORD, CHIEF JUDGE, FORT PECK 
           TRIBAL COURT, ASSINIBOINE AND SIOUX TRIBES

    Ms. Crawford. Hi, my name is Stacie Crawford. I am from 
Fort Peck. Just a little about Fort Peck, for those who don't 
know. It is in the very northeast corner of Montana. So we are 
not on the mountain side. Everybody says Montana is beautiful. 
We have the Plains area. But we do have over 20 million acres. 
So it is 110 miles long, 40 miles wide. It is a large rural 
area. Our population is over 10,000, but it is a large area 
with little resources.
    We have a tribal court in Poplar, Montana, court of general 
jurisdiction. One of the benefits of TLOA is that it pushed us 
to get a new corrections facility. So we have had that in 
operation since last year, so we were able to meet those 
requirements so we can use the enhanced sentencing to hold the 
offenders in our tribal jail.
    We were also pushed to get lawyer positions. Traditionally, 
most of our positions were lay positions. We do have a tribal 
bar, so they would have to pass that. But we didn't have actual 
licensed attorneys practicing for a majority of the time. So 
now we do have the special AUSA, we have a SAUSA, we have a 
lawyer public defender and we have two lawyer judges.
    So that has been a benefit to help with our code 
development. We have done a lot of that in the recent years.
    We have a problem with drugs, substance abuse, those 
issues. We don't have the manpower in law enforcement, we don't 
have the resources to get the help that people need. So one of 
the things that we are working on right now is we are trying to 
bring back our wellness court and utilize other resources in 
the community to incorporate more cultural language, those 
types of things, into the people that we are trying to serve.
    Mr. Thorne. Are you able to balance that with the TLOA 
requirements?
    Ms. Jaeger. Yes. One of the problems that we have is trying 
to use, not just putting people in jail, but the alternative 
sentencing. Instead of putting them in jail for three years and 
them sitting there, we want them to be able to come back out 
and -
    Mr. Thorne. Be better.
    Ms. Jaeger. Yes. We want to be able to put them back into 
society. So trying to develop those programs within our 
correctional facility has been a challenge. But we are still 
working on that.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you.
    Ms. Jaeger. Thank you.
    Mr. Thorne. Ms. Tingle, from BIA Tribal Justice.

        STATEMENT OF TRICIA TINGLE, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, 
      OFFICE OF TRIBAL JUSTICE, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, 
                U.S. DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Ms. Tingle. Good afternoon. My name is Tricia Tingle. I am 
the Associate Director for the Office of Tribal Justice. We 
are, our task is to enforce the Tribal Justice Act, which is at 
25 U.S.C. 3602. I say that specifically because there is a 
Congressional mandate and a statutory mandate for specific 
things to be done. And we have done that in conjunction with 
TLOA.
    I would like to just say three things that I think are very 
successful. We have had training as mandated by TLOA. We have 
trained over 600 tribal court personnel since 2011. Many of the 
people in this room and some at this table have done the 
training. We believe that it should be tribally sponsored and 
tribally driven. We have trained over 600 people.
    Always, more training is needed. Lisa and I were talking 
right before, it is a continuing need, constantly. In the 
training, along with the tribal court personnel, have been the 
United States Attorneys' offices. So they have actually worked 
in conjunction with us.
    The second thing is the discussion on the importance of 
alternative, access to alternative options to sentencing. 
Misdemeanor cases are prevalent in Indian Country, well, 
because of the Indian Civil Rights Act. But of course, there 
are a lot of misdemeanor cases. Those cases have shown to be 
better addressed by alternatives rather than incarcerating. And 
I am very happy to hear the discussion and would encourage that 
we continue that discussion and facilitate that within the 
agencies and with the tribes.
    So the other thing is just the discussion within Indian 
Country about the law and about due process. I have seen a 
change in tribal court personnel and the councils. They are 
very actively ready to engage with us on our tribal court 
assessments. We have done 81 since 2013. And it is through that 
funding that we are able to provide some positions. We have 
provided positions for 25 judges, 20 prosecutors, and 15 public 
defenders, 5 guardians ad litem. That is part of TLOA.
    We have done that; that is not enough.
    Mr. Thorne. What would you need to expand that?
    Ms. Tingle. Well, of course we need additional, we need 
recurring funding to do that. The tribes need it, we of course 
would give the money to the tribes. That is what they need. 
They need the training and the SAUSA program, an advocate for 
that particular program. It trains tribal prosecutors to work 
very hard and to meet a bar that is quite hard.
    So those are the things that I find good.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge?

  STATEMENT OF HON. RON WHITENER, CHIEF JUDGE, TULALIP TRIBES

    Mr. Whitener. Thank you so much for having me come and 
speak today. My name is Ron Whitener, I am the Chief Judge of 
the Tulalip Tribes in Washington State. I am a member of the 
Squaxin Island Tribe, which is south of there about an hour and 
a half, two hours.
    Before this, I come out of public defense, so a lot of what 
I do swirls around both public defense and the perspective as 
the judge.
    Mr. Thorne. Good. We need that perspective too, because our 
public defender, who was supposed to be on our panel, got hung 
up with travel.
    Mr. Whitener. I noticed that. I had to throw that out in 
case there was any discussion, I wanted to make sure that was 
on the table.
    I would say that the TLOA was absolutely a success in 
almost every area, if you define success as that there was 
nothing there before and now there is something. It doesn't 
mean, though, that there isn't----
    Mr. Thorne. It is not perfection.
    Mr. Whitener. It is not perfection and there are steps we 
need to take in almost every area. But we are certainly seeing 
the effects of it. We are seeing the effects of it in the 
ability of the SAUSAs to be heard in the Federal courts, to be 
able to take those cases from where they start to where they 
end in Federal court. And also to build that relationship with 
the U.S. Attorney's office.
    At the same time, on the other side of the coin, we see 
discrepancies from U.S. Attorney to U.S. Attorney about how 
welcoming they are to SAUSAs. Here at Tulalip, Tulalip had to 
put a lot of pressure to get the prosecutor at Tulalip 
certified as a SAUSA and accepted as a SAUSA, and frankly, had 
to go to main Justice to get that pressure put on before it 
would even happen. And so some standards of making that much 
more of an automatic thing for prosecutors that try, if they 
meet certain standards, they should be certified as SAUSAs. And 
the winds of political change that happen in the U.S. 
Attorney's office shouldn't be able to affect whether or not it 
happens.
    Mr. Thorne. You are talking about really creating sort of a 
routine appointment as long as you are qualified?
    Mr. Whitener. Exactly. I think that is the way it should 
be, especially for those cases that started on the reservation 
and then move into the Federal system.
    The Bureau of Prisons pilot project was a success, and I am 
going to say it was a success from the perspective of the judge 
and the perspective of the defender. And here is why. First of 
all, the Tribal Law and Order Act, by adding enhanced 
sentences, was a good thing. But because there wasn't increased 
funding really for paying for the jail costs, a lot of tribes 
aren't able to take advantage of the enhanced sentences.
    So still, the sentences that defendants get too often are 
really, the calculus is how much is in the jail budget and what 
is the effect of future convictions and are we going to have 
enough at the end of the year. That didn't solve that problem. 
But the Bureau of Prisons pilot is an option that would help 
that problem for tribes.
    The other thing is that so many of the facilities that we 
are using to incarcerate were not designed for long-term. That 
was already brought up in the last panel. Some tribes are very 
well-resourced, they have very nice facilities. As Salt River 
said, they could probably do a long-term thing. For a lot of 
tribes in Washington State, though, who are smaller tribes, we 
are sentencing people and putting them into jails that were not 
designed for a four-year term.
    Mr. Thorne. And they don't have much programming.
    Mr. Whitener. There is no programming. So we have people 
who are, I have a colleague who is a public defender who has a 
client who says, she is like, he is going crazy, he is in like 
a 20-bed facility for four years and a 20 by 20 exercise yard. 
And he is going to go crazy.
    And the Bureau of Prisons would do that. It needs to be 
expanded, though, it can't be just for violent crimes. It needs 
to be expanded to sentences that are more than a year, and also 
especially in the alternative, they need to address it and 
expand to things like violations of domestic violence, 
protections orders, and DV. I also think we should consider it 
for special domestic violence jurisdiction cases.
    Mr. Thorne. You are talking about VAWA?
    Mr. Whitener. VAWA. That one concerns me a little bit, 
because those facilities that we have that are tribal 
facilities are completely, almost all of them are tribal 
inmates in those facilities. We are talking about now taking a 
non-Indian who has been committed of committing a crime against 
an Indian and putting them in that. I think the Bureau of 
Prisons may be a way that in certain circumstances, if we think 
that it is an unsafe situation, that we should be able to 
access that, even if the sentence is less than a year. So that 
is an area that I think has been a success and has been, but 
needs more work.
    In the area of indigent defense, one of the things that 
TLOA did for the first time is it introduced a right to counsel 
in tribal court.
    Mr. Thorne. Right to effective counsel.
    Mr. Whitener. Right to effective counsel in tribal courts 
for a year or more. What that has done is, we have seen more 
tribes that have implemented public defense in their systems. 
And they are starting, a lot of the tribes are starting to see 
that it is not something to be afraid of. In fact, you can make 
the system move faster. It ends up with less hearings.
    So it really, I think, started a wave of increase of 
indigent defense in tribes around the United States. That needs 
to be encouraged. There is not as much funding for indigent 
offense as there is for prosecution. Still, there is not 
training, as much training for public defenders as there is for 
prosecution. There is certainly some and Ms. Tingle has worked 
very hard to get those trainings out. She always includes the 
defenders in those trainings, but there needs to be more.
    There is no coordination between, there is no 
institutionalized coordination between the tribal defenders and 
the Federal public defenders. There is nothing that has been 
institutionalized, there is no SAUSA for the defenders.
    Mr. Thorne. If nothing else, if you could make those 
resources available for training that are used for the Federal 
public defenders.
    Mr. Whitener. Absolutely. You will find public defenders at 
tribes working with the defenders, especially on those cases 
that have a risk of maybe going Federal under the Major Crimes 
Act. But there are a lot of resources in the Federal public 
defender that I think could be made available to tribal 
defenders.
    I know I hit a lot in a short time. Those are my initial 
thoughts.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Yes, sir, Mr. Toulou, DOJ. What is working with TLOA and 
the court systems in the tribal communities?
    Mr. Toulou. I have already had one bite at this apple, but 
I will take another one. I am Tracy Toulou, I am the Director 
of the Office of Tribal Justice.
    I think a lot of what the Tribal Law and Order Act did was 
it developed a framework for opportunity. There have been a 
number of specific programs. But there was a lot of discussion 
about cooperation and training working together. Some of that 
plays out with the SLECs and the Special Assistant U.S. 
Attorneys. But I think it set up dynamic where we could do new 
things.
    And one of the things that happened actually links up with 
the Violence Against Women Act, and the enhanced sentencing in 
the Tribal Law and Order Act, and that is how we were going to 
actually put those provisions into place. And while the 
Department of Justice has some resources and BIA has some great 
resources on training and implementation, what we soon came to 
realize was that the best entities for determining how these 
provisions were going to be handled were the tribes themselves. 
Because they were all doing different things in different ways 
to implement both of these statutes.
    And we put together an umbrella group, and basically we put 
it together, did a little bit of funding and worked with BIA 
and NCAI. But it was the tribes, and this group is called the 
Intertribal Technical Assistance Working Group. They met a 
number of times, the tribes that are sitting here, Tulalip, 
Pascua Yaqui and Fort Peck have all been very involved in that.
    What it is, it is a training opportunity, it is a technical 
assistance opportunity. But it is really an opportunity for the 
tribes to help each other and talk through what they are doing. 
I know that Fred has put together a number of different 
training materials. We had a situation a few weeks ago where we 
thought we were going to get a constitutional challenge to part 
of VAWA. What happened is, members of that Intertribal 
Technical Assistance Working Group got together and helped each 
other with briefs.
    So this is not something we have done. And it is not 
directly in TLOA, but TLOA laid the ground work to allow it.
    Mr. Thorne. To help facilitate that.
    Mr. Toulou. Yes. Right. And that has been, I think, 
fantastic. So that is the one thing I would point to.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. One of the things that TLOA has done, it 
has mandated the creation of multidisciplinary teams dealing 
with domestic violence and sexual offenses. Has that worked? 
Are those teams meeting? Are they doing anything?
    Mr. Urbina. Yes. Thank you, Your Honor. The MDT process is 
working for our tribe. It started out with sexual offense type 
cases. We have modified that to include any crime that occurs 
on the reservation that has a Federal nexus.
    We meet monthly to review and staff these cases. Our SAUSAs 
help bring these cases. And they also work on the declinations 
with the U.S. Attorney. So it has helped.
    Mr. Thorne. Tell me how they work on the declinations. Are 
they trying to fix what the problems are in a particular case 
or learn lessons from declinations?
    Mr. Urbina. I think the MDT process is a group of 
individuals, FBI, tribal victims services, tribal law 
enforcement, detectives, you have the U.S. Attorney's office 
and the tribal prosecutor's office working to staff these 
cases. And then strengthen the cases, work on the investigation 
to either bring a tribal case or Federal case.
    Generally there is a tribal case that is occurring because 
the tribe usually moves first on those matters. And then they 
try to strengthen the Federal case. So that is how our process 
works. It has been very helpful.
    In terms of the declinations, the group recognizes at some 
point that the case isn't going to be viable for whatever 
reason. And we have actually helped write those declination 
letters for the U.S. Attorney's office.
    Mr. Thorne. So it really is a cooperative, collaborative 
process?
    Mr. Urbina. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge Crawford?
    Ms. Crawford. The MDT started in Fort Peck in about 2008. 
Actually, I was a part of it, as a tribal prosecutor. And Kenny 
Trottier was a part of it, and he is still a part of it. It 
had, it really strengthened our relationship with the U.S. 
Attorney's office. The FBI, they have people probably about 60 
miles off the reservation that come there on a daily basis. 
They work with the criminal investigators. They staff once a 
month, the U.S. Attorney's office is about five and a half 
hours, six hours away, and they make the trip. They drive up 
there.
    Communication, you can email, call, they respond.
    Mr. Thorne. So it is an open channel, it is not something 
that you have to force.
    Ms. Crawford. It is, and we are fortunate that the FBI is 
willing to work with us.
    The declination process for us is pretty much the same as 
Pascua Yaqui. We sat down and determined, instead of, we would 
determine, should it stay tribal or does it warrant Federal? 
Where would it be better served?
    Mr. Thorne. And you do that as a team?
    Ms. Crawford. Yes. And so that helped out a lot, because it 
created, it opened up the communication, but it also let the 
council know, because when people aren't involved in the 
process, they don't know the specifics of it. So then we have 
these declinations and they want to know, you know, why aren't 
we prosecuting it here or there. But now that the tribe has a 
say in it, it is a little easier to take, I guess, when 
something doesn't go Federal when you think it should.
    But now that we have the enhanced sentencing, we are able 
to handle those cases that may not go Federal, but we can get 
them tribally. So the MDT process has worked for us, and it 
continues to work.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Ms. Jaeger?
    Ms. Jaeger. I just wanted to say something about not 
necessarily the teams there, but the reauthorization of VAWA, 
when it was reauthorized last time, there was an exception for 
Alaska, when 910 was accepted. So that helped to put a cloud on 
the issue of whether the tribes had jurisdiction to issue civil 
orders of protection against people that weren't tribal 
members.
    But that was subsequently rescinded, which we appreciated 
very much. Because it is imperative that the tribes be able to 
do civil orders of protection when it is not all tribal members 
involved. Because small villages, lots of times, it is not. So 
that was good.
    But our State of Alaska had also required that furthermore, 
in order to have a protective order recognized, that it had to 
be filed in our central registry system, the Alaska central 
registry system. Another hoop in order to get cooperation with 
State law enforcement to help enforce tribal protective orders.
    So after quite a bit of convincing and this and that, just 
a few months ago they have rescinded that as well. So a tribal 
protective order, civil order of protection, should be observed 
even if it is not filed in that central registry system.
    Mr. Thorne. So if it isn't filed there, they will still 
enforce it?
    Ms. Jaeger. Right.
    Mr. Thorne. How will they know it is valid?
    Ms. Jaeger. They are going to take it on its face. It is 
what it is.
    Mr. Thorne. What if somebody ends up in Juneau or 
Anchorage?
    Ms. Jaeger. Yes, they have a piece of paper kind of a 
thing. We still encourage our tribes to register those in the 
central registry system.
    Mr. Thorne. Is it the State is not willing to take them or 
the tribes are not willing to file them?
    Ms. Jaeger. Sometimes we are having a hard time getting 
them filed into that central registry system. But some of the 
judges are like, State judges are not doing it, others are more 
cooperative.
    Mr. Thorne. To get them filed, do you need a State judge to 
sign off on it?
    Ms. Jaeger. It has to go through the State courts.
    Mr. Thorne. They have to counter-sign the order?
    Ms. Jaeger. I don't know if it is counter-sign.
    Mr. Thorne. Or approve it to go into the system?
    Ms. Jaeger. It has to go through their office in order to 
get it into the central registry system.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, so is there something that TLOA could do 
to help ease that process of getting those in a central 
registry so the validity of those orders isn't questioned 
somewhere else?
    Ms. Jaeger. I don't know. Didn't think about that. I can 
come back to you on that. But it is a big issue. It is hard if 
you are in a really remote village and now you have to register 
this thing with your nearest State court, which is 400 miles 
away.
    Mr. Thorne. It would be nice if you could get online and 
copy and send it someplace and have somebody there put it 
online for you.
    Ms. Jaeger. And not have it, judge by judge, State judge, 
determine oh, well, we will file this one but maybe not this 
one.
    Mr. Thorne. Maybe not that one. Okay. Anybody else on 
multidisciplinary teams? Should we expand those? Currently they 
are supposed to be in place for sexual offenses, for domestic 
violence. Should we expand those to juvenile delinquency or 
substance abuse?
    Mr. Urbina. Yes, I think it should be expanded, Judge, to 
include different aspects of this process, perhaps a victim 
center MDT process. If you have a tribal case and a Federal 
case, sometimes there is a lapse when the tribal case is 
concluded and before the Federal case starts. So it is like a 
gray area there that should be addressed. So perhaps a tighter 
connection between a tribal victim service advocate and a 
Federal advocate, on the cases that are currently in the MDT 
process or currently being prosecuted either in tribal or 
Federal court. In that sense, it should happen there, but it 
also, we have had issues with our public defenders where they 
are prosecuting, they are defending the person in tribal court, 
this could be a tribal member or non-tribal member, we are 
moving towards a resolution. However, there is a Federal nexus, 
and that person could possibly be prosecuted.
    Mr. Thorne. Especially if they make an admission.
    Mr. Urbina. Correct. So if you want a plea agreement, that 
is going to be a problem.
    There are also issues where there might be a secret 
indictment. There are questions about what can be told to 
tribal court in those instances, issues that revolve around 
this area. Our public defender has asked to work with us to 
develop a proposal for the Department of Justice for an actual 
public defender SAUSA program. I am not sure what the acronym 
would be.
    But it makes sense, because in the recent past, we have 
concluded cases in sort of a multi-jurisdictional plea 
agreement. So I think it is going to be necessary going 
forward, especially as more tribes come online. We have four 
conflict attorneys who practice in State court. They are 
raising novel issues in tribal court on evidentiary issues. 
They are using the Federal court process to intervene in tribal 
cases. So it is fairly complex.
    I guess you could say that the tribal system was a 
misdemeanor system in the past. Now that it has become more 
complex, the public defenders need a little bit more expertise 
in some of these cases.
    Mr. Thorne. A little more support.
    Mr. Urbina. And they involve DNA, they involve pretty high 
level things going on.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Trottier?
    Mr. Toulou. Just real briefly, we do use MDTs for other 
things. In fact, I think the model came from the MDTs that were 
involving child abuse. That has been very successful. I think 
Mr. Urbina, what he has described is a perfect example of how 
it can really enhance all kinds of prosecutions. And maybe, if 
used appropriately, public defender services, too. I think 
people have said, maybe the Department of Justice can be 
involved, and we do have an access to Justice office. I know we 
would be interested. But I also think it would be nice to have 
the Federal public defenders involved in that, too. We try to 
be fair in all things, but they tend to represent the other 
side. So I think it would be nice to have them.
    Mr. Thorne. And they have resources that they share among 
themselves, it would help to share those with tribal defenders.
    Mr. Toulou. I could not speak for them; that seems 
reasonable to me.
    Mr. Thorne. Judge?
    Mr. Whitener. That model has worked at Tulalip. We have, 
the tribe itself puts a training on every year for all the 
conflict attorneys and all of the tribal defenders and explains 
the collateral consequences and issues related to multi-
jurisdiction and Federal and tribal jurisdiction. In those 
cases that have those Federal ramifications, what the Tulalip 
defenders do is work with the Federal defenders who then work 
with the U.S. Attorney's office and then they structure some 
sort of deal. And usually the deal is the U.S. Attorney's 
office says, we will sign an agreement essentially declining 
prosecution if it goes forward in the tribe. And you work those 
things out and figure out what pathway it is going to go, and 
then it goes down that pathway.
    But again, that is a process that the Tulalip defender 
created working with their connections in the Federal public 
defender. There is no way for that to structurally be created 
unless you have those connections already. Luckily, we had 
defenders who had those connections, could set those systems 
up.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there a problem caused by separating Federal 
chargeable offenses from tribal chargeable offenses and 
requiring two different prosecutions? So you have an offense 
that could be charged in the Federal court but then you have 
the intoxication, which may be the root cause, but it is 
probably just a tribal misdemeanor. Is there a problem caused 
by that, or are you able to work those things through?
    Mr. Whitener. Usually the tribes usually work those out, 
the tribal prosecutors. I think this is one of the benefits of 
the SAUSAs, is that they are in there working on it, and the 
decision is made as to which way this is going to go, is it 
going to go Federal or is it going to go tribal. If it goes one 
way or the other, we don't parse out the separate charges and 
have some go Federal and have some go tribal, usually. That is 
a really rare thing. Sometimes the prosecution will reserve it. 
They will dismiss everything to make it speedy just in case 
something goes south with the Federal charges.
    But there is a coordination dance that has to be done with 
these crimes. Most of the time, the pathway is figured out.
    Mr. Toulou. If I could, I think we have talked about the 
SAUSA program, the tribal liaison program, a lot today. On its 
face, it would maybe just seem to have an opportunity for the 
tribal prosecutor to bring a Federal case. But it has become so 
much more than that. It is that ability for the SAUSA to 
actually be coordinating what happens, where it works well, 
with the Federal prosecutor. Because they are a Federal 
prosecutor.
    Mr. Thorne. And what the appropriate response is.
    Mr. Toulou. Right. And vice versa. I have seen cases, and 
again, the courts up here I think are good examples of that, 
where things have gone either way. But there is a decision, and 
it is an knowing decision, it is not, oh, I just found out you 
filed in tribal court, oh, I just found out you filed this in 
Federal court. It really is, when it works right, it is a 
discussion between everybody that is involved. That is why 
those two programs have been so successful, I think.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Enhanced sentencing. Is it working? Is it 
a mixed bag? Are there problems that are unexpected with it? 
Judge?
    Mr. Whitener. I think it is a mixed bag in just that, it is 
hard to pay for it, for tribes.
    Mr. Thorne. So the Bureau of Prisons issue, the pilot 
program, would help with that at least?
    Mr. Whitener. It would help with that. The other issue is 
that a lot of those things the tribes are left with, the only 
tool in the tool belt is incarceration.
    Mr. Thorne. It is incarceration.
    Mr. Whitener. And we have heard the discussions about more 
alternatives and things that are, ways to divert out of just 
using the jail and using some other system. It is difficult, 
but we are seeing that all over the United States, that change. 
And tribes should be part of that, looking at things.
    At Tulalip, for instance, the Tulalips created a sober 
living facility that we can take someone, put them in for 30 
days. As long as they have been sober for 30 days, then instead 
of, I may sentence them to a year, but it allows me to say, 
well, you be good for three months, then you'll be sober for 30 
days and then I'll move you to the healing lodge, and you can 
get day for day credit in that facility. So if we have those 
tools, we will use them, versus having somebody and putting 
them in jail.
    Mr. Thorne. So enhanced sentencing works as part of an 
overall package, but not a solution by itself?
    Mr. Whitener. It needs to be part of a bigger, holistic 
package of alternatives and incarceration. There are absolutely 
people who need that three to nine years. But those should be 
the people who are violent.
    Mr. Thorne. The ones who are a real safety concern?
    Mr. Whitener. Serious safety concerns for the community or 
which, and also, again, that triggers the Bureau of Prisons. In 
the Bureau of Prisons, Bureau of Prisons has sex offender 
treatment. And they have vocational treatment, they have 
chemical dependency treatment. And they have those things 
within their national program that we could be taking advantage 
of.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Ms. Jaeger?
    Ms. Jaeger. I just wanted to say something. Alaska is the 
third in the Nation in terms of incarceration rates. We 
incarcerate a lot of people. It is disproportionately 
incarcerating Alaska Native people. I think for Alaska tribes 
in general, they are not as interested in doing the 
incarceration and that enhanced authority along those lines. 
But being able to have that basic jurisdiction to be able to 
handle those lesser crimes and take care of things before they 
build into it, that is where really the heart is at. To be able 
to do that with restorative type sentencing, that is the only 
thing that is really working. It is time-consuming, it is not 
as expansive, but it is time-consuming. But it is really the 
only thing that kind of works. So we're kind of out on that.
    Mr. Urbina. And it is hard to say right now. I think you 
have this new authority, there are a lot of tribes that are 
still going to come online. We just recently had to change our 
constitution in order to pursue enhanced sentencing, because we 
were limited by our constitution. I think what will be helpful 
to determine how useful it is reporting on the back end, on the 
outcomes, and then doing an analysis of Federal outcomes versus 
tribal outcomes. So you are able to see whether there are 
results.
    Mr. Thorne. What works.
    Mr. Urbina. Right. So that will be an important piece to 
address, how we look at this. Tribes are contributing to this 
data and then it is being compared to Federal outcomes. You are 
going to making a decision whether to prosecute in tribal court 
or Federal court more than likely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Do you have the resources that you need 
to have that turned into the enhanced sentencing so you can use 
it selectively in appropriate cases? Or are you stuck with jail 
or nothing? Judge Crawford?
    Ms. Crawford. We are lacking in resources. One of the 
resources that was discussed earlier with SAMHSA is the mental 
health. A lot of our defendants, they are co-occurring, a lot 
of different things going on with them. We don't have the 
resources to adjust, we don't have a treatment center on the 
reservation, so we ship them out. They go to Wyoming, South 
Dakota, they go far away from home. So they lose their 
connection to family.
    Mr. Thorne. Then they come home and face the same things.
    Ms. Crawford. Yes. So in the meantime, the family is still 
home doing the same things, they come back into the same 
situation and they don't have a support system. We do have one 
facility on the reservation and it is more of an outpatient, it 
is supposed to be an intensive outpatient. But it is almost 
like a self-study type thing. We don't have the money to hire 
licensed addiction counselors. IHS can staff our mental health 
psychologist, psychiatrist. We get somebody in there, if we get 
somebody good, we burn them out. Because we need them every 
day, all day, 24/7. So they leave. And then we have a hard time 
filling it. And IHS is, it is tough because of the area. We 
have no housing. Everything affects everything else.
    So our problems, all the way around, it is a domino effect. 
So we can't seem to get the resources there. Money is always an 
issue, we know that. But we also need to come up with new 
ideas. And using the alternative sentencing I think is one of 
the goals that we want to look at. With the enhanced 
sentencing, our council just authorized it in November of 2013. 
So from 2010 to now, it is time-consuming to get in there, to 
change your code. Sometimes you have to hire people on the 
outside to come look and say, what do we need to do. It is a 
long process.
    So right now, I mean, we have only been using it 
technically for less than a year, I think, because even though 
we authorized it and changed our code, we didn't have the 
facility to house them. And now we do. And we have several 
people sitting now on enhanced sentencing.
    But the one thing I noticed about them is they were repeat 
offenders that were getting more and more violent. So that is 
one bonus, is that now we can do something about it. We have 
more, we have put teeth into it rather than, we are going to 
give you six months or a year and review it. We didn't have the 
places to put them, so we would let them out. And then we 
didn't have the money for probation, so we took from other 
areas to put into probation to supervise the people, and now 
our probation is overwhelmed.
    So we have this effect going on with all our programs. But 
resources, we are very short.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Ms. Tingle?
    Ms. Tingle. Yes. There are several things I wanted to talk 
about. First of all, defense, defending a defendant, or public 
defender is paramount. A lot of the things that we are seeing 
in the 81 assessments that we do and that we have been out, is 
that that person has an advocate and that person has someone to 
day, to make the argument, well, maybe we could have some sort 
of alternative sentencing here, where they didn't have that 
opportunity before. So that is something that we are really 
supportive of.
    I don't know that Ron knows, but we are in the process of 
an interagency agreement with the United States Court for the 
Federal defenders to train tribal defenders. We are finishing 
that up. It has been a consummated deal.
    The other thing that Ron talked about is that in the Bureau 
of Prisons, sex offender treatment, defendants go, and Tracy 
can talk about in more detail, but they go to a particular 
place and they are treated at that particular facility.
    Mr. Thorne. So it is not just dead time?
    Ms. Tingle. No. And Indian Country doesn't have that, 
absent the Bureau of Prisons opportunity. I think that is 
something that is very important, for the individual to be 
treated for the actual underlying issue. So they don't go back 
home and they don't re-offend and they don't victimize other 
Indian children. So I am very much in support of the public 
defenders positions.
    Mr. Thorne. We talked a little bit about cooperation with 
the Federal courts. How is cooperation with the State courts? 
Is it there? Is there something that could be done to help 
that? Our people don't stay just on the reservation. They are 
off, they come back, they are off, they come back. What is your 
experience in working with State courts, or is it just non-
existent?
    Ms. Crawford. One of the things that we do have is the 
unique cross-deputization agreement with the other agencies. So 
we do have somewhat of a relationship with them. I wouldn't 
necessarily say the courts, though, but more law enforcement, 
the county attorneys.
    Mr. Thorne. Law enforcement works with each other?
    Ms. Crawford. Yes. And statistically, most of the arrests 
that one of the cities makes, it is a city on the reservation, 
it is about 50 percent Native, 50 percent non-Native, most of 
their arrests come from tribal members, they are arresting 
tribal members, because they are cross-deputized. But it helps 
us, manpower-wise, because we are all short-staffed. But it 
also can create problems and has because of, for instance, 
VAWA. Using the training tools that we are given, not that it 
is not important to them, but they are not aware of the big 
picture of it.
    So when they come across cases where it is a non-Indian 
assaulting an Indian, they know that they are in an intimate 
relationship, they don't know the process of how it works. So 
without them being trained under our cross-deputization, they 
take the guy to the county jail for DC, when they should be 
taking him to the tribal jail under VAWA, for the domestic 
abuse.
    So getting that across in our collaboration with them has 
been a challenge, a bit.
    Mr. Thorne. So maybe some training issues that relate to 
State as well as Federal and tribal people?
    Ms. Crawford. Right.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Maybe like what the officers had talked 
about before, some sort of a bridge program?
    Ms. Crawford. Yes, and we do have that bridge program. It 
is just, sometimes we offer the training. But I just think it 
is maybe our leadership needs to get together and let everybody 
know how important it is.
    Mr. Thorne. Do the judges ever get together and meet?
    Ms. Crawford. We do. And the judges, we actually had a 
meeting with, well, we had a meeting with law enforcement, with 
our tribal government, and we have been reaching out to the 
city governments. So we try to communicate.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge, in Washington State, do you have a 
good working relationship with the state courts, or is it 
problematic?
    Mr. Whitener. I would say yes, although it can vary from, 
in Washington State, the judges are elected in the State. So 
depending on the judge, you can occasionally get judges that 
don't really want to work with the tribes, and then you get 
judges that do. I would say overall, the Washington State court 
system wants to work with tribes. We have a Tribal-State 
consortium, which is a group that has been formed and meets 
regularly to discuss issues.
    I think that the tribal courts and the State courts seem to 
be working well in areas where we have concurrent jurisdiction. 
I know this is a little afield, but in the area of family law, 
for instance, we are able to work out where cases will go 
forward.
    I think there is a lot of opportunity, especially in the 
area of research and data gathering. There is a lot of 
information that the State probably has that the tribes could 
access.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you share criminal records with the State?
    Mr. Whitener. Well, no. Criminal records, no. We were able 
to see the State records through the regular means. There is 
not the similar system. We have 29 tribes in Washington and 
each of them has their own sets of criminal histories for each 
of their defendants.
    Mr. Thorne. So you can't see if one of your people had a 
DUI someplace else?
    Mr. Whitener. Right. There is no system for reporting a 
central system in the State to report. I know that there are 
Federal ways that we could put our convictions into a Federal 
system. I don't know what the tribes would do, if they would do 
that or not. But there is no State sharing of that.
    So those are the kinds of issues that these consortiums 
talk about, is how we are going to share information.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there something TLOA could do to help that 
or encourage that? Or do you have it under control?
    Mr. Whitener. I think any time that there is support for 
funding those coordination efforts, it is going to help. I 
think one of the areas that TLOA can do is also remove those 
places where we are reliant on the State courts when we 
shouldn't be. I think the TAP program is a really important one 
for entering the protection orders in without having to go 
through the State.
    So in Washington, for instance, in order for us to get a 
Tulalip order in the past, into the Federal system, we had to 
issue it in Tulalip, we had to send it to Swinomish County 
court to get full faith and credit, then it had to go to the 
sheriff's office, and the sheriff's office had to enter in into 
NCIC, before it would show up on a data base.
    Along that line, once we sent it over, we didn't really 
know whether or not it actually made it into the data base, and 
we weren't told if it wasn't, that if it was rejected for some 
reason, we weren't necessarily told. And the TAP program allows 
us to do it, which is a big improvement. One of the things I 
know that we have been talking about is having more tribal 
involvement in the development of the policies for TAP and 
trying to expand it. I think those are important things that we 
are having ongoing conversations about.
    But I think that program needs to be supported by the 
United States, made permanent. Because that is an area where 
the State court, we shouldn't have to coordinate with the State 
court but we are forced to in the absence of TAP.
    So that is an area where I don't think we need to 
coordinate as much on that as should. And the other areas, we 
are doing the best we can. Support for things like tribal-State 
consortiums would help.
    Mr. Thorne. In Arizona, are you able to work successfully 
with State courts? Your people are appearing in both systems.
    Mr. Urbina. Right. We do have a fairly good relationship 
with the State, primarily with law enforcement. Our law 
enforcement officers are State-certified officers. We have an 
IGA with the county to share a record management system. So our 
tribal court arrests are available to the county as well as 
county information, State information to the tribe. Those 
convictions and that data is used in tribal court 
determinations for release.
    We typically have that information available for our 
judges. I imagine that that same information is used by the 
State. We work with them also, we have done probably close to 
70 extraditions in the past few years.
    Mr. Thorne. Extraditions out of the State to tribal 
custody?
    Mr. Urbina. From the tribe to the State. So we have 
developed an IGA for extraditions in the reverse. So we will 
reach out to the State here shortly for that purpose. Our VAWA 
defendants, the majority of them have a significant criminal 
history in the State of Arizona. Some of them are felons, some 
of them had warrants. So we need that information.
    But now, in at least three of the VAWA cases, we have folks 
who have absconded from probation. So we need to reach out and 
have the ability to extradite those people back. The State law 
allows that, so we have crafted an IGA that will be talking to 
the State to move in that direction.
    Also, we have been talking about a State SAUSA.
    Mr. Thorne. Oh, okay.
    Mr. Urbina. So a tribal prosecutor, a special State 
prosecutor that will be able to handle those State matters that 
arise off the reservation. So essentially, we build a program 
that would have the ability to prosecute in any jurisdiction. 
That would give us the opportunity to create like a crime 
control policy.
    Right now, the State cases that come off reservation, there 
is a disconnect in communication. So when they are getting 
ready to prosecute, they are not getting the tribal court 
police records and they are dismissing the cases. So this 
program would help alleviate that. Then we would be able to 
have all the data for the reservation, both for non-Indians and 
tribal members.
    Mr. Thorne. Are there any barriers you are encountering in 
trying to set that up that TLOA could try and help fix?
    Mr. Urbina. I think TLOA would help if there was some 
language to encourage that. I don't think there is any barrier 
right now to meeting with State officials to enter an 
agreement. We have several agreements with Arizona DPS for 
evidence analysis and SWAT services. So it is just another 
piece of the puzzle that I think the county and the State would 
be interested in. Essentially, we have been working hand in 
hand for many years.
    Mr. Thorne. Alaska is sort of the opposite end of the 
spectrum. How are the Native communities there dealing with 
State courts?
    Ms. Jaeger. I mentioned a couple of things earlier, but our 
State supreme court just issued kind of a new ruling under 
their criminal rule 11 there that actually opens up a lot of 
opportunity to work with tribes on restorative justice, 
creative sentencing. So our State supreme court is really kind 
of tribal friendly at this point in time. So that is what is 
opening up some of these opportunities.
    So the most recent one I had mentioned was for State 
criminal cases, tribes can monitor, court view [phonetically], 
whatever, and if they want to intervene on that case they can, 
just sort of like ICWA intervenors, but it is on criminal 
cases. And then be part of the sentencing procedures for the 
criminal cases. So that is very interesting, it is very new. We 
haven't really moved too much forward.
    Another thing that is happening increasingly ,and the most 
promising thing, I think, is State court judges, magistrates, 
are actually taking cases into a village, holding court, going 
off the record and we are doing circle sentencing. You might 
have 60, 80 people in a village in that. It is the most 
promising practice in rural Alaska that there can be.
    So that is increasing.
    Mr. Thorne. What is responsible for that? What helped 
create that?
    Ms. Jaeger. Well, that takes certain individuals and 
certain spark plugs to make that happen. I really think that 
the commission report in 2013 that expressed how dire the 
situation is in Alaska really helped stimulate more activity. I 
really do think that was part of the catalyst.
    Mr. Thorne. We are at the end. Just like the last panel, I 
want to give you a chance, if there is something you haven't 
said that needs to be put on the table, for the staff, for the 
members to consider, here is your chance. In basically one 
minute, what is it that you want to make sure is on the table 
before you leave? Judge Crawford, I am going to start with you.
    Ms. Crawford. The Oliphant issue that was discussed 
earlier. I just wanted to touch on that real quick. It is just 
the criminal jurisdiction, having criminal jurisdiction over 
non-Indians, expanding that. In a rural area, I know it is 
quite different from being in an urban area. But the area we 
are in, it is not as rural as Alaska, but we have a tough time 
with our resources. The training that was provided, I would 
like to see that continue. Because we get people in there, we 
get them trained and then they move off. So we are left with a 
gap.
    So those initiatives that are available, if they can put 
that out as often as they can, the information flow, we 
sometimes miss it a lot because we are not seeking it out. I 
really like the idea with the public defenders being part of 
the program.
    Mr. Thorne. It's getting the resources, sharing the 
resources with the Federal public defenders.
    Ms. Crawford. Yes. Because Fort Peck has actually made an 
effort to give the public defender assistance to more 
defendants, because under VAWA, we have given it to non-
Indians, so we are automatically giving it to the Indian 
defenders that are charged with those same crimes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Ms. Tingle?
    Ms. Tingle. I don't want to put a negative spin here, but 
what we have at the table here are the very sophisticated----
    Mr. Thorne. The best.
    Ms. Tingle. Yes. And over Indian Country, there are three 
things that are missing for tribal courts. One is the 
infrastructure. There is not enough infrastructure and there 
are not enough resources. A bailiff is needed. I would bet you 
that 60 percent of the time, and that is a low figure, that a 
bailiff is needed. If you have a protective order, that judge 
and the people in that courtroom need protection.
    So it is the simple things that we who have been in the 
Federal court take for granted. Bailiffs, pre-trial services, 
pre-trial services that would do an assessment on the needs of 
that particular defendant.
    Mr. Thorne. That could get them started beforehand, without 
even having to lock them up, if they have to.
    Ms. Tingle. We are finding that that really does work, to 
do the assessment. I think in the Federal system it works, but 
in the tribal world, the Bureau is trying to do that, just to 
see, and there have been some successes. IT personnel. There 
are things that I never thought about, because I was a 
prosecutor. But a judge needs an IT person to keep all these 
things running. The code development, the understanding that 
the constitution has to be changed. Those are the 
infrastructures that tribes need that are small.
    I commend everybody at this table who has trained at all of 
our trainings. But it is those tribes that need the 
infrastructure, the ability to keep their personnel so it 
doesn't change.
    Mr. Thorne. Develop a professional cadre of people working 
in the system.
    Ms. Tingle. Right. And in that vein, housing. Housing is 
huge in Alaska. I was just in Bethel, AVCP did a training on 
VAWA. I know that Tanana Chiefs is going to do six. And at that 
training, more of the State law enforcement, which I thought 
was really spectacular, just getting people together. I think 
that AVCP is going to submit some of their training video that 
they did.
    But the infrastructure of the villages in Alaska is 
lacking. It has nothing to do with the consortiums, it has to 
do with the funding.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you.
    Judge, what do you want to leave on the table?
    Mr. Whitener. Well, I am going to go actually to something 
that Chairman Cladoosby said, about the VOCA funding, Victims 
of Crime funding. We have been spending a lot of time talking 
about defendants, we have been talking about law enforcement, 
we have been talking about things. We need to think about the 
victims who are also in place. That is an area that tribes 
aren't being allowed to access, again, because it has to go 
through the States. So you are at the mercy of the States and 
less than a percentage of it gets passed over to the tribes.
    The fact is, we also have to remember that our defendants 
move back and forth between status of defendants and victims. 
You would be hard pressed to find a defendant that hasn't been 
a victim multiple times of something. The culture of violence 
and addiction just swirls around them. That funding source 
should be accessed.
    The other thing is to roll what we started with VAWA and 
roll it into TLOA and expand the special domestic violence 
jurisdiction to include crimes that are attached to the crime 
that triggers the jurisdiction. So situations to where someone 
commits a crime against an intimate partner but at the same 
time, in the same incident, commits a crime against a child, a 
violent crime. We have jurisdiction over one part of the whole 
incident, but not the other part. That peel-away 
reauthorization could change that and fix that and strengthen 
that, as well as adding the ability to prosecute stranger 
sexual assault.
    I think those are two glaring areas.
    Mr. Thorne. It doesn't have to just be intimate partner, 
but you could do the stranger offenses?
    Mr. Whitener. Correct.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Toulou?
    Mr. Toulou. I started out talking about the Intertribal 
Technical Assistance working group. I think you have heard a 
lot of great comments, I guess testimony, from some really 
talented and dedicated individuals up here. I would like to 
see, and I am not sure how it would exactly be structured, but 
some support in anything, any follow-up to the Tribal Law and 
Order Act that would enhance the ability to set those sorts of 
working groups up and take advantage of the expertise that it 
is in tribal communities. That is where the best stuff comes 
from.
    Mr. Thorne. Expanding the multidisciplinary teams to look 
at other areas that are already succeeding?
    Mr. Toulou. Actually, the MDTs are fantastic, but also the 
working groups that bring different tribes together to share 
information and to talk to each other about, we know how to 
pull together a jury pool, well, we have a way to do public 
defenders that you haven't thought about, we have a sentencing 
option.
    Mr. Thorne. Peer learning.
    Mr. Toulou. Right.
    Mr. Urbina. I feel like that kid in The Christmas Story 
where they are kicking him down the slide. My friend from 
Alaska says a [indiscernible] fix, expanded definition of 
Indian Country. Of course, the Bureau of Prisons project. But 
if that is going to take a while, then we need a stop gap 
measure now. We need certainty for this process from now until 
that is done.
    Direct funding to tribes, the consultation should be, there 
are annual consultations that are great, the reports are great, 
but they should be broken out by tribes. It is aggregate data 
right now. You really can't look at things until you have that 
data per reservation. So also the declinations and the 
investigation numbers, they need to include not just FBI 
numbers, but also tribal numbers and BIA numbers. It should be 
a little more, the reports indicate that there are problems 
with the data collection. But it has been five or six years, we 
should have been able to address that to get a more 
comprehensive look at what is actually going on out there. 
Because until we have that information, we are not able to 
being look at prevention and things like that.
    So that is important. VAWA was enacted, but it doesn't have 
a reporting piece and it doesn't have a data collection piece 
to that. So we are going to look to reauthorization, but there 
is no data.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. So expand the data.
    Mr. Urbina. Absolutely. If it could be done now, prior to 
reauthorization, that is going to be important, because 
Congress is going to be asking for this information.
    Mr. Thorne. Especially if we are asking for more resources, 
they are going to want to see what the scope of the problem is 
and what the solutions are.
    Mr. Urbina. Absolutely. So no caps on TLOA sentencing. If 
we are providing all the due process that any State court would 
give a defendant, then tribes should be able to determine what 
those caps will be. It could be a pilot program, it could be 
set up in a way where you have a, I don't know, but that 
doesn't need to be there anymore. Tribes have made the 
investments in the system. They have run these cases. There is 
plenty of information now to actually use.
    And then just going back to that, the restoration of full 
jurisdiction for tribes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. And for Alaska?
    Ms. Jaeger. Just for the funding issue, just for a moment, 
though, TLOA did help Alaska tribes out in that it took off the 
restrictions for getting the CTASC grants from certain 
boroughs, and if the population dropped below a certain number 
of people, too. So we appreciate that. But we would love to 
have more CTASC grants going to Alaska.
    It is really critical at some point in time that we be able 
to get some kind of recurring consistent funding coming in, 
even if it is small amounts.
    Mr. Thorne. Something to build on.
    Ms. Jaeger. Something we could build on. And we appreciate 
that. In the fiscal year 2016, there is funding in there to go 
to P.L. 280 States, and hopefully we are hoping that that could 
be recurring and some of that could actually go directly to 
tribes and tribal courts there. So we really encourage that.
    But then on that last note, in terms of the jurisdictional 
issues, in the Congressional, in the report, in the chapter on 
Alaska, the recommendations there, I think there are five or 
six recommendations, did turn on that Congress should overturn 
the Venetie, that the tribes should be able to take land into 
trust, that Congress should affirm Native allotments and 
restricted town site lots are Indian Country. These are 
probably far stretches, probably, to imagine that it is going 
to bring any relief any time soon.
    Mr. Thorne. To accomplish that, we need to start.
    Ms. Jaeger. Yes. So I really think, in the reauthorization, 
if there could be consideration for somehow putting in a piece 
for a pilot project or looking at Alaska in a unique way that 
could authorize jurisdiction over these lesser crimes.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you.
    Let me thank the panel. I appreciate your willingness to 
engage without an agenda and our flexibility. Let's give them a 
round of applause.
    [Applause.]

                  Panel Three--Re-Entry and Recidivism

    Mr. Thorne. And I know we are running behind on schedule, 
so I am going to ask the third panel to come up and we are 
going to try and get started right away. Thank you.
    Welcome to the final panel session. After the panels are 
done, there will be an opportunity for public comments as well. 
Also feel free to submit things in writing to the staff. We 
want to make sure that everything gets considered. I know 
sometimes it is hard to sit in the audience and realize that 
you have a point that you think might make a big difference, so 
we want to make sure you have that opportunity as well.
    This panel is to focus on how successful we have been or 
what we need to be successful for re-entry and to prevent 
recidivism, to see if the system worked. We have talked about 
the front end of the system, with law enforcement, we have 
talked about the middle of the system in terms of what the 
courts are doing. Now we want to find out, what do you need to 
make this work, so that all this effort is not in vain, so we 
can just break that cycle that we have gotten into in our 
communities, where violence and substance abuse has become such 
a risk for our children as they grow up.
    How do we solve this, or how do we begin down the path to 
solve it? What has TLOA enabled you to do, or you would like to 
be able to do, but you feel constrained?
    Mr. Sprint Williams, if you will start, just tell us who 
you are, where you are from and what you think has worked and 
what you need.

  STATEMENT OF SPRINT WILLIAMS, SENIOR CASE MANAGER, MUSCOGEE 
               CREEK NATION REINTEGRATION PROGRAM

    Mr. Williams. Okay. My name is Sprint Williams, I am from 
the Muscogee Creek Nation Tribe. We are located out of 
Henryetta, Oklahoma. I am a senior case manager for the 
Muscogee Creek Nation Reintegration Program.
    Basically what we have done, we formed the Reintegration 
Program in 2005. Since then, we actually assist formerly 
incarcerated Creek citizens, but it goes a little further than 
that. We do up to 120 days of housing.
    Mr. Thorne. A hundred twenty days of housing after they get 
out?
    Mr. Williams. Yes, sir. After they get out. We visit the 
prisons, so we get to kind of know them, know the Creek 
citizens. I visit over 22 facilities out of the 33 in Oklahoma. 
We do 120 days of housing.
    Mr. Thorne. So you work not just in the tribal facilities, 
but also in the State facilities?
    Mr. Williams. All facilities.
    Mr. Thorne. Wherever your members might be?
    Mr. Williams. Yes, sir. We present our data, we have the 
data base that we run off of, we also do $200 in clothing, $100 
in groceries. We do job placement, we do anything, where if 
they do find a job, we get them with clothing and everything 
else. We don't use a cookie cutter approach, we kind of use 
what works and then they have to work up a client plan. From 
there, we have an 80 percent recidivism rate - 80 percent 
success rate.
    Mr. Thorne. Wow. Over what period of time?
    Mr. Williams. In the last five years, calculated.
    We are also constructing a $6.5 million facility at our 
building now, then we are going to house 36 as soon as they get 
out, 28 male, 8 female.
    Mr. Thorne. Is that like halfway housing?
    Mr. Williams. Sort of, but it won't really be halfway, 
because they will be released from incarceration. So it won't 
technically be a halfway house.
    Mr. Thorne. It won't be supervised, but it will be 
transitional.
    Mr. Williams. It will be transitional, but we will have RAs 
onsite. It will be 24-7. We are turning our building now into a 
welding center, so we will have six welding shops where they 
can actually go weld. And we are purchasing land in a nearby 
town called Okemah, 20 miles away, where they can do CDL 
training as well. Because we kind of collaborated and found out 
that those are two areas where employment is pretty easy for 
our clients and our citizens to gain employment through there.
    Those are just some of the avenues we have tried to 
approach. We are going to keep moving forward with it.
    Mr. Thorne. So it is not just a probation approach that 
says, we are going to catch you if you do something, you are 
actually trying to build a bridge for them to transition back.
    Mr. Williams. Yes, sir, we are. We also have a juvenile 
program as well that we are trying to strengthen. We are going 
to hire two more employees through that. Our funding has come 
from, we are tribally-funded, but we also have received two 
CTASC grants, and then with the DOJ, they offered $3.2 million 
for our facility and then our tribe kicked in the $2.78 
million. That is what was able to allow us to have our facility 
that we are currently building and will be completed in 
September. We have received over $6.3 million in grant funding 
as well.
    Mr. Thorne. How many clients have you worked with over the 
last few years?
    Mr. Williams. Four hundred seventy-seven, I believe.
    Mr. Thorne. With an 80 percent success rate?
    Mr. Williams. Eighty percent success rate. I currently have 
31 on my case load, so I think we have about 75 right now, 
total. So as soon as they get in, basically all you have to 
have is your time that you have to be linked to the Department 
of Corrections somehow. You have to be a Creek citizen, because 
we are tribally funded. And you do have to pass a drug 
screening as soon as they get released. If they can't, then we 
will find a rehabilitation center for them to go to. And if 
they complete that rehabilitation center, they can come back to 
the program.
    Mr. Thorne. So you don't just kick them out because they 
were using, you will find them help?
    Mr. Williams. Find them help however we can.
    Mr. Thorne. Give them another shot.
    Mr. Williams. Then in the housing, they have to abide by 
our rules, so they can't have alcohol, drugs, things of that 
nature. It is not that we are trying to be hard on them, but we 
are trying to instill in them some good values so they can be 
tax-paying citizens when it is all said and done.
    Most find employment. So that is our biggest barrier. Our 
other biggest barrier, of course, probably what you guys always 
found, the hardest things for us and for everybody else is sex 
offenders, something that no one wants to talk about, no one 
wants to deal with. But that is an issue we are trying to 
tackle, I think everybody is trying to tackle it the same way.
    But we recently found a grant to where we get three 
trailers each year we can purchase, up to $15,000 apiece. So we 
can kind of locate our sex offenders that way, up to three 
trailers. That is a three-year grant, so we are trying to run 
off of that as well. We purchased these.
    Because it is a public safety issue, and we actually know 
where our guys are at, so some people can't always say that. 
With our tribe, we are trying to treat everybody the same.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. I appreciate that.
    Dr. Cotton?

 STATEMENT OF BEVERLY COTTON, DIRECTOR, DIVISION OF BEHAVIORAL 
              HEALTH, INDIAN HEALTH SERVICE, U.S. 
            DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES

    Dr. Cotton. Thank you. Mr. Williams, that is an impressive 
program.
    Mr. Williams. Thank you, ma'am.
    Dr. Cotton. I will be excited to hear more.
    I am Dr. Beverly Cotton. I am the Director for the Division 
of Behavioral Health, Indian Health Service headquarters. Our 
two primary programs within the Division of Behavioral Health 
are the alcohol and substance abuse program and the mental 
health program.
    As it relates to TLOA, IHS is a critical partner with 
SAMHSA, Bureau of Indian Affairs, DOJ, BIE, as well as other 
Federal agencies that are participating in the Indian Alcohol 
and Substance Abuse memorandum of agreement. The success for 
us, if I had to focus on one area, is the improved Federal 
coordination and collaboration around all of those 
responsibilities under the MOA.
    In particular, IHS helps co-chair the tribal action plan 
work group. In the audience with me today is the Indian Health 
Service work group co-chair, Steven White Horn, who is helping 
to lead that effort for the tribal action plans.
    Mr. Thorne. How many tribal action plans are in place?
    Dr. Cotton. I think previously Ms. Beadle was saying that 
that is a hard number to capture, something that we could 
actually look back to see how many tribes have actually circled 
back. I think it is primarily an issue of the feedback loop of 
tribes that have actually established a tribal action plan, or 
they are actually reporting back to SAMHSA that that has been 
completed. I think an interesting question would be, how do you 
actually frame a TAP? There are many names, strategic plans, 
action plans that are addressing Indian alcohol and substance 
abuse that may not be termed a TAP but that still qualify and 
they are addressing those very issues.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have any idea, a ballpark, even?
    Dr. Cotton. I don't, I'm sorry.
    But the development of those TAP guidelines, actually 
standardizing a system so that tribes have a way to request the 
assistance from Federal agencies on how to develop those TAPs, 
the overall TAP regional trainings that have been conducted 
have resulted in a large number of knowledge sharing on how to 
develop those TAPs.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have the resources to help them create 
that? Or is it just sort of here is how you do it?
    Dr. Cotton. Here is the training. So previously we did hear 
from Ms. Beadle saying, we can train a lot, but the 
implementation piece behind that is one of those areas that we 
want to focus on. The Federal agencies have come together on 
that Tribal Action Plan work group to start looking at a 
strategy on the implementation of those TAPs. So how can we 
take it a step further, from training to actually implementing 
the resources that are needed to build those Tribal Action 
Plans? You can imagine that that is no easy feat.
    Mr. Thorne. And it is not one size fits all.
    Dr. Cotton. Absolutely. It is tailored to each community, 
it has to be specific to that community's needs and to those 
available resources that are present in that community.
    But presently, we are working on that strategy. We are also 
in partnership with Department of Justice through our TAP work 
group. We are successful in launching the virtual learning 
communities, so we are working on establishing additional 
resources through a virtual format to bring together tribes 
that have already worked on those TAPs to be able to share and 
disseminate that knowledge with other tribes.
    Mr. Thorne. And mentor others. Okay. Ms. Broken Leg-Brill?

        STATEMENT OF PATRICIA BROKEN LEG-BRILL, DEPUTY 
         ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR FOR CORRECTIONS, OFFICE OF 
       JUSTICE SERVICES, BUREAU OF INDIAN AFFAIRS, U.S. 
                   DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR

    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Good late afternoon, everyone, 
greetings. My name is Patricia Broken Leg-Brill, the Deputy 
Associate Director for Corrections at BIA. I joined the Bureau 
nine years ago. Coming into the Bureau, you really look to them 
as a guidepost for standards and guidelines and those kinds of 
things. Coming in the door, we didn't have that. When TLOA was 
passed, what that did for us was it was successful in opening 
the door to allowing us to put together BIA detention 
guidelines.
    Those guidelines came from the American Correctional 
Association, the foundation of the core jail standards. What we 
did was we pulled together tribal practitioners from the field, 
tribal jail administrators, brought them together and we 
developed the first set of standards that were appropriate for 
Indian Country jails.
    So TLOA was successful in opening that door through working 
with tribal partnerships and producing the first set of 
standards.
    The second thing that it did was it allowed us to develop a 
long-term detention plan. So the Department of Interior, with 
DOJ, established a partnership and developed the first plan. 
What that did was it set up, it set the stage to start to 
enhance the current justice for alternative sentencing and 
rehabilitation.
    Mr. Thorne. The plan, is that the nationwide plan or is 
that a plan specifically for individual tribe?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. A nationwide plan. It was guide for 
all of us to look at and say ,here is a recommendation coming 
forth that all the agencies should start looking at 
alternatives to sentencing.
    So with that, we had taken the first, in corrections, we 
had taken the first step in saying, we identified that not all 
of our juvenile detention centers had a full academic education 
program. And we took the first step in placing teachers at each 
one of our locations, and we have three nationwide, to be able 
to do that. Because we recognized earlier on that education is 
key to rehabilitation. Children who are not receiving that, we 
will not be taking steps toward rehab.
    So that is what we did, was we put together the first 
education contract in those three locations.
    Mr. Thorne. And that national plan that you put together 
for the detention centers, did you build in flexibility for the 
tribes to do things other than incarcerate?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Yes. And I will jump right on that 
next.
    So the next thing we did was look at alternatives. Those 
alternatives included working with the courts, and what works 
by location. Because one size does not fit all. We know that, 
working in Indian Country. We also know that every court is 
different and how they sentence and their resources. So with 
that being said, we did leave that open. We definitely took a 
look at a lot of things that courts were currently doing and 
what works for them and continue to support them through the 
detention aspect. I am only speaking from the detention aspect.
    Some of that could be, whether it be the ankle bracelets, 
drug courts and various different things, we continue to 
support those. And also encourage tribes to look toward the 
resources that the Federal Government may have, if they were 
interested in those kinds of programming.
    Mr. Thorne. If a tribe is running the detention program, is 
there flexibility so they can, say, take some of those 
corrections officers and make them outreach people in the 
community? Or is it tied just to the facility?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. In creativity, and this is what TLOA 
did for us, some programs, from some of our tribal programs we 
are already doing that. Meaning that some correctional officers 
were also working as case managers. They call them program 
specialists, and those kinds of things, because they recognized 
that in order to have that flexibility they needed to take some 
of those positions and then partner with the tribal resources. 
Whether that be transition kids or adults back into the 
community, but they were very creative.
    So yes, some tribes were doing that. And now even more so, 
as we went throughout Indian Country learning what we were 
doing with the jails, we did learn that. So it was very 
creative, with the tribes' approach.
    Mr. Thorne. So if a tribe has a program, they have that 
flexibility or at least they could work with you to get that 
flexibility?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Yes, they could work with us to get 
that flexibility, especially with juveniles. With juveniles, we 
realize that just, as you heard today, just placing them in 
jail is not going to solve anything. And if we could help and 
assist in any way we possibly can through the courts to find 
alternative placement, that is what we would do.
    Education is one thing. But getting those valuable 
resources that only the community and the tribes can help us 
with is very important. That is what we would support. So those 
were the things and I am sure we will get more into 
alternatives. But those were the things that opened the door 
for us, was getting the standards in place, standards 
supporting health and care of our inmates and programs and 
services. So we did a very good job at arresting them and 
locking them up. But TLOA helped us to have care and concern, 
the two main pieces that we needed for our Indian people.
    So we were able to do that and really basically get out of 
warehousing and now enter into rehabilitation and looking at 
alternatives.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Little, welcome back.
    Mr. Little. Thank you, Your Honor.
    I would just like to reiterate what my Chief of Corrections 
said and also, I met with numerous tribal councils and numerous 
tribal leaders. We are here to serve them, to help them, the 
same as our legislators. But it takes the village to raise the 
child and it takes the tribe to help the people. So I would 
like to put a personal face on it.
    We recently ran a huge drug operation on our reservation 
down in New Mexico. We had 35 plus defendants. Two of my 
sisters were caught up in that, both federally and tribally. So 
it hit home to me. And what was the problem, what started it, 
again, education, early. How do we bring these people back into 
our community now, dealing methamphetamine, dealing drugs? 
These are our relatives, these are our families. How do we help 
these people and bring them back?
    It takes an individual, like Mr. Williams says, an 
individual map on each person to help them through the system. 
But it takes the cooperation between all the tribe, the tribal 
entities. The Federal Government can't do it themselves. The 
tribe can't do it themselves. It does take that cooperation.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge Hart, what has TLOA been able to do 
to help you help the families and help the kids?

STATEMENT OF HON. KAMI HART, CHILDREN'S COURT JUDGE, GILA RIVER 
                        INDIAN COMMUNITY

    Ms. Hart. My name is Kami Hart, I am a children's court 
judge with the Gila River Indian Community. One of the things 
is that we were doing a lot of things that other tribes weren't 
doing already in Gila River, prior to enacting TLOA. So we were 
already focusing on rehabilitation, we already had, we ran our 
own juvenile detention facility and our own adult detention 
facility. So we already had programs in place.
    The thing that we had to focus on was how to put programs 
in place that were specifically for the long-term enhanced 
sentencing. Because all of our programs were programs that were 
for under a year. We didn't have GED programs in there for 
adults. We had it for juveniles, but we never had anything 
focused for anyone that would be incarcerated for longer than a 
year.
    So that is where we started working on some of our more 
longer-term programs. But for our juveniles, it has always been 
that our juveniles should never stay in detention. There is not 
one case where it will ever be that the juvenile is just 
sentenced to detention. They always have the option to leave 
detention to go into a residential treatment center. We have 
been lucky to work really closely with our State Medicaid 
program, so they are actually the ones that are funding for our 
juveniles to go into detention. So it is not the tribe having 
to do it.
    The problem is though, then it is up to Medicaid to decide 
when they go into treatment, and they don't always agree that 
they have reached that level of going into treatment. But it is 
always something that we are working for and pushing. So it is 
more on the program side for us.
    Mr. Thorne. That has expanded your range of resources, 
then, that are available.
    Ms. Hart. Yes, absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Toulou?
    Mr. Toulou. My Federal partners have talked a lot about the 
coordination that the Trial Law and Order has helped with on 
substance abuse and treatment, which is key in this area. And 
frankly, it is really tough. Just to take a little different 
way in, probably even a harder area to get a handle on in 
Indian Country is re-entry. Mr. Williams talked a little bit 
about that, I think. Sounds like he is a pretty well-resourced 
tribe with some things in place that we don't see everywhere, 
such as a job base and training to do that.
    But we have been very interested in re-entry generally in 
this Administration, and this Attorney General in particular. 
One of the things we have been trying to do and have recently 
done successfully is to work not only with the tribes but with 
the surrounding State and local communities to try and find 
those re-entry resources that might not generally be available. 
Because frankly, a person who commits a crime on one side of 
the reservation line is likely to commit it on the other side 
the next day.
    So at Standing Rock this last summer, they pulled together 
an MOU that set up a multidisciplinary, multijurisdictional re-
entry services team. I don't know that that is going to work 
everywhere, because Standing Rock is fairly close to a non-
Indian community that is big enough to have the jobs. But it 
does bring all those social service components in and the 
access to jobs in a way that just the Federal Government and 
the tribes often can't do.
    Mr. Thorne. And targeting the local community, the 
realities of where are the jobs, how do we get people qualified 
for that.
    Mr. Toulou. Right.
    Mr. Thorne. How do we make them acceptable to local 
employers.
    Mr. Toulou. Exactly. Because if you are going to have a 
successful re-entry program, you need to have a job for the 
person coming out. And that is often, given our unemployment 
rates in Indian Country, a tough lift. That is one opportunity 
we are trying to explore further.
    Mr. Thorne. Mr. Williams, what do you need to go to the 
next step?
    Mr. Williams. I think with the direction that we are going, 
with the housing that we are creating and everything else, we 
also try to utilize every part of the tribe that we can. So we 
use our TERO department, which is Tribal Employment Rights 
Office. So every client that comes into our office fills out an 
application for them, so every client goes into that job bank.
    I would say the next thing for us would just be to expand 
even bigger. We purchased over five acres of land where we are 
now and then we have to purchase a little more. We got it for 
$75,000 when we did come in and then we purchased all the way 
to a nearby nursing home to where we are. So we will just keep 
expanding. We are going to have a campus-style, almost like a 
college, right now, when it is completed in September. So the 
sky is the limit. We can just keep going, more clients, maybe 
some more job opportunities. We have looked at maybe some 
different kind of bead work, leather work, different things. We 
also have classes in place for those that can't maybe go to 
welding or do CDL. We are going to have instructors at our new 
building that are going to teach classes.
    Currently, every client that gets out, they have to go 
through some little small courses, like [indiscernible] for a 
change, victim's impact responsibility course, job coaching and 
family relationships. So we are taking all these things into 
consideration, but we are never throwing any new ideas. But I 
would just say expanding and getting more clients to where we 
are just bigger.
    Mr. Thorne. Are you able to access Federal housing or 
Department or Labor sources to facilitate, or multiply, 
leverage what you are doing?
    Mr. Williams. That is interesting, because in our tribe we 
are not necessarily on a reservation. Our capital is in 
Okmulgee, Oklahoma, which is 15 miles north of where we are 
located, and we expand to eight counties. Eleven counties 
total, but the majority of eight counties, and a small part of 
three other counties.
    So in tribal housing, where we are, they don't allow 
anybody that has a felony in our housing. So just this year, we 
were able to get the first one in there. So that is kind of, we 
are going to try to tackle that as well.
    Mr. Thorne. So that sounds like a legal barrier. Is that 
something that TLOA could help you fix if there was at least a 
waiver, if they participate in a program like that, that the 
felonies would not be a disqualification?
    Mr. Williams. Yes, basically it could, I think. Because at 
the same time, it is not a, we thought it was a NAHASDA 
requirement that it couldn't happen, but it is actually just 
our own tribe's housing. So we just put a new chief in place 
last month, so we are going to meet with him on some things.
    We are also big on the box issue that is coming out, with 
trying to eliminate the box where you have to check off that 
you are a felon. So we are trying to work on that to where, it 
may not make it to where so many more are getting employment, 
but if we can eliminate that box coming in -
    Mr. Thorne. Every success is one more person.
    Mr. Williams. That they don't have to put down they have a 
felony, if we can eliminate that, then maybe 10 percent, 20 
percent more of them might get that job. If somebody did 
something 15 years ago that was kind of a minor felony, 
obviously you aren't going to put someone who maybe embezzled 
into a place where they are handling money, but different 
things of that nature we are trying to tackle. Also the casino, 
we are trying to get some of our clients into the casinos where 
they can actually work. They currently have to have a gaming 
license, so they won't give somebody with a felony a gaming 
license.
    But if we can get it to where maybe they can go in and wipe 
down machines or work maintenance or do janitorial work, or 
whatever it may be.
    Mr. Thorne. You hate to disadvantage young people just 
because they were young and stupid once.
    Mr. Williams. That's right.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Ms. Cotton, what would you 
need to be able to take those services and put them into the 
hands of people who can make a difference, like Mr. Williams 
and people like him?
    Dr. Cotton. We are taking some positive steps in unifying 
the Indian Health Care Improvement Act and the Tribal Law and 
Order Act memorandum of agreement. So there are two agreements 
that exist right now. What we are doing as part of our Indian 
Alcohol and Substance Abuse work is unifying those. So looking 
at the language that we can leverage the resources where they 
are needed, prevent the duplication. The partners that are 
working on both sides of the Indian Health Care Improvement Act 
and TLOA are often the same. So that is a positive direction, 
so that we can address the mental health issues along with the 
substance abuse.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there a way to leverage the Medicaid 
expansion?
    Dr. Cotton. I think that is an interesting question and 
certainly, State by State. These particular issues are about 
coordination of programs, making sure that we are leveraging 
those resources, making sure that our memoranda of agreement 
work in tandem, that we can actually build the momentum to have 
a lot of forward movement under both agreements.
    The other thing is just the comprehensive planning. The 
Tribal Action Plans are so important to make sure that there is 
a comprehensive approach in each community, so that tribes have 
the opportunity and the resources to be able to address all of 
the alcohol and substance abuse issues in a comprehensive way. 
That ties back into tying in mental health issues as well. So 
you can't address just alcohol, substance abuse. You have to be 
able to look at employment and education and housing and all 
the other things that are really integral to addressing 
substance abuse issues. Those are the positive steps, the next 
steps that we are interested in taking.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Ms. Broken Leg-Brill, what do you need to 
be able to put the resources into the hands of people who can 
make a difference?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. In detention, that is huge. We are 
just a small piece of everything that is going on in the 
community. I think if we were to enhance the community and 
those resources outside of us, that would make it a whole lot 
easier to be able to deliver the service on the inside.
    Mr. Thorne. Are there barriers to that collaboration that 
you could identify that we could maybe fix?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. It comes back down to resources and 
what is available. But that is what stands out the most to me.
    I think because every court is different and every 
community is different, it takes time in each one of our 
communities to develop, I guess, that communication and what is 
available for our inmates, coming in and leaving. I think what 
would be helpful is if the courts had more tools, someone said 
it earlier, more tools in their tool bag other than just jail, 
especially for those who are mentally ill. They do not belong 
in jails. Those that are homeless, those that don't have 
anywhere to go, jail is not the option.
    But we as a community, when I say we, I am talking about 
all our tribal programs, all of our tribes, we have a sentence 
to take care of our people. With that being said, I have to 
seriously depend on everybody in the community, the resources 
within the court, and so forth. So when I say detention is just 
a small piece of this, we are detaining them but it is really 
dependent on what is outside of us for jobs, opportunities, 
treatment, alternative sentencing, you name that.
    So we are heavily impacted in one aspect of that. But it 
just dependent on what location we are in.
    Mr. Thorne. If a tribe in Oklahoma or Arizona wanted to do 
something different in their detention, is there somebody they 
could come to at your office for help?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Yes, there is. What we would do is, 
for example, Salt River came and they wanted to become TLOA-
compliant. TLOA allowed us to, through the detention standards, 
to be able to take a look at their current practices and what 
they were doing, because our compact with the tribe is very 
limited in how we interact. So what they did is it opened up a 
lot of avenues to us to begin partnerships in how they address 
certain things within the detention center and the current 
resources that they had in the community.
    So yes, the point of contact would be the BIA. What we are 
trying to do is get other components of it added, which is 
peer-reviewing. Peer-reviewing is a process where we would have 
like, if Oklahoma wanted to become a peer reviewer with us 
through the standards and looking at alternatives instead of 
just strictly jail, we would definitely entertain those kinds 
of things. Because there is enough flexibility for us to be 
able to have that approach.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. One of the things I have heard in some 
communities is they are afraid of doing alternatives, because 
they are going to lose the funding for their detention center 
if they do that. If they get to the point where they don't have 
anybody in their detention center, or they only have one or two 
people, they are afraid they are going to get their funding 
yanked. Is that accurate or is that just a myth that we need to 
work on?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. I think that is a myth we need to 
work on.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, good.
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. The money stays right where it is. 
How we approach that, and through creativity, if the need is 
more, and maybe we can touch on that next with you, if the need 
is more to look at these alternatives, then that is something 
we should entertain. Because the need is still there regardless 
of how we look at it. It may not just be jail.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Mr. Little?
    Mr. Little. One of the things I think we would like to see 
continued funding on is a pilot program that we started this 
year, the recidivism reduction initiative. We started this in 
three tribes and we got extra funding. It is to look at each 
individual person, take a percentage of the frequent flyers, 
the people who are incarcerated every week, every month for the 
same thing. We take these individuals, make a plan for them, 
how can they be successful in the community individually. And 
our goal was to try to reduce recidivism by 3 percent within a 
fiscal year. The three tribes combined reduced recidivism an 
average of 46 percent just within this first year.
    Mr. Thorne. What tribes are those, so that people can start 
to look at those as examples?
    Mr. Little. Red Lake, Ute Mountain Ute and Duck Valley.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Mr. Little. So we would like to put more programs like this 
out there, but again, it is working with the tribe, law 
enforcement and the court system to individualize progress for 
these people that keep coming into our system.
    Mr. Thorne. What kind of resources would you need to be 
able to take those three lessons that are learned and share 
those with others?
    Mr. Little. If you model that with what some of the tribes 
are doing, better working with SAMHSA, with IHSA and in those 
communities, and getting those resources into one area, 
basically bring everybody to the table, you take that one 
individual, bring them into a room or into a setting, and have 
everybody at the table that is a stakeholder for that 
individual, would be unique, would be successful in our 
community, whether it is IHS.
    So I think that is the key, is bringing everybody together 
to tailor that program for that individual.
    Mr. Thorne. So a multidisciplinary approach custom fit?
    Mr. Little. Custom fit.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge Hart?
    Ms. Hart. One of the things, and I know we have talked 
about it with some of the other panels, is the resources. But 
one of the problems we have is, we don't have the same funding 
resources as the States have. The States have entitlement 
programs that we have to always, year after year, apply for the 
grants.
    Mr. Thorne. What kinds of programs do they have that you 
would like access to?
    Ms. Hart. A lot of it, even with the prison funding, the 
funding for the prisons, funding for the juvenile detention 
centers, the juvenile prisons, that we as Indian communities 
don't have access to, we can apply through CTASC, but then it 
is so competitive. CTASC is absolutely 100 percent a 
competitive grant, and everyone always refers to CTASC, well, 
you can apply for CTASC. It is competitive, and if we don't get 
that grant this year, we have to wait until next year and then 
apply, and keep applying.
    I know at Gila River there was one year where we applied 
the exact same grant application three years in a row. I mean, 
we changed it to hopefully make it more competitive, but it was 
the same program that we kept wanting year after year because 
it is so competitive. Then once you get it, you have it for the 
three years and then what happens after three years? We are 
lucky in Gila River because we do have a lot more resources 
than some of the more rural tribes.
    So we have access, we have more money than a lot of other 
tribes. And we have grant writers. A lot of tribes don't have 
grant writers, and if their only resource is the CTASC grant 
and hopefully maybe writing it well enough for whoever is 
reviewing it to give them the grant. And then even then, what 
happens if that person leaves and now three years later, that 
grant is up? Do you have to then stop a program because you ran 
out of funding for it?
    Mr. Thorne. So you can use tribal money to sort of continue 
a program?
    Ms. Hart. In Gila River, we can. But in other places, it is 
almost impossible.
    Mr. Thorne. More problematic. Okay. Are there specific 
Federal programs that you think States have access to that 
would help, if you could access it, like the State does, that 
would help you do continuation and planning and perfection?
    Ms. Hart. Particularly what I personally, is the education 
piece that tribes don't have access to the same education 
piece. When it comes to the State of Arizona's prison systems, 
having access to continuing education past getting their GED, 
our tribes don't have access to the community colleges or the 
universities to then continue that education.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Toulou?
    Mr. Toulou. We are talking about the Tribal Law and Order 
Act here, which is an authorizing statute. But the resources 
keep coming out, so I am going to jump on the bandwagon because 
it is important. In our budget for next year, we have asked for 
7 percent set-aside in the Office of Justice program funding, 
which is CTASC, but that would more than double what we had 
last year. I know these are tight fiscal times, but we really 
think those resources would go where they need to go in tribal 
communities in a way that they maybe don't now.
    Tagging it to what other communities are getting, it is 7 
percent of the total OJP budget. We think that is an equitable 
way to do that and serve the needs of tribes. Again, I know 
this isn't about money, but money comes into it.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Let me ask you to focus a little bit on 
reintegration. When people are leaving lockup facilities, what 
do you need, what are the barriers that you have to helping 
them succeed once they are back in the community? Anybody can 
start. Judge Hart?
    Ms. Hart. One of our barriers is housing. We actually did 
change our policies for housing to allow for felons to live in 
our housing, but we still have a lack of housing. So we don't 
have any resources, like a halfway house or someplace on-
reservation for them to go. That is one of our biggest 
barriers.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Anybody else?
    Mr. Williams. I am going to agree with Judge Hart on the 
housing. That is probably the number one barrier, and then the 
immediate needs that would be number two would be the clothing 
and the groceries and different things and obviously the 
employment part. But with the housing, kind of what we do, we 
just do the 120 days, but we expand to all the counties. If 
they are able to locate somewhere where they want to live and 
they find a landlord that is willing to rent to them, we go and 
actually look at the housing, see if it is up to code and 
everything, then we start making the payments to them. So we 
kind of put the ball in their court a little bit, and we try 
not to place them to where they committed their crime. We try 
to get them away from the same, back to their old watering 
hole, per se.
    We also utilize Tulsa a lot. I don't know if you are 
familiar with Oklahoma at all, but Tulsa is kind of where the 
bigger job market would be, compared to where we are located. 
It is really sparse where we are located, it is a really rural 
area. Housing is the biggest, and there have been a couple 
other tribes, I'll say this real quick, Chocktaw Nation and 
Chickasaw Nation, Chocktaw Nation just started a reintegration 
program they modeled off our program. They have been trying it 
for years and they are just now getting it started.
    We just met with them the other day as well, and they are 
going to try a housing program as well. It may not be 120 days 
but it may be 90 days. But any kind of amount is better than a 
zero amount. I would say that if you do have the funding to put 
your people in housing somewhere, then that is the number one 
barrier when many people get out. They have burned a lot of 
bridges with family and everywhere else. We try to get them to 
reconnect with their family a lot of times. But you get a guy 
that may have been we have one guy that was incarcerated at 17, 
he did 34 years, now he is 51 years old, he doesn't have any 
family. So for him, what is he going to do, where is he going 
to go? His $50 and his bus ticket isn't going to take him very 
far. So if we didn't give him housing, what else would there be 
to do, other than probably re-offend and go back?
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. For the Federal partners, are there 
programs that you can point to that say, here is an example of 
what we would like to be able to do elsewhere? Mr. Little?
    Mr. Little. I think continued care for that individual 
coming back into the community. We really lack, in our Federal 
system, as far as tribal, BIA direct service probation and 
parole. Continued service for that individual to help them. I 
talked to an inmate who is recurring, who came back into the 
system. I was talking to her and she said, ``People stopped 
caring about me. People stopped caring what I did, so I just 
started doing it again.'' So I think that continued resource, 
we really don't have a good system for parole and probation.
    Mr. Thorne. For a bridge coming back in, support systems.
    Mr. Little. Yes, tribal programs.
    Mr. Thorne. Is there someplace that you have seen that does 
it well?
    Mr. Little. I think Salt River does it really well. They 
have that long-term tribal parole system.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay.
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. I am going to have to agree with the 
same thing. Where do they go? Once we release our inmates, 
where do they go? They have burned bridges. We have them a 
point, by standards and policy they are healthy, we have them 
back on track medically, we have done a lot for them while they 
were with us. Now sending them back out, they don't have 
anywhere to go.
    So I think if anything I would hope for is some sort of 
link, some sort of continuum of care for them, whether it be 
adult and juvenile. Juvenile is more serious, because sometimes 
when kids re-offend, they come back and they say, I don't have 
the structure, not in those words, but they will say -
    Mr. Thorne. Where do I go and who cares about them.
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. And I'm going back to the same place 
where I escaped from. Those are the stories we hear over and 
over in detention. So if there is anything, as a Federal 
agency, that we really have to work on, it is that connection 
back to the community and those resources that, well, we took 
care of them once before and they are diabetic and we release 
them back into the community and they are off those medications 
again and something happens, that caring piece is not there.
    Mr. Thorne. Rebuilding those relationships and helping them 
with the equivalent of after-care, really.
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Absolutely, yes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Dr. Cotton, are there places you can 
point to that are doing this well?
    Dr. Cotton. I think we have many examples of things that 
are working, the youth regional treatment centers that are that 
funded and operated by IHS and tribes are a necessary component 
to address for Native youth, I think. Patricia brings up about 
the after-care services, it is so important. The same concept 
of those youth regional treatment centers, they go for 90 days 
to treatment and then we put our Native youth oftentimes back 
into the same situations and the same environment. They have an 
uphill battle facing them.
    In fiscal year 2017, we are requesting a small pilot 
project to look for helping with that, after-care services, 
what does that coordination look like after leaving especially 
a regional treatment center and the struggles that it takes for 
families to incorporate as part of the treatment, and looking 
at those after-care services, when they return home.
    Another area that has been really critical is increasing 
access to treatment. How do we do that when we know we are 
facing so many struggles with recruitment, retention, all of 
the things that surround the shortages of behavioral health 
services in Indian communities. That has been through our Tele-
Behavioral Health Center of Excellence, that was funded and 
established through a pilot project that was formerly called 
our methamphetamine and suicide prevention initiative, now 
referred to as our substance abuse and suicide prevention 
program. But we actually were able to establish that tele-
behavioral center, expand it, I think, over the six-year pilot. 
There were particular projects that were funded to establish 
and increase the use of tele-behavioral health. We saw the 
tele-behavioral health encounters increase over that six-year 
period. We are definitely looking at expanding that nationwide, 
outside of just that initiative.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Mr. Toulou, have you seen places that are 
successful at breaking that cycle of abuse, substance abuse, 
arrest, incarceration, release, substance abuse, arrest, 
incarceration, release?
    Mr. Toulou. I wish I had just one I could tell you. But 
honestly, and these folks have more contact than I do directly 
with those sorts of program outcomes. I don't, and it is partly 
because there are so many pieces that need to come in together. 
I think there are tribes out there that are doing nice bits and 
pieces.
    I talked about the joint program of the State when I 
started out. I am hopeful something like that will bring those 
additional wraparound resources in. But that hasn't gone far 
enough.
    Mr. Thorne. Do you have any place that is charged with 
finding success stories and then spreading that?
    Mr. Toulou. Again, I wish I could say I did. But that is 
probably a good thing to be looking at in the future, is how we 
can identify. We have talked a lot about it in the first two 
panels, about things that are very concrete. This is really 
important, but it is much broader and harder to get our heads 
around. So it might be something we want to look for in the 
future.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. We are coming to a conclusion for the 
time for the panel. But I want to give each of you a chance to 
put anything on the table that you think needs to be considered 
by the staff, by Committee members, about TLOA, something that 
would be helpful or something that would be helpful to get rid 
of. Mr. Williams, we will start with you. Is there anything you 
think needs to be on the table that we haven't talked about 
yet?
    Mr. Williams. I think the mental health aspect of it, I 
think Dr. Cotton spoke a little bit about that. We recently 
received a grant for that as well. So that is kind of what we 
are more running into, is that a lot of the clients and our 
citizens that are getting out of incarceration, they can really 
gain employment and then hold employment due to the mental 
health aspect. So that is something I think that needs to be 
talked about and touched on.
    Another thing that the Creek Nation is trying to do, my 
tribe, we got another grant to where we are funding 20 homeless 
veterans for the next couple of years. So they are going to 
hire a case manager to basically find these veterans and to get 
them a year voucher for housing and also help them out with the 
mental health aspect of everything.
    So that is something, too, that we are trying to delve into 
a little bit is the homeless aspect of it.
    Mr. Thorne. The issue of the veterans, Indian Country has 
the highest percentage of people who serve in the armed forces. 
That means we are going to have the highest percentage of 
people who are coming home with issues that we need to help 
with.
    Mr. Williams. Actually, in July, myself and another co-
worker, we stayed in downtown Tulsa. This is a tad off the 
subject, but we didn't cut our hair and we didn't shave or 
anything for seven weeks. We stayed for 60 hours in downtown 
Tulsa just to kind of see how it is and see how the homeless 
live. We stayed on the streets for that amount of time.
    We have also now, we do search and rescue missions to try 
to find homeless people to try to take them to different 
shelters and what-not. We want to create, in the future maybe, 
if our tribe can create a building of some sort where we can 
actually house homeless veterans there. I think a lot of times 
when people deal with the homeless, a lot of them don't want to 
go into like a gym type aspect, where there are so many of them 
just sitting by one another. If we had like maybe even a small 
building that just had their own little room there, somewhere.
    So that is another issue we are dealing with. It goes into 
the mental health aspect as well. I think that is a lot of the 
problems that we are getting used to, is more of our clients 
that are getting out of incarceration have extreme mental 
health issues that need to be addressed.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay, thank you. Dr. Cotton?
    Dr. Cotton. I think I would basically reinforce that 
answer, looking at not just the mental health issues, just make 
sure that we have a really strong, comprehensive approach to 
all of these issues. That is in TLOA, that is bringing us 
together for the coordination and the collaboration of those 
issues. So that already exists.
    I think that the issues that we have heard about today are 
all of those after-care and transitional services that are 
currently in TLOA. That is such a critical component of being 
able to effectively address any of the alcohol and substance 
abuse issues, is that those other services, we may all together 
come together and just have a piece of it. But without all of 
them, we don't make a comprehensive whole.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Ms. Broken Leg-Brill?
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. I want to also say that the 
wraparound services, all stakeholders being involved and 
helping reduce recidivism and re-entry back into the 
communities is very key, especially in tribal jails. Our tribal 
jails, although there are challenges to resources, there is 
still a way that our resources locally could meet and try to 
develop a plan, especially for our high offenders. I should 
say, the ones returning often.
    Mr. Thorne. Frequent flyers.
    Ms. Broken Leg-Brill. Yes. There you go. So with that being 
said, I really think that as a Federal entity, continuing to 
participate at a national level and at a local level, because I 
get the honor of working in my jails as well. So on the local 
level, national level, continuing inter-agency communications 
and also begin to promote stakeholders being involved. I think 
once you show the Indian inmate you care, sometimes that is all 
it takes. Money and anything else, that is all set aside. It is 
how we move them back into the community, it is the services 
that we bring to them. Sometimes that is all it is.
    Mr. Thorne. Thank you. Mr. Little?
    Mr. Little. I think after five years of TLOA, I think we 
kind of see kind of a road map of where we need to go. One of 
the most frustrating things, I think Mr. Walters can attest to 
this, some of the tribes that we deal with on a regular basis, 
is dealing with the bureaucracy in the government, trying to 
get something build that you need to get built, because 
everything is so stovepiped. So maybe going forward, if we 
could streamline some of the processes within the government 
system itself, I talk to tribes, again, daily. The biggest 
thing that they want is resources and stuff. Even if I had the 
resources, I can't get it to them sometimes, because of the red 
tape, because of the processes in place. So if we could 
streamline some of the bureaucracy within the government, I 
think it would help.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Judge Hart?
    Ms. Hart. I know it was discussed earlier, but with the 
reauthorization of TLOA, that is one of the things that would 
be, to make it mandatory for, I know some things are mandatory 
as far as programming, but really make it mandatory with regard 
to the mental health aspect and the reintegration. I don't 
remember who said it, but it was on one of the earlier panels, 
that all of the perpetrators were victims at some point, not 
just for sexual abuse but even in just assaults or domestic 
violence. We are not addressing that, and we are not preparing 
the inmates to come out of custody and be a member of society, 
be a member of the community, be a parent, be a partner. They 
just don't know how. So that is one of the things that really 
needs to be mandatory in TLOA. Some of these mental health and 
reintegration and rehabilitation programs are actually in place 
that specifically are allowing them to come back into the 
community.
    Mr. Thorne. So you are talking about mandatory programs in 
place if they are going to be incarcerated?
    Ms. Hart. Yes.
    Mr. Thorne. Mandatory program while they are in custody?
    Ms. Hart. Yes.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Thank you. Mr. Toulou?
    Mr. Toulou. First, thank you for moderating this all day. 
That is a long time on your feet, a long time sitting.
    The one thing I would like to say is, I mean, I think 
everything everybody has said is completely valid. The 
substance abuse and mental health of this are really important. 
But I think the other thing we kind of touched on was the other 
components that are going to be necessary, which are jobs and 
housing. So if we are looking at this in the future we have a 
good working relationship with HHS and Interior as we work 
through these issues. There may be other agencies that should 
be involved. I'm thinking HUD and -
    Mr. Thorne. HUD and Department of Labor?
    Mr. Toulou. Yes. If we could try and figure out how we can 
leverage other resources that will help those people successful 
reintegrate into the communities it would be good.
    Mr. Thorne. An inte3grated approach rather than just silos, 
rather than just individual sticks. Try and build something 
with them rather than just a pile.
    Mr. Toulou. Absolutely.
    Mr. Thorne. Okay. Well, let me thank the panel members. I 
know you waited through a long afternoon to have your chance. 
If you have thoughts on your way home about, well, I wish I had 
said this, or this really would have been helpful, please 
contact the staff. I know they want it. If you have written 
testimony you want to submit, if you have ideas or papers, 
please submit those. People in the audience as well.
    We are going to go into a session where you have a chance 
to speak, where staff are going to be willing to listen. But if 
you have written things that you would like to submit or you 
have ideas that come up that you think we have missed, please 
send those so we can put those on the table. The idea is we 
want to make this better. We can't do that without good ideas 
from people who have a different perspective, who have the real 
experience.
    Please join me in thanking the panel members.
    [Applause.]
    Mr. Thorne. And Mr. Andrews is going to take over.

 STATEMENT OF T. MICHAEL ANDREWS, MAJORITY STAFF DIRECTOR AND 
                         CHIEF COUNSEL

    Mr. Andrews. I guess the first order of business is, as 
Tracy just mentioned, is thanking Judge Thorne for being on his 
feet for three hours and facilitating. Please join me in a 
round of applause for that.
    [Applause.]
    Mr. Andrews. Why don't we take just a short recess, let 
panel three unwind and if they want to sit and listen to some 
of the questions, that is fine too. In the meantime, we have 
staff setting up microphones over to the side or to the corner 
and the middle. If the members that sat here want to ask 
questions to the panel or to Tony and I, or even better, offer 
some solutions or comments on TLOA, that will work, too. Right 
now we are kind of in the public comment portion. We will defer 
the microphone to you all.
    Unless Mr. Walters has any brief remarks he would like to 
make before we get into public comments?

STATEMENT OF ANTHONY WALTERS, MINORITY STAFF DIRECTOR AND CHIEF 
                            COUNSEL

    Mr. Walters. I just want to thank everyone for coming out 
today and sitting with us this afternoon. I know Mike and I had 
to go in and out a little bit here and there, but certainly we 
are going to have a transcript prepared and all the staff will 
be able to take all this information we have heard today and 
information we will continue to hear in the next hour or so, 
however long it takes to get more public comments.
    But as others have said, feel free to submit anything in 
writing that you want. All the staff will be working on this, 
as people have said, throughout the day. It does touch on all 
sorts of issues, whether it is health care, housing, education, 
obviously the law enforcement components directly. So a lot of 
our staff will work on it in different aspects.
    So a lot of folks will be working on these ideas. I am 
happy to keep hearing some more as we continue through the 
afternoon. Thanks.
    Mr. Andrews. And Amanda Kelly is our clerk, and she has 
provided her email address for any follow-up. I believe it is 
online. Anything else you want to mention on that, Amanda?
    Ms. Kelly. It will be put on our website as well.
    Mr. Andrews. Okay, thanks. There you have it.
    So you guys are excused, we appreciate your time. Thank you 
again. We'll take a couple minute recess and then reconvene.
    [Recess.]

                         Public Comment Session

    Mr. Andrews. Let's go back on the record. We are now in the 
public comment portion of our program. If folks have something 
they would like to tell Committee staff that are still here, 
now is an opportunity. As we always do, please give us your 
name so we can put that down for the record. The floor is 
yours.
    We will try, of course, to get everybody that wants to 
speak. We are cognizant of everybody's time. With that, we will 
have our first person, very familiar to the Committee, but go 
ahead and introduce yourself.

    STATEMENT OF LORETTA A. TUELL, ATTORNEY, WASHINGTON, DC

    Ms. Tuell. Good afternoon. My name is Loretta Tuell.
    I am here offering some opinions for the Association of 
Village Council Presidents, AVCP in Alaska, in the YUK Delta 
region. They represent 56 villages and they are very rural, 
very small. They actually have the smallest village and the 
largess village in their service area.
    They have some written testimony, which I will submit. We 
also heard some testimony at the table about the recent 
training that they have had this month on Tribal Law and Order 
Act.
    What I want to talk about is something very large and then 
something very small. It deals mainly with P.L. 280. As we go 
forward and we are going to look at the jurisdictional quagmire 
that we have I think it is time to maybe step back and do some 
oversight on P.L. 280. Some of the issues that wrap around that 
are the mandatory States and those discretionary States. When 
you look at it, California and Alaska were two mandatory 
States. There are 229 tribes in Alaska and 109 in California. 
That is half of the 556-plus tribes that are representing.
    So when you talk about the Tribal Law and Order Act, you 
are actually leaving a whole segment of Indian Country off to 
the side as to how they can use it as a valuable asset for 
their communities. Because there are so many constraints in 
P.L. 280 tribes.
    At this point, one of the main constraints is funding. When 
we talk about access to funding, it is real when you can't get 
funding because you are a P.L. 280 State. I say that because 
under a recent court ruling, Los Coyotes, in particular in 
California, is that BIA has the discretion whether to fund a 
tribe that is a P.L. 280 for Tribal Law and Order issues. That 
means that if it is discretionary and there is not that much 
money, those tribes are all left out on the side. That is 
shown.
    As I talk about this in a universal way, I do think we need 
to step back and say, is P.L. 280 part of the problem. If a 
State has been delegated this authority and they don't do 
anything with it, and there is a vacuum, what is the liability 
there? What is the oversight of the United States Government 
when you have delegated authority to a State and they don't 
act, when you have these isolated vacuums of no authority?
    So in Alaska, in the villages they have been having law 
enforcement with what they call village public safety officers, 
VPSOs. Those have been funded by Alaska. They are in the 
communities and they serve as the first responders.
    But more recently now, as the State is in financial 
constraints, they want to pull back and pull out the funding 
for those village safety officers. So what does that mean? It 
is another vacuum. If the Feds aren't doing it and the States 
are not doing it, again, pursuant to the Law and Order 
Commission's report, you are going to find little islands all 
over within this region and all over Alaska with no law 
enforcement at all.
    So it is not an answer to say we have also shifted this to 
the State when they don't do anything.
    So how do we address that? Well, one of the things that the 
Corporations Committee has put out in this fiscal year 2016 is 
to have a study, commissioned for 180 days, the BIA and DOJ are 
supposed to look at P.L. 280 funding and what are the 
constraints, what are the solutions? Well, that is important to 
this Committee, because in that report, you need to have 
oversight, even though you are not the appropriator, because 
there will be substantive issues brought up that could be under 
the authorization of the Committee and maybe some reports, some 
examples could come out of something we could do in TLOA.
    Now, they said 180 days, so I suspect, in government-speak, 
that is maybe August we get something. And as we are looking to 
reauthorize this, I don't know about the timing. But if you 
have some meetings, have some oversight, because I am not sure 
if they are going to build in consultation with tribes to try 
and figure that out or not.
    But the primary concern here from the Chair of the Interior 
Appropriations Committee, Senator Murkowski, who also sits on 
this Committee, is the vacuum in P.L. 280 States. If we step 
back, and I know we will probably hear some more discussion of 
that, what we do and is it the right road? Is retrocession the 
only answer? Is the answer within TLOA the answer? Or is there 
something we should step back and say, have we contributed to 
the problem and do we need to find a new pathway forward?
    I also would say that the AVCP stands by all the 
recommendations in the commission report. Three of those 
revolve around land. We know the department of Interior has BIA 
potential land-into-trust regulations in Alaska. If those are 
found to be valid and they go forward, it is now going to shift 
to where they have authority over the land, but they are still 
under P.L. 280. So they end up much like the California tribes, 
in the same situation.
    So it is not a solution. Land jurisdiction is not a 
solution. It is just another asset that you have, but it 
doesn't get you any more law enforcement.
    That is why I am here, and I will submit the testimony. If 
you have any questions, I would be happy to answer them.
    Mr. Andrews. Great. Thank you, Loretta. We appreciate that. 
Loretta, one question on that report. That is an outstanding 
report, if I am not mistaken. That is not a new report?
    Ms. Tuell. It is a report that they were obligated to start 
this fiscal year. So it should be due this year, maybe August. 
So they should begin to start to do that. DOJ and BIA are 
vested with the responsibility.
    Mr. Andrews. Okay, thank you. Sir?

 STATEMENT OF JOHN DOSSETT, GENERAL COUNSEL, NATIONAL CONGRESS 
                      OF AMERICAN INDIANS

    Mr. Dossett. Hello, my name is John Dossett, with the 
National Congress of American Indians.
    I wanted to make a brief comment about the process for the 
Tribal Law and Order Act. The Tribal Law and Order Act, as we 
heard today, we probably heard 100 good ideas and how do you 
get your arms around all those and put them forward to the 
tribes in a way they can give you feedback on them and come to 
accept them?
    So I wanted to tell you about the process for the Tribal 
Law and Order Act. It really started in 2004 when Tom 
Heffelfinger, who was the U.S. Attorney for Minnesota, and he 
was the Chair of the Native American Issues subcommittee. He 
knew about the law enforcement problems in Indian Country and 
we worked with Tom to do a series of meetings around the 
Country with tribes.
    We developed a memorandum that was tribal recommendations 
on improving law enforcement. It was just like an outline, an 
annotated outline with concepts. Many of the concepts you heard 
today. It was a way to sort of put them all in one place and 
keep track of them. And you could share them with tribe around 
the Country and then the tribes could look at them and give you 
positive or negative feedback or try to change them.
    The hard part is getting multiple tribes in different parts 
of the Country, it may be a great idea for the tribes in the 
southwest, but it doesn't work for the tribes in the Great 
Plains. They all have to have input into that or else you are 
going to have difficulty coming up with legislation that all 
the tribes buy into.
    So we have this outline and we circulated it with the 
tribes. After a while, it became clear that it wasn't going to 
work, just working with the United States Attorneys. So in 
about 2007, we went to Congress and started working with the 
Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. We gave them a long outline 
of all these issues and proposals and then the chairman at that 
time started his own outline of these issues, what he thought 
was doable and achievable. He circulated that with the tribes 
and held multiple meetings and got a lot of input.
    John Hart was here earlier, he was the guy. You might want 
to have a talk with John Hart at some point. He was chairing 
the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs at that time, and he 
dragged us through that process. We were also pretty involved 
it, a lot of feedback.
    Anyway, I think that idea of having some sort of an outline 
or central document that you can share with tribes and you can 
keep track of, the Tribal Law and Order Act is probably 100 
different provisions. There is a lot going on in there. And if 
you don't write it down and keep track of it, it really gets 
pretty difficult.
    Then after a while, then you can take that to legislative 
council, then you can work up draft legislation then circulate 
the legislation with tribes. That may be a somewhat longer 
process, but I thought it was a fairly effective process for 
getting a lot of input from the tribes. Then at the end of it 
all, you had a whole lot of tribes who really bought into the 
process. That is what helped to push it through.
    You had sort of a, I don't know if it was unanimous, but we 
had a groundswell of tribes across the Country who were talking 
to their members and saying, hey, we have to get this done.
    Anyway, I just wanted to suggest that as possibly a 
process, maybe look at some of the outlines that John Hart 
developed. They are probably still sitting around in a file 
folder somewhere. But that was a pretty good process for 
pulling all these ideas together and then getting feedback from 
the tribes.
    Mr. Andrews. Great. Thank you for that.

STATEMENT OF DANIEL JORDAN, FORMER COUNCIL MEMBER, HOOPA VALLEY 
                             TRIBE

    Mr. Jordan. My name is Daniel Jordan. I am former council 
member for the Hoopa Valley Tribe and self-governance 
coordinator and director of commerce. I also deal with business 
laws under the tribe.
    First of all, I do want to thank the staff, the staff of 
the Senate Indian Committee past and present, for their work on 
this Law and Order Act and the work on law enforcement in 
general. It has been a big problem. The commitment and the 
dedication has been really appreciated.
    Also I want to thank Darren Cruzan's office. Being a P.L. 
280 tribe, this office has been the first to recognize that we 
also have law enforcement problems and the BIA has been more 
supportive under this Administration than any other one. There 
are solutions to P.L. 280.
    But I also want to echo what Loretta said, there does need 
to be kind of a step back and look at P.L. 280. Because when it 
was passed in 1953, it was kind of a wholesale thought, of a 
wholesale transition of Federal jurisdiction to the State. And 
we know now it is not, because criminal jurisdiction is what 
was thought to be kind of a holistic approach, but now we see 
under Cabazon and other things that it is not. For example, you 
take the entire Federal Transportation law, and it has a whole 
section on law enforcement, public safety, highway safety. But 
they are so over-regulatory and they have no jurisdiction. Yet 
the State of California gets the funding to implement it, but 
it cannot implement it on an Indian reservation.
    We have a situation where the highway patrol, we have about 
400 miles of roads on the Hoopa Reservation, 360 of which are 
on the BIA road system. But the highway patrol patrols 
generally 12 miles of State highway and then there is about 
another 30 miles of county road, and nobody patrols them. So 
when we deal with things that are happening on the reservation 
road system, we don't even have the support of the county or 
the highway patrol.
    And then we have coupled with that the transitions that we 
are seeing with, marijuana is a good example, that the State is 
changing their criminal laws to decriminalize marijuana, where 
on the reservation, we are still, under tribal law we prohibit 
marijuana, because we don't have the law enforcement to deal 
with the underlying problems, the social problems, the crime, 
the other drugs, hard drugs and different things. So it is 
easier for us to prohibit it.
    But the law enforcement agency we have on the reservation 
under P.L. 280, the laws are changing under them. So we are 
getting caught more and more in these jurisdictional voids 
because P.L. 280 is shifting underneath us.
    Also, Hoopa is a very remote reservation, largest 
reservation land base in California, very remote, up in the 
hills. And you have to actually almost want to go there to get 
there. We are completely outside of the common population 
centers of the county. That also helps to, I guess, is a 
problem with even interpreting the application of P.L. 280, 
because the State system, the State sheriff is voted in by the 
populace of the county, which is not us. So they cater to the 
populace of the county.
    So again, P.L. 280, as it was looked at in 1953, has 
changed a lot, not just in the changing of criminal law 
definitions under State law, but under the political process 
that drives its implementation, which is that county and State 
system.
    For those tribes like Hoopa, we are caught in a position 
where we just simply are, we have no support. We are a 
sovereign tribe. So we have to get agreements with the county 
and the State and Defense to actually enforce Federal and State 
law. Those processes are not working today.
    We had a lot of hope, we kept watching the purposes of the 
Tribal Law and Order Act up on the screen, and we kept hearing 
the comments. We really do appreciate and are encouraged by 
these comments. But they don't apply to us, because the only 
way that they can apply is if Section 221 is actually approved 
by the Department of Justice. We are one of five tribes that 
actually applied under the Section 221 Federal reassumption to 
have been denied, two from California, two have been approved 
from Minnesota, and we are the last one.
    Our request has been pending for about four years. We can 
beat up Tracy Toulou and Marcia Heards about what does it take 
to get this Department of Justice to say something. We are good 
at fighting issues and responding and takin care of problems. 
But when the voids occur, when faceless agencies within the 
Department of Justice, because we understand there is a couple 
of them that are saying, maybe we don't have to do this. Well, 
we are losing people out there. We have drug problems. We do 
have officers, we have about $1.6 million in our tribal police 
program. We do have a stable program. We have been out there 
for about 35 years. And as P.L. 280, we are melting down, the 
tribe, even in a P.L. 280 State, without Federal assistance, 
kept moving to fill those voids.
    Well, we do have officers with guns, we had the first 
tribal court in California. We do have police vehicles with red 
lights and sirens and they stop people on the road, but they 
can't enforce either State or Federal law today. We were hoping 
this 221 would be a logical step to bridging P.L. 280, but we 
are being blocked by Department of Justice people who simply 
won't come out from behind the curtain and say what the problem 
is. Now, if they say what it is, and we know what law 
enforcement is about, then we could at least go challenge them 
on it. But they are doing nothing.
    So we are losing, we actually in the last two months, we 
have lost three people, dead because, and we always question 
about, who is going to even show up. Our tribal police officers 
are the only ones on the front line at Hoopa, and they can't 
enforce Federal or State law. They can enforce tribal law. But 
we can't put them in prison.
    So we are completely in this void of 280 on one side, 
Department of Justice doing nothing on the other side to move 
this along. The Law and Order Act is great. We would love to 
get those kinds of programs working for us, because we can fix 
a lot of these things. But when agencies simply sit on these, 
Federal agencies, and do nothing, they are just causing 
generations of people to be lost.
    Mr. Andrews. Thank you.

  STATEMENT OF HON. HAROLD FRAZIER, CHAIRMAN, CHEYENNE RIVER 
                          SIOUX TRIBE

    Mr. Frazier. Harold Frazier, Chairman of the Cheyenne River 
Sioux Tribe. We are located in South Dakota. We have over 
20,000 members. Our reservation boundaries encompass 3.1 
million acres of land.
    We have full civil jurisdiction on our reservation. And I 
was reading that sign out there and it says, has the Tribal Law 
and Order Act improved these past five years. I was the 
chairman from 2002 to 2006. For the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, 
in eight years, with me coming back, to me it has gotten worse 
in the area of law enforcement and courts.
    One thing I can tell you, grants are not solutions. As I go 
around and visit people, our members, our staff, I always hear 
the same thing, we used to do that. That used to really work 
for us. And all the things were funded through grants. So right 
now, I can tell you that grants are not solutions for the 
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe.
    We are short of law enforcement officers. Couple of 
barriers. One is that the BIA refuses us to hire anybody and 
allow them to patrol unless they are certified in their 
academy.
    This past April I walked into our jail. I saw a uniformed 
officer, badge, uniform, pistol, answering the phone. He was 
answering the phone like a secretary would. I said, how come 
you are not patrolling? And the sergeant on duty comes around 
the corner and says, because he is not certified. So I 
immediately called Artesia and said hey, and I found out we had 
three of them in that situation, and I said, hey, got to get 
these guys to training, get them certified, get them to patrol.
    There were no openings until, at that time, this was in May 
of this year, they said, there are no openings down here until 
January of 2016. So then I called the State academy. They said 
there are no openings until August of 2016.
    For about four months, I tried to figure out what we can on 
Cheyenne River. Because prior, when I was chairman, we used to 
be able to hire someone, certify them in weapons, give them an 
orientation and they were able to patrol, providing they went 
to an academy within the year. So I was trying to find that.
    I finally found in 25 C.F.R. Part 12, there is a clause in 
there requesting a waiver. So in September, I wrote a waiver to 
Jason Thompson, I personally gave it to him. And it wasn't 
until a few weeks ago we got a response. This summer, we have 
had three homicides on our reservation. One of them is still 
out there, we don't know who did it. And that is a concern for 
our people.
    When I was a young kid, first time, grade school, was told 
by our teachers the role of a police officer. The police 
officer is there to enforce the laws. The courts interpret the 
laws. The governments make the laws. That is the way I 
understand.
    Today, when they go down to Artesia, these police officers 
also interpret the laws. I feel, and I tell them, if you see 
somebody breaking tribal law, arrest them. I don't care what 
color they are, where they come from, you arrest them. You put 
them in our jail. And when those individuals go to court for 
arraignment, they should be able to say, hey, I am not Indian, 
you have no jurisdiction over me, and the courts will say, 
fine, we don't. Case dismissed.
    But Artesia does not teach our officers to enforce the 
laws, particularly tribal laws. And in the 638 programs, that 
is who they work with, the tribes. So they need to enforce 
tribal law.
    Another big issue is backgrounds. Adjudicated backgrounds. 
What does that mean? The BIA has not been clear in defining 
what entails, is in there for certified background, or 
adjudicated background. Is this what it is? No. We have 
contacted other tribes, Rosebud. BIA is telling us we have to 
do this to have adjudicated backgrounds. Oh, no, we do it 
differently, but they approve of ours. So I don't like that. 
They need to come to us, be up front, honest and say, here is 
what is required to have an adjudicated background. That is 
what is happening at Cheyenne. They are saying none of our 
police officers or detention officers have an adjudicated 
background.
    And like I mentioned earlier, it is a barrier to hire a 
certified police officer in our area, on our reservation. We 
are short police officers. So one of the solutions, we thought, 
well, let's go after a COPS grant and maybe try to hire 25 
police officers. But what is going to happen when they are not 
certified? We are going to sit there with a million dollars and 
not be able to do anything?
    I have been dealing all year with the Bureau of Indian 
Affairs about this. I said, if we can't do this, give us some 
solutions. Because bottom line, we need bodies on the street. 
Still they have not provided any solutions.
    I always said, we are going to be just like the Indian 
Health Service, like they rotate doctors, you get a bad doctor 
at IHS, instead of firing them, they transfer them to Pine 
Ridge, transfer them to the State of Washington, their IHS. 
That is what is going to happen, that is what is happening with 
our police officers. So I even went as far, and I asked the 
other chairmen, fire some of your police officers so we can 
hire them. Whether they are good employees or not, as long as 
they are certified, they will be hired.
    We recently had a review of our detention facilities. Eight 
years ago, when I was chairman, and I left, we were having 
Federal holds in our facility. It was generating revenue. When 
I go back today, our facilities is a mess. That review, done by 
the Bureau of Indian affairs, will attest to that. This summer, 
our computer software was down for five months. There was no 
lighting in the juvenile portion. The judge even said, I had 
some juveniles before me, they should have been sentenced but 
there is no way to house them. Let them go.
    Also in their review, they said, our budget is under-funded 
by $500,000, minimum. And again, we can't be having grants, we 
need to get our base funding increased. In our courts right now 
we are funded at $600,000 per year. Our prosecutor's office is 
funded at around $148,000 a year. I could honestly say that is 
for the past 10 years. We should have had an increase, 
decrease, around $4,000 every other year.
    Who would come to the Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, a good 
law-trained prosecutor, for how much? The entire $148,000? 
Maybe.
    One of the things that is a big concern with us is meth. 
This past year, in March, I gathered everybody within the 
tribal programs I thought that could have the expertise, how 
are we going to, what is going on, what can we do. I was told 
at that time that we have had over 400,000 arrests, meth-
related. Zero convictions. So I immediately wrote to the Bureau 
of Indian Affairs and said, hey, give us $150,000 so we can try 
and hire another prosecutor. Well, before that happens, they 
said, you need to have an assessment on your courts. Okay, 
well, let's go.
    So they come down, do an assessment. And the team that 
assessed agreed, you need another law-trained prosecutor, you 
need a public defender, you need a trained court administrator, 
law-trained court administrator. Okay. BIA didn't do any of 
that. All we got, they sent down $100,000.
    In 2007 we had an assessment on our courts. What they 
pointed out then they are pointing out now, short of funding. 
You need a new courtroom. You need more training. What do we 
do, go get a grant?
    In that 2007 assessment it says how much funding we were 
lacking. And another good thing it said in there, it said that 
the tribe was very accountable and did the best they can with 
the money they received.
    As I mentioned earlier about meth, I told our people, I 
don't just want to lock everybody up in jail. We need to have 
prevention, we need to have treatment. We have been working on 
treatment of that drug. What I found last week I couldn't 
believe. We have a detox facility. We have counselors. I found 
out that we are treating this drug like alcohol. On the 
Cheyenne River Sioux Tribe, we do not have the expertise to 
deal with this meth.
    So yesterday I meet with Mr. McSwain, head of Indian Health 
Service. Do you have anybody that can help us come up with a 
treatment and prevention plan to deal with meth? He pointed out 
his expert and she said, no. That is a concern to me. And it 
should be a concern to everybody.
    The Indian Health Service does not have the knowledge and 
expertise to address this drug? Where do our people go? I am 
also finding out that maybe the State of South Dakota is 
lacking that expertise. So that is something that needs to be 
looked at and addressed.
    There is an initiative, meth, suicide prevention, I think, 
came out from Congress. We got a grant, $150,000 grant. What I 
see is that these two initiatives need to be separated. Like I 
said, this meth is a monster that has come about these past few 
years. It is like this initiative is telling the tribes to, 
what do we want to address? Suicide or meth?
    In our area, we have over 122,000 members. Our area is 
given $1.2 million. It might seem like a lot of money to me, I 
have never seen that kind of money, but when you are dealing 
with 122,000 people, that comes to $10,000 a person. I am 
finding out if you are going to send someone to a treatment 
center for meth, it is about $25,000 a month. So we need to 
increase that funding.
    Again, I am going to say this. Grants are not solutions, 
especially for tribes like us, or for any tribe. We just need 
to increase the funding base for law enforcement, tribal 
courts. I am a member of the TBIC committee. And the chairman 
from Montana, I think, Fort Peck or somewhere like that, he 
mentioned that at one time, Congress took Justice money out of 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs and moved it over to Department of 
Justice and turned it into a grant. If that is the case, that 
money needs to be back over in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.
    I thank you guys for taking the time. Thank you.
    Mr. Andrews. Thanks, Chairman. I will be seeing you 
tomorrow as well in follow-up.
    Mr. Frazier. Yes. Thank you.

STATEMENT OF CHARLES DOLSON, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR, RED LAKE BAND 
                      OF CHIPPEWA INDIANS

    Mr. Dolson. Good afternoon. My name is Charles Dolson. I am 
the Executive Director of the Red Lake Band. Thank you, Mr. 
Andrews, for coordinating this. I really appreciate it.
    I think the chairman kind of stole a lot of my thunder. I 
am going to couch a lot of what I want to talk about, I want to 
talk about funding first. I want to couch it in terms of 
infrastructure. So when you talk about data bases for courts 
and how they marry up with the States and stuff like that, even 
the Federal Government, court diversion programs, stuff like 
that, that is all infrastructure. And you are not going to be 
able to get that infrastructure with narrow purpose CTASC 
grants.
    Instead, I think it was about a year and a half ago now, 
the Tribal Interior Budget Council wrote a letter to the DOJ, 
asking DOJ to take the money that is intended for tribes, 
presumably CTASC, and move that over to BIA so they could 
disburse that to tribes so tribes had a little more ability to 
move that money, instead of in that narrow purpose area of a 
CTASC grant. DOJ hasn't addressed that. But I also realize that 
DOJ will probably not address it because there are so many 
different hoops that go into the accountability act, other 
things like that. But it is probably time to map out where that 
money goes and what committees have jurisdiction in that and 
start setting the path so that can happen and so you can see 
that infrastructure start to go. Once you start having that 
infrastructure, you'll probably see crime and other troubles go 
down on the reservations, because they will have that 
infrastructure in place and they will have that ability to move 
the money to where they need to to affect their infrastructure.
    Also, in terms of funding, BIA is where, Office of Justice 
Services, I believe, is where salary comes from for police 
officers, for those under self-determination. That is where the 
salary comes from for tribal police officers, is from that 
office. But TLOA did not actually fund that office. Instead, 
since TLOA has been enacted, that office has actually seen a 
decrease in money. So essentially we see it is more difficult 
to get officers out on the street. How to address that, again, 
I really don't have a solution. That has to do with funding 
sources, jurisdictions of committees and stuff like that. I 
can't speak intelligently about that.
    Also, White Earth folks couldn't be here, so their 
secretary-treasurer called me and asked me to ask, they are one 
of the tribes that are taking part in TLOA. They asked that the 
CTASC, the money, that it would actually be separated out a 
little bit more. I think what they are getting at is that it 
needs to be a little bit more not so narrow focused.
    Mr. Andrews. Flexible, right?
    Mr. Dolson. Be more flexible, thank you.
    The next thing I want to talk about is jurisdiction. I only 
have one quick thing about jurisdiction. Frankly, we need an 
Oliphant fix. Every tribe is unique and every tribe that has 
the proper infrastructure could enforce their own laws, and 
they really should. So I think the simplest answer to anything 
is an Oliphant fix. I know that is going to be very difficult 
and it probably is very unwelcoming. But that is kind of the 
reality of Indian Country, is, it is time to fix that.
    Thank you.
    Mr. Andrews. Thank you.

  STATEMENT OF RICHARD RUSSO, VICE CHAIRMAN OF LAW AND ORDER, 
                   CHEYENNE RIVER SIOUX TRIBE

    Mr. Russo. Well said, Chairman Frazier, gentlemen, 
everybody. I'm Vice Chairman of Law and Order, Cheyenne River 
Sioux Tribe. I'm Richard Russo.
    You just talked about population. Compared to what we do, 
the amount of miles, the reporters the officers do, I was also 
tribal police, Mesa, Arizona. Police academy down there, moved 
up, went to the service, here I am today. Tend to stir the pot 
up, I don't have a problem speaking up for the people. But our 
wage, pay scale, to our judges, $40,000, $50,000, compared to 
the prosecutors who get $80,000 to $100,000, we don't have that 
kind of money to pay the prosecutors. When you go out and 
advertise, first thing you hear is, that is all they pay? Where 
is housing? Oh, shucks, we don't have housing either. We make 
do, BIA. If you can get into a house that should be condemned. 
Lack of maintenance.
    Earlier, I showed photographs of our jail. Never in my life 
I had seen stainless steel turn black because it was improperly 
cleaned, sanitized by BIA. Oh, they don't have any money. That 
is not our problem. If we were to put somebody in that jail, we 
are going to violate their civil rights. No disrespect to the 
Native Americans, the animals are treated better outside than 
the condition of that jail. Poor lighting, computer system 
down, to where the command center was actually pulled out and 
you could see everything. And all of a sudden they said, well, 
you can't have that command center there. The dispatchers could 
not be in the same--they changed the rules again--dispatchers 
could not be in the command center. Well, what more could you 
ask for? But the computer systems went down. It has all been 
documented. Fell on deaf ears.
    I get to scratch quite a bit off, thanks to Harold, so I 
will keep it shorter. We had a safety officer, and you know, we 
get caught in the audit finding, because they keep changing the 
rules. This safety officer went out there and stopped a car for 
a traffic stop. There was three individuals there. He called 
for backup. The response time? He was out towards the west end. 
It is almost 40 miles from Eagle Butte to get there. Thank God 
that officer was fit. He overcome, but they took him down, he 
got back up. Few scratches, but that is the way it rolls.
    When I was on the east end, 300 miles a night was nothing 
for me. My central location was Ridgeview, South Dakota. This 
is ETA, where do you want me to be, 120 miles, I can be there 
in 10 minutes. My response time was where it should be. But you 
shouldn't have to violate safety rules and regulations, because 
we have no officers.
    I started out in a volunteer program working for the tribe 
at age 16. Just as a ride-along. I was involved in a head-on 
collision with my brother, going to a response where there was 
a situation down in a small community at Blackfoot, almost 80 
miles from law enforcement. My brother had a panic attack, the 
only thing I said was ``247, 247,'' no response. So he takes 
his gun belt off, hands it to the guy standing along the road 
and I'm going, what's going on? So I get out, radio is bent 
now, so I picked up the radio and ``247,'' the only thing I 
knew was ``help.'' It didn't take long for them guys to do 
cookies on the end of Main Street and come out 50 miles to the 
other side. Safety. When that officer or that individual had 
that gun [indiscernible], Mister, you can put that away. No, 
no, no, that belongs to that officer. Well, you ran across 
country about 500 feet to get to a phone. That is how desolate 
it is out there.
    I have seen the training tapes and everything you guys got. 
Officer safety. We just now finally got cameras and recorders. 
But the suicides and the homicides, wow. That poor man that 
laid out there by the lake and we have no answers for the 
family, wow. Over 1,000 calls came in, of course, everybody 
texts nowadays. So like I said, no [word in Native language]. 
We are up here, this is three and a half years I have been 
here. I am up for election. My brother is running again, but I 
beat him and hope I beat him again, because I will stand up.
    Like I said, I have been to all these guys' doorsteps. 
Pinocchio, we all know what that means. They never have the 
answers. We asked for three officers. Mr. Little says, I will 
get you three officers. Have your chairman be nice today. 
Chairman was nice, the rest of them weren't. But all of a 
sudden, he is going to show up Tuesday. I am going to be there, 
because I want those officers.
    It took us, we finally got a new chief of police. The word 
``can't'' is not in my vocabulary. I said, if we have to use 
the BIA, let's use the State. Wait a minute now, we have sister 
tribes, where do they go? Standing Rock, oh shucks, their BIA 
officers, they got 25 officers for search. When we asked those 
guys, no, couldn't get it. Wow. Other tribes, background, 
adjudications. We have two people that do adjudications, BIA 
don't recognize them.
    As Mr. Frazier says, if we take our officers out there and 
they stop somebody what are you going to do? Well, we can't 
recognize the evidence. What? Federal law says, FBI says, hey, 
send it our way, we will take care of it. Mr. Frazier says, 
well, it is at the BIA, well, don't worry about the BIA. It is 
a Federal issue now. Okay, so we kind of get, I would like to 
take the direct cost money and share it with the rest. I think 
in, the Nationals in Vegas, we sat down, I think they are 
getting 6 percent. We made action that day to knock it down to 
4 percent. Whether it happened or not, we don't know. It is a 
lot of money. Because the direct cost, you guys got 17 warriors 
up here on the BIA side. When that direct cost hits, when you 
raise anything, they just get more. Transportation side, last 
year the chairman of the transportation committee, wow, like I 
told him, the fatalities we have because the roads aren't 
fixed, I said, as representative, if I can't get answers here, 
I will bring the people back. Because that lady and her child 
that lost their lives in the ditch because ten years went by 
and nobody fixed that little washout, we need help. And it is 
just not my tribe, it is the sister tribes too.
    One of the grants, I know danged well don't work. Because 
they have said it for two, three years, we don't have the 
funding to bring it back in. What are the audit findings is 
protective custody. We used to charge everybody, years ago. 
They don't have any money, so we turned them in for PC. One of 
the audit findings said, we are going backwards. What do you 
mean, going backward? Yes, that is part of the audit finding, 
because you have to charge the people who are in jail. With 
what? How are they going to pay? They don't.
    So we got a lot of the minor audits taken care of. But 
there again, deaf ears. That is why we are here today. I am 
glad we got to speak. I was getting frustrated, coming here in 
a taxicab, a 100 mile ride in a taxi because I didn't have an 
address, wow. Nevertheless, I will stay a little closer now, 
Residence Inn, thank God I am only 10 miles away.
    There are a lot of issues out there. So I would like to 
thank you for your time and I hope you can help us before 
somebody else passes away. Because I am also the towing 
company. So all my memories are right here, and the only way I 
can vent to the people is right here. I have been here.
    I watched, I didn't get to watch, I went and responded, 
where some kids, something happened, drifted over underneath a 
semi. There is nothing left of the Peterbilt either, or the 
flesh and bones that were burned on that blacktop. We had an 
off duty police officer, our safety man, heard the bang and the 
boom. And the ex-chief was one of the first responders. They 
couldn't do anything with the bodies but smell. You ever watch 
a young lady been cauterized, people who have been burned, 
watched two young men burn to death. The truck driver managed 
to get out. He drifted, he got off, out of the way as far as he 
could to try and avoid the accident. He made it but the kids 
didn't. So there are signs in our ditches, beautiful signs, the 
Lakota Way.
    Thanks.
    Mr. Andrews. Mr. Frazier?
    Mr. Frazier. Can I read a letter into the record? I could 
even give you one now. Probably tomorrow I will bring in hard 
copy. I referenced this homicide. And I just got this. There 
are some things that I think should be here so you guys know 
that I am concerned with things like this and I am trying, that 
is why I come here, because I am concerned.
    This was received today in my office. It says, ``To 
Chairman Frazier and all elected officials, from the mother of 
a murdered child. I am writing this letter in regards to the 
overwhelming drugs being brought into our reservation by many 
employees, family members and possibly some dirty cops. I am 
attaching all these messages that I have received since my 
son's murder. And to this day, your tribe has not offered me 
any assistance [indiscernible] other than the funeral expense. 
There was a reward of $5,000 and to people of [indiscernible] 
they see that as chump change.
    This society works in large numbers. So what is a mom going 
to do? Trainings and flight trips monthly are attended to by 
not one official but a few. So I ask you all humbly to help 
with assistance in raising the reward. If not, I ask that you 
use a month salary to test all employees randomly. We have 
council who have ties to the drug lord in the past. Some have 
now been seen who knows what with men of a Spanish descent at 
the local drop-offs, which are casinos on the Standing Rock 
Reservation.
    Why is that the Cheyenne River Housing Authority is the 
only entity who does random testing? They meth test homes, they 
allow the law enforcement drug dog to enter the premises to 
search employees, personal vehicles, program vehicles and work 
sites. You are the rule maker of this reservation. The people 
voted you in, so isn't it time you started protecting them 
instead of enabling them? My nephew went home higher than I 
don't know how to describe a reminder, my nephews are all under 
the age of 18 and in high school, demanding to know what he 
purchased, his high, or what was given to him and replied, me 
and Lank Phillips went and met Lane Condon at the motel and she 
gave us five joints. But aunty, it feels different.
    Now, since this tribe is paying for hotel rooms for 
homeless families, I would figure you would have money to test 
the motel rooms, do random drug searches, hotel employees 
certainly distribute it as well. I believe we have every right 
to enter what you want, since it belongs to the tribe, right?
    What happened to the Banish Law? What happened to 
fingerprinting criminals? FBI cannot identify the fingerprints 
that were left on my son. What happened to random testing of 
employees in the CHR program? How does a user who has been 
picked up numerous times on ingestion and possession of a 
controlled substance and is known to sell the needles from the 
Department, is she still employed or would you know? Why can't 
you draft something up, asking people to help? Why can't you 
bring in more officers and even allow BIA to come in and clean 
up if our officers cannot do it themselves?
    Have your point of entry to stop all these Mexicans, black 
and white people from coming in and killing the people who 
elected you. The mothers, women who bring all these men in to 
destroy are just as bad as the person who killed my son. Why 
does this not seem to be a problem? You have employees who are 
heavy users. The BIE/BIA has had employees make it in their 
homes and yet they get moved to a new house. After a bust was 
done, the guy is still employed.
    If we as parents want something done, and if we take the 
law into our own hands on trying to get children, mothers, 
fathers, grandchildren back for their families, are you willing 
to stand with us in stopping this epidemic? Is it time that we 
bring back the cuchita that once kept the camp safe, or is that 
a myth just like all the rules and resolutions that are in 
effect as problem solvers?
    ``Sincerely, a grieving mother, Sherry Trueheart, Cheyenne 
River Sioux Tribe Member.''
    See, these are the things that we are faced with. I try to, 
that is why I come here, and I mentioned earlier in my talk, we 
don't have the resources to have a prosecutor. We have one, but 
you know what you pay, right? Thirty dollars an hour, that is 
the type of prosecutor we have. That needs to change. We need 
more funding, more resources to help people like this.
    I really hope that, and it is sad that everybody left. We 
should have been on this panel. I always tell our programs at 
home, the people out there, they are the true evaluators of our 
programs, of our work. Sure, BIA talking about doing a waiver 
to waive Indian preference. But at this point, we don't care 
who comes in.
    So I think that in the future when you have panels, it is 
well and good you are taking the time to listen. But I think 
down the road, it should be people who really live there, not 
just in certain areas, successful tribes, but different areas. 
Be random and pick a tribe.
    Again, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify. 
Like I said, tomorrow in our meeting I will have a hard copy of 
this letter. Thank you.
    Mr. Andrews. Thank you, Chairman.
    Mr. Walters. Anyone else with a last comment? I want to say 
thanks to everyone who stayed with us throughout the day.
    Mr. Russo. One last thing. We had some situations of family 
members coming back to the reservations and bringing non-
members on the reservation. I was unfortunate enough to have 
two of them work for me. Turned out to be a small domestic 
violence. Well, it escalated about winter time, because they 
figured they could move in.
    Did a rap sheet on him. The sheriff, Law 72 65, the rap 
sheet was taller than him, known to make meth five times. The 
situation, I talked to the sheriff a while back, got an 
individual stopped for a traffic stop and he had five grams of 
meth on him and a scale. So they arrested him, took him 35 
miles up Timberlake and the prosecutor threw it out, because 
they felt it didn't belong to him and it's not illegal to have 
a scale on his person, because the guy said, well, I use it in 
cases I get cheated. But it got thrown out, along with the 
letter. I'll let you go.
    Mr. Walters. Thank you. Well, Chief Melvin, Danny, I guess 
we can shut it down now. Thanks to everyone who stayed here 
with us today. We will continue to take comments from anyone 
who has them or wants to submit them later in writing. Other 
than that, thanks again and we will keep working on these 
issues.
    [Whereupon, at 6:20 p.m., the Round Table was concluded.]

                            A P P E N D I X

   Prepared Statement of Hon. Richard C. Blake, President, National 
           American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA)
    My name is Richard C. Blake, and I am currently the President of 
the National American Indian Court Judges Association (NAICJA). I would 
like to submit the following written comments on the Reauthorization of 
Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) to the Committee for consideration. My 
comments will address issues related to state and federal databases, 
investing in traditional forms of alternatives to detention, and 
indigent client services.
    Accessing state and federal databases. Tribal protection orders 
often are not entered into state and federal databases and has this has 
created a national safety crisis. Tribal courts and tribal court judges 
have been working for decades to gain direct access to state and 
federal protection order registries in order to enter their orders. 
NAICJA hoped that the passage of TLOA, which mandated the federal 
government to provide access to federal databases, would have closed 
this critical gap in public safety. But five years later, tribes still 
do not have access to vital state and federal databases despite the 
statutory requirement that tribes be given direct access to the NCIC 
system. While we understand there are some preliminary efforts to 
educate select tribes and install the equipment necessary to access 
some federal databases, the efforts fall short of the necessary access 
that tribal courts need to enter and ensure the enforcement of their 
protection orders. We request that you provide immediate direct access 
to tribal courts to enter protection orders to prevent further harm and 
loss of life in our communities. We also request that this effort be 
adequately funded.
    Alternatives to Detention. While funding has been spent to research 
conventional, western-model alternatives to detention, less money have 
been spent on community-based and traditional alternatives. There are 
various peacemaking, wellness, and traditional justice models that are 
being used in tribal courts as alternatives to detention. More funding 
should be allocated to review how tribal courts integrate traditional 
justice and community values into varied aspects of tribal civil and 
criminal justice, to provide experiential training and tips for 
accessing tribal judicial systems that utilize cultural forms of 
justice, and to provide an explanation of how traditional peacemaking 
can unlock new approaches to provide effective representation of civil 
and criminal legal services clients. These community-based models are 
effective and cost efficient, yet very little funding is allocated to 
collect the requisite data needed to deem them ``promising practices.'' 
We request the Committee to support funding to investigate these 
models, collect data, and replicate efforts so all tribal communities 
can have the option of implementing successful models in a manner 
consistent with their community values.
    Indigent client services. The requirement to provide indigent 
individuals representation before tribal courts is cost prohibitive to 
many tribal communities; however, this service is necessary to protect 
the due process rights and other rights of all individuals appearing 
before the court. Moreover, adequate representation also ensures equal 
and fair access to the courts to resolve any form of civil disputes and 
to encourage community wellness. There is grossly inadequate federal 
funding to support providing legal representation to tribal members. 
Additionally, the small amounts of federal funding that has been 
appropriated and granted to tribes and organizations to provide direct 
services, training, and technical assistance has been drastically 
reduced over the past few years (e.g. Tribal Civil and Criminal Legal 
Assistance Program). This type of funding should be maintained and 
considered an integral component of supporting tribal judicial 
systems--especially to those communities seeking to implement enhanced 
sentencing authority.
    The NAICJA staff, Board of Directors, and I welcome the opportunity 
to speak with you about any of the matters addressed in this letter, 
and we thank you for your time and consideration of this important 
issue.
                                 ______
                                 
      Prepared Statement of the Red Lake Band of Chippewa Indians
   the red lake band of chippewa indians description of the two most 
       significant issues regarding the tribal law and order act
Recurring Funding
The Tribal Law and Order Act Failed to put More Police Officers on the 
        Street
    One of the emphases of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA) was to 
empower tribes with the resources to hire more police officers. TLOA 
noted that less than 3,000 officers patrol more than 56,000 acres--less 
than half of comparable rural areas nationwide. Additional officers 
would provide tribes with the resources needed to fight crime, 
including drug trafficking, sexual assault and domestic violence.
    TLOA failed to put more officers on the street by not adding 
funding to the federal agency responsible for tribal police salaries. 
Funding to staff and operate tribal law enforcement agencies comes from 
the Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Justice Services (BIA-OJS). But 
since implementation of TLOA five years ago, recurring BIA-OJS funding 
for tribal law enforcement agencies has not increased--it has 
decreased, due to Sequestration.
    The TLOA has not resulted in any recurring funding increases for 
tribal law enforcement agencies. Tribes can apply for assistance from 
DOJ CTAS program--which existed in a different prior to TLOA--the 
application and reporting process however, are extremely burdensome. In 
terms of law enforcement needs, the most beneficial component are COPS 
Equipment Grants, which assist in providing much-needed vehicles. 
Neither CTAS nor COPS grants are recurring funding. Instead they are 
short term grants that require extensive reporting requirements that 
drain limited tribal resources.
    The Tribal Interior Budget Council (TIBC) unsuccessfully attempted 
to solve the officer problem. In the fall of 2014, TIBC sent a letter 
to DOJ asking to move funds intended for Indian Country to the BIA to 
avoid those pitfalls. DOJ however, has not responded or engaged with 
TIBC about the logistical and jurisdictional barriers involved in such 
a move.
    The most effective way to empower tribes to combat crime is to 
enact recurring BIA-OJS funding increases for tribal law enforcement 
agencies and tribal courts.
Strained Resources Results in Strained Relationships
    Limited resources are not limited to only tribal law enforcement, 
federal law enforcement struggles to provide adequate law enforcement 
resources. In Red Lake, the murder of a young man remains unsolved and 
no arrests have been made. The murder remains unsolved not because of a 
criminal master mind or a powerful street gang but because both the FBI 
and Red Lake police lack the manpower to apply the pressure needed to 
make a break in the investigation.
    The inability to solve the case has led to increased tension 
between the FBI and the Red Lake Band. Through a series of actions 
taken by both the FBI and the Band, our relationship has soured. Red 
Lake and the FBI are working through the problems however, the lack of 
adequate resources has created strain on our relationship.
Jurisdiction--Tribes Need More Jurisdiction
    TLOA's focus is far too narrow to give tribes meaningful 
jurisdiction. The findings in the enactment of TLOA noted that 
criminals exploit the ``holes'' in law enforcement. These holes are not 
limited to instances of domestic assault and include instances of 
murder, drug trafficking, and other crimes.
    In Red Lake, Christopher Peoples (a non-Indian) was arrested twice 
within a week with significant amounts of heroin. In the first arrest 
nearly 1,500 grams were seized by tribal law enforcement, which is 
believed to be a state record. Due to jurisdictional problems with non-
members, the local county attorney charged Peoples with the lowest 
level possession crime under state law. Within days, Peoples was 
arrested again with more heroin by tribal law enforcement. Eventually, 
Peoples went to federal prison for a federal drug conspiracy. His co-
conspirators were however, allowed to operate with impunity for months 
while tribal law enforcement and federal agents built the case. If Red 
Lake had the authority to prosecute and hold Mr. Peoples, he most 
likely would have remained in custody without risking the federal drug 
conspiracy.
    In order to properly address crimes rates--which include unsolved 
murders and drug trafficking--tribes will need the authority to arrest 
and to prosecute all people who commit those crimes. Current federal 
statutes (such as manslaughter, assault with a deadly weapon and 
varying degrees of assault) do not adequately address crimes like 
drive-by shootings, drunk driving that causes death, and other crimes. 
Since tribes are unique, it is important to give each tribe the tools 
to fight crime in the manner each tribe feels best fit. In this case, 
more authority is the best option.
    Since tribes are unique and have the ability to govern and protect 
themselves, the best course of action to prevent the ``holes'' created 
in the differing jurisdictions is to grant more jurisdiction to tribes 
in criminal matters.
                                 ______
                                 
    Prepared Statement of the White Earth Reservation Tribal Council
    Dear Chairman Barrasso and Vice Chairman Tester:
    The White Earth Band of Ojibwe is pleased to formally submit these 
written comments to the Senate Committee on Indian Affairs regarding 
the 5th anniversary of the Tribal Law and Order Act (TLOA). We regret 
we cannot be at the roundtable discussion in person, but we hope our 
comments will shed light on our experiences with TLOA to date and ideas 
to chart a path forward for all stakeholders.
    As we are sure you are aware, White Earth was the first federally 
recognized tribe in the nation to be approved for the assumption of 
concurrent federal criminal jurisdiction over its reservation lands 
within the context of Public Law 280. With this federal assumption, we 
have found success in relationship-building with local law enforcement 
and county attorneys, the U.S. Attorney for the District of Minnesota, 
and our tribal justice and law enforcement agencies. The increased 
collaboration and cooperation has assisted us in developing a more 
comprehensive response to the increasing incidence of crime on our 
Reservation.
    While increased collaboration and relationship-building has been a 
positive result of our experience with TLOA, we have also had several 
difficulties. We face a significant barrier to fully asserting 
jurisdiction contemplated by TLOA due to a lack of funding. We have 
received no direct funding to compensate us for the increased 
responsibilities we have assumed under the TLOA.
    Throughout our discussions with the federal government during the 
planning phase, White Earth was promised numerous times that it would 
be provided with sufficient funding to pay for the additional services 
required of White Earth in assuming increased jurisdiction under TLOA. 
The language of TLOA includes provisions for grants to tribes in order 
to fund these increased responsibilities. These responsibilities 
include law enforcement, prosecution, and court services. While White 
Earth has continued to move forward with implementing our 
responsibilities under TLOA as best as we can, we have yet to receive 
any funding for assuming these increased responsibilities.
    Even though the TLOA including language directing grants to tribal 
governments to support increased responsibilities, these grants were 
rolled into the Department of Justice's Coordinated Tribal Assistance 
Solicitation (CTAS) applications. CTAS is a very competitive funding 
process that does not take into consideration a tribe's increased 
responsibility under TLOA. Even though White Earth has assumed the 
increased responsibilities under TLOA, it has been denied CTAS funding 
to pay for these increased responsibilities. As such, the TLOA has 
become an unfunded mandate, constituting a substantial financial burden 
to White Earth. In short, the promises of funding made to White Earth 
during the planning phase has never come to fruition.
    Due to the lack of funding, we have had several problems. Our 
relationships that we have developed have been hindered. We used to 
have monthly collaborative meetings between local and tribal law 
enforcement, county attorneys, tribal attorneys, and the U.S. Attorney. 
These meetings have fallen by the wayside as lack of funding as stalled 
implementation. White Earth is attempting to continue implementation on 
its own, but is in dire need of the federal government's promise to 
fully fund our increased responsibilities.
    Another area of concern for White Earth is the fact that our Tribal 
Law Enforcement Agency is responsible, for all practical purposes, to 
respond to every call within triballydesignated housing areas. The 
Tribal Police dispatch center receives transfers from the 911 centers 
in Mahnomen and Becker Counties each day, requiring our Tribal Police 
to respond to these calls for service, even though White Earth receives 
no funding or support for 911.
    The TLOA authorized grants for fiscal years 2011-2015. White Earth 
is formally requesting an extension of those grants, but also 
requesting that the TLOA-specific grants be separated from the broader 
CTAS applications. Placing TLOA grants into the larger CTAS 
determination has directly resulted in White Earth receiving no funding 
for its responsibilities under TLOA.
    White Earth has had positive experiences in being the first P.L. 
280 tribe to gain concurrent federal jurisdiction over major crimes. 
However, the lack of funding directly tied to TLOA places its success 
in jeopardy. As tribal leaders, we would have appreciated the 
opportunity to attend the meeting in-person, but lack of notice and 
insufficient timing have caused our absence from directly discussing 
our successes and concerns with you.
    We would greatly appreciate the opportunity to continue this 
discussion.
                                 ______
                                 
  Prepared Statement of Monique Vondall-Rieke, J.D., Director, Tribal 
    Justice Center, Association of Village Council Presidents (AVCP)


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