Funding Deputization agreements can have a positive affect on funding for Indian country policing because of the combination of tribal and ...
Funding Deputization agreements can have a positive affect on funding for Indian country policing because of the combination of tribal and county resources. Economies of scale for the two departments and sharing of resources can increase the efficiency of use of existing personnel and equipment. Perhaps even more important, the involvement of tribal police under such agreements may facilitate access to federal sources of law enforcement funds that would not be available to the state or county alone. There are often tribal law enforcement programs, such as the Tribal COPS grants, that parallel state programs. Having access to both can expand the total pie of resources for the particular reservation. Also, more active law enforcement on the reservation by tribal police can potentially generate fines that could be available to supplement existing law enforcement budgets. An important question to ask about these deputization agreements,
however, is whether they fairly allocate costs and benefits among tribes and counties. Given that states are legally obligated to provide equal policing services to reservation communities, it is unclear why tribes should have to hire their own forces to patrol their reservations, and then receive no returns from the fines that the states collect as a result. Law enforcement services agreements solve the funding problem by pouring tribal funds into state or county policing on the reservation. As with deputization agreements, questions can arise about whether tribes are paying for something to which they are already entitled. Knowledgeable tribes, however, attempt to disaggregate the enhanced services they are seeking from base level (legally required) services. Only the most economically successful tribes can afford this particular option. In sum, tribal-state cooperative law enforcement agreements have some capacity to address accountability and funding issues associated with state jurisdiction on reservations. The agreements have distinct limitations, however, especially about accountability. Either the exercise of concurrent jurisdiction by tribes or the retrocession of state jurisdiction to the federal government are possible ways of enhancing accountability. Interview Data: How Successful Are Cooperative Agreements in Mitigating Problems Associated with Public Law 280? Of the 11 PL 280 tribes and one straddler in our sample, 5 (42%) had deputization agreements, 2 (17%) had law enforcement services agreements with the their local 391 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. county, and 1 (8%) had an informal agreement with the state regarding allocation of misdemeanors and felonies for prosecution by tribal and state courts. In all, 8 tribes in our sample, fully 67%, had some form of cooperative agreement. We asked all respondents from these jurisdictions several questions about their agreements, including why they were developed, what were the benefits and problems associated with the agreements, how the agreements could be improved, and whether they would be inclined to renew the agreements. The analysis that follows compares types of respondents within PL 280 jurisdictions that have cooperative agreements. Where possible, we distinguish between the deputization agreements and law enforcement services agreements. Future analyses should examine differences in levels of satisfaction with reservation law enforcement and criminal justice among PL 280 reservations, depending on whether the reservation has a cooperative agreement. Another potentially promising line of investigation would compare the experience with cooperative agreements as between PL 280 and non-PL 280 jurisdictions. Why Was the Cooperative Agreement Developed? We asked respondents in PL 280 jurisdictions that had cooperative law enforcement agreements about the reasons for development of those agreements. There were 81 responses from reservation residents, and 16 from law enforcement officers.
Among the reservation residents, 9 (11%) said the reasons related achieving greater authority and involvement of tribal police. These responses included statements about enhancing tribal sovereignty and substituting tribal law enforcement for county police in situations where county police were mistreating tribal members. Not surprisingly, all of these responses were from reservations that had deputization agreements rather than law enforcement services agreements, since only the former deploy tribal police. Another 10 reservation-resident respondents (12%) indicated that the agreements were developed to achieve better working relations between the tribe and the county, including over issues such as liability for misconduct by police officers. Nine reservation-resident respondents (11%) focused on jurisdictional gaps and uncertainties as the precipitating factor for development of cooperative agreements, several mentioning issues that arose when state and federal courts found limitations on state jurisdiction under PL 280 (e.g., over traffic offenses). The largest number of reservation-resident respondents, 29 (36%), emphasized enhanced law enforcement services as the reason for entering into a law enforcement agreement. Included in these responses were statements about achieving increased patrolling and faster response time to calls for service. Tribes with law enforcement services agreements were disproportionately represented in this group of respondents.50 Eleven reservation-resident respondents (14%) reported that access to additional funding was the main reason why the cooperative agreement was 392 50 Eleven of the 29 respondents in this category were from tribes with law enforcement services agreements.
The sample includes five tribes with deputization agreements and two with law enforcement services agreements. This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. developed. All but 1 of these respondents was from Wisconsin, the only state that has created financial incentives for tribes and counties to make such agreements. Finally, 4 reservation-resident respondents (5%) stated that specific events (finding drug needles at the local school, a homicide) prompted establishment of the agreement, and 9 respondents (11%) indicated that they were unsure or could not say. Illustrative statements from reservation residents are the following: Over the years, the changes with Public Law 280 were first the city couldn’t come in here, and then they could, then they couldn’t again, then there was lawlessness, then we have our own police force. I think all that confusion is the reason, and the change. Basically the ruling from 1997 when the …
state recognized that state agencies had no civil regulatory jurisdiction on enrolled members on reservations, which resulted in the formation of tribal police departments. The State … said tribal police departments are to be in existence, and they might as well develop that state legislative statute where they can enter into cooperative agreements so they can also be used for criminal jurisdiction, as well. Basically to get money from the state for funding our department as well as the Sheriff’s Department. The cooperative agreement was brought about when we had such a large portion of the people for this area complaining that the sheriff’s office would never respond to a lot of the calls. Granted, [tribal police] started out just as a security department, shaking door knobs on tribal buildings, and you know, windows, and checking, and those types of things; then, gradually, we built our self up into a department where we’re just as trained as the local sheriff’s office …. [T]here’s no reason why they should look on us any different, but it was brought about because of the response time by the sheriff’s office to this community. There seems to be some concern that when people out here call for an officer, the response time is considerable, and that goes back to the budget, lack of manpower thing. I’m sure that was one of the major factors. (Before the agreement there was) no patrol in the area, they only came out when called to come out, and, when they were called to come out, it was come in with both barrels. Very little sensitivity 393 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. whatsoever as far as anything went. It was arrest and harass, and very little discretion. Always automatically somebody would have to go to jail. And we felt it was a double standard. The way we were being treated wasn’t consistent with the way they were treating everybody else. So, yeah, that’s one area where we felt the need to provide better law enforcement in the community. We were able to hire our own deputies, and I think that’s what people wanted from day one, was the reason why the whole agreement went through. Having them located in our community would stop a lot of the crime that was going on, and nobody was being arrested, nothing was being investigated, no prevention activities. I think that community members wanted us to become — their argument was to exercise sovereignty. And a way of exercising sovereignty, of course, was the development of our own law enforcement and court system, and everything else. Basically the community’s perception was that they weren’t going to get a fair shake, and they wanted to have the police force of their own that understands their cultural needs, their cultural ways of doing things, that are unique from the outside community. But they still wanted that ability to have protection and enforcement of their laws if that’s what needed to be done. Of the 16 law enforcement respondents from PL 280 jurisdictions, 5 (31%) emphasized the desire to enlist tribal law enforcement through deputization, 3 (19%) mentioned jurisdiction issues, another 3 (19%) pointed to enhanced service as the reason (these were divided between jurisdictions with deputization and law enforcement services agreements), 2 (13%) focused on specific events, and 2 others (13%) were unsure or could not say. Illustrative comments from the law enforcement officers are as follows: Well, probably back then, because tribal law enforcement were not recognized by the state as law enforcement officers, so they had to be deputized in order to have arrest powers with non-tribal members. [T]here was a lot of confusion among the officers when they would arrive somewhere as to who was responsible for what and why, and 394 This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not been published by the Department
. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice. it got — I don’t want to say nasty — but the confusion led to a lot of frustration, not only on the sheriff’s department side, but on the tribal police department’s side, too. To bring an immediate fix … to bring equal jurisdiction or equal enforcement for a criminal or civil regulatory on the reservation, as the result of (a court decision denying regulatory jurisdiction to the state). I believe that was a state getting some money through the federal government, that if you worked together on these (issues), and I think that’s probably what started it, was the funding. [O]ur sheriff was looking at increasing the patrol time without increasing his budget. And it was, like, a win-win situation …. [T] hey have twice as many police officers as we do. ... So, it would give our county an option to have eight more officers at any given incident.
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