Sovereignty While tribes retain concurrent criminal jurisdiction in many areas under PL 280, that jurisdiction has been impeded by PL 280....
Sovereignty While tribes retain concurrent criminal jurisdiction in many areas under PL 280, that jurisdiction has been impeded by PL 280. Furthermore, under PL 280 tribes must always share criminal jurisdiction with an outside government, whereas on non-PL 280 reservations tribes have exclusive jurisdiction over non-major crimes committed by one Indian against another and Indian victimless crimes. Thus, PL 280 was a move away from general principles of the government-to-government relationship between tribes and the federal government. The law was viewed by many as an infringement on inherent sovereignty of the affected tribes. The third most commonly cited reason surrounded these issues of sovereignty. Eight out of the 30 respondents gave sovereignty as one of the key reasons for retrocession. Responses were categorized as “Sovereignty” when they mentioned tribal control, local control, or sovereignty.
We wanted to have jurisdiction; we’re our own tribe and we’re our own people ... we wanted to have a say-so in what happened to our own tribal members. That was just the biggest thing ... just to try to get ahold of our future, to have our own people judging each other when they broke the law. Some respondents saw retrocession as an important step in the evolution of tribal self-government: 447 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. If you want to be a government, you’ve got to have control of these things. It’s hard to outsource police and court system when you’re trying to be sovereign. Because you’ll never grow up. Well, they wanted to regain control of their lives and their future. That’s really what it boiled down to. If you’re going to exercise ... sovereignty and self-determination, it is pretty hard to do that if you’re under the thumb of state jurisdiction. So [the Tribal Chairman] was a very visionary leader, and he saw this as a central doorway to the future for the [Tribal] people.
They had to get this done so they could unfold their culture. You know, develop the kind of court they wanted, and the kind of community and law enforcement system they wanted. And take control of their lives and their destiny. Cultural Insensitivity Two respondents cited cultural insensitivity as a key factor in the decision to retrocede. The other thing was people getting frustrated with the lack of knowledge of the culture and respect for the people. Local knowledge for the bad actors and who people could take real seriously about the danger of certain people and the not danger of other people. Not reacting to everybody the same. Cultural insensitivity has been a common complaint among the PL 280 respondents in our larger study, 167 but apparently this was not severe enough for either of the two tribes in the retrocession group to have been an impetus for retrocession. High Crime Only 2 respondents cited high crime as the reason the tribe retroceded. This is significant because it shows that, at least for the respondents in this study, retrocession is about much more than effectively dealing with crime. While crime may have indeed been a problem on these reservations, other issues such as prejudice, poor services, and police brutality rated higher as motivations for retrocession. The reservation just was a wild place ...
out on the street, it was just lawless. But we needed our own law because we were having problems with drugs and alcohol, and all of that. ... We needed them because it was getting out 448 167 See Chapter 6. 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. of hand at times. I find that true all over, though. But we needed them here. Other issues mentioned by respondents included the growing population that created the need for additional law enforcement, the arbitrary application of laws, better protection of fishing rights, and that retrocession was the “obvious choice.” The themes that emerged from these interviews included some serious complaints, such as prejudicial treatment and police brutality. It may not be surprising that these themes have not emerged as clearly in the case studies or in public venues such as hearings. The NIJ study assurances of confidentiality provided some reassurance that reservation residents could safely speak privately about what may have been too controversial or shameful to speak about publicly.
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