Where do they turn?
Tribal jurisdiction issues often prevent victims from coming forward, report shows.
Tribal jurisdiction often prevents victims from coming forward

By Judy Gibbs Robinson
Published: April 25, 2007

Oklahoma's tangle of law enforcement agencies and jurisdictions keeps many American Indian women from getting justice in sexual assault cases, according to a national report released Tuesday.

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Recommendations

•Increasing funding for tribal law enforcement;

•Expanding the jurisdiction of tribal law enforcement;

•Ensuring access to sexual assault forensic examinations;

•Providing support services for survivors

•In addition, every tribal police department and county sheriff should have cross-deputization agreements to end jurisdictional disputes, and every hospital should have a plan for dealing with sexual assault victims, said Jennifer McLaughlin, a sexual violence specialist with the Oklahoma Coalition Against Domestic Violence and Sexual Abuse.

She hopes the report results in specific programs and policies to help Indian women.

"If not, what happens is these women fall through the cracks. They can't get justice,” McLaughlin said.

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The patchwork of Indian and non-Indian land can create so much confusion no one intervenes, leaving sexual violence victims without legal protection, Amnesty International said in the report, "Maze of Injustice.”

"When an emergency call comes in, the sheriff will say ‘but this is Indian land.' Tribal police will show up and say the reverse,” Juskwa Burnett of Ponca City told Amnesty International.

Burnett ran a rape prevention program for the Kaw Nation until it closed for lack of funding.

She was among scores of survivors, activists, law enforcement officials and support providers Amnesty International interviewed in Oklahoma, Alaska and the Standing Rock Sioux Reservation in the Dakotas.

The report

•Began in 2005, after federal crime statistics showed Indian women nationally are victims of sexual violence at 2.5 times the rate of other U.S. women — and those are just cases reported to law enforcement authorities.

•One Oklahoma support worker told investigators only three of 77 Indian women she was currently working with had filed a police report.

•Time is critical in sexual assault cases in order to collect usable evidence from the woman's body.

•But if the crime occurs in rural Oklahoma, "it may take weeks or months to determine if it's Indian land or not,” an assistant U.S. attorney is quoted as saying. He or she is not named in the report. The U.S. attorney's office in Oklahoma City declined to comment on the report. A spokesman, Robert Troester, said he was traveling Tuesday and had not read the report.

•As a result of the delays, many Indian women consider it useless to report sexual violence, the report said.

•"All too often reporting a crime is a grievous insult added to a grievous injury,” Larry Cox, director of Amnesty International USA, said in a conference call with reporters.

•The report also criticized the Indian Health Service for having no sexual assault nurse examiners in Oklahoma. Those are registered nurses with advanced training in forensic examination of victims of sexual violence.

No one was available to comment on the report Tuesday at the Indian Health Service, said Diane Dawson, a public affairs specialist in Washington.