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| Justice to boost effort to combat tribal crime |
| By google.com |
| Published: 08/20/2009 |
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WASHINGTON — On just one day this year on the Red Lake reservation in northern Minnesota, police and investigators received emergency calls about one suicide, one murder, three stabbings, two shootings and multiple incidents of domestic violence. Federal statistics have shown American Indians are the victims of violent crime at more than twice the national rate, with incidence of homicide and domestic violence much higher than the national average. The Obama administration was expected to announce Thursday a new effort to combat crime on reservations, where shortages of law enforcement personnel and federal dollars have led to lawless environments. The top three Justice Department officials — Attorney General Eric Holder, Deputy Attorney General David Ogden and Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli — will travel to states with high Indian populations over the next two months to talk to tribal members and crime experts about what can be done. "It translates into suffering in people's lives that just is unacceptable in this country," Ogden said in an interview with The Associated Press. "We're really at kind of a crisis point." The problems are not new. In the 1990s, Holder, Ogden and Perrelli all worked on Indian crime for then-Attorney General Janet Reno in the Clinton administration. Many of the same issues still exist, including limited resources, a lack of coordination among agencies and little focus on the issue. "We have to look at whether we're doing enough and I think it's clear we're not," Ogden said. "I think we can devote more law enforcement agents, I think we can help in the training of law enforcement agents, we can have more prosecutors and I think we can provide more support to tribal institutions." Read More. |
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