"MICHELE NORRIS, host: President Obama signed a bill into law today that gives American Indian tribes more authority to combat crime.

President BARACK OBAMA: I have no interest in just paying lip service to the problems we face. I know that too often, this community has heard grand promises from Washington that turned out to be little more than empty words.

NORRIS: The rate of violent crime on reservations is more than twice that of the rest of the country. As NPR's Carolyn Beeler reports, the Tribal Law and Order Act is an attempt to fix that.

CAROLYN BEELER: American Indian tribes are sovereign nations, so they have their own sets of laws. Juggling the jurisdictions between federal, state and tribal levels can be difficult.

Bernadine Martin is the chief prosecutor for the Navajo Nation in the Four Corners area of the Southwest. She says when a felony is committed on her reservation, she often knows nothing about it.

Ms. BERNADINE MARTIN (Chief Prosecutor, Navajo Nation): I don't have the arrest information. I don't have the name of the perpetrator. I don't know if there's a medical record. I don't know who the victim is. I don't know anything.

BEELER: That's because tribal courts have limited powers. Until now, they could only sentence criminals to serve for one year behind bars. So if someone committed a serious crime, the case usually would end up being handled by federal authorities. But if the feds decided not to prosecute, tribal officials like Martin wouldn't necessarily know.

The new law requires the Department of Justice to collect and share data on crimes that happen on tribal land that U.S. attorneys decline to prosecute.

Ms. MARTIN: Now, they have to tell me what happened with those cases so that we could prosecute them at the tribal level."

Get the Story:
Law Tackles Crime On American Indian Reservations (NPR 7/29)

Indian Arts and Crafts Amendments Act:
H.R.725

Tribal Law and Order Act:
S.797 | H.R.1924

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