Tim Argetsinger: Native men responsible for domestic crime

Many federally recognized tribes are celebrating the reauthorization of VAWA, which contains key provisions that authorize tribal courts to prosecute non-Indians in sexual assault and domestic violence cases on reservation. For too long, tribal courts in the Lower 48 have lacked the ability to prosecute non-Indians, and this is a promising step in the right direction.

Some tribes will undoubtedly benefit from expanded jurisdiction in this area, yet the nature of sexual assault and domestic violence in reservation communities has been distorted by many of VAWA’s fiercest advocates. These advocates, who include Indian legal scholars, novelists and artists, have framed the issue as one in which non-Natives – acting with impunity in a jurisdictional vacuum – are almost solely responsible for violence against Indian women.

Yet those of us who are from or have spent significant time in Alaska Native or reservation communities know that the opposite is true: all too often, Native men are responsible for the bulk of violence against Native women in our communities.