"Reservation communities do not enjoy sufficient public safety. According to recent reports presented to federal officials in Washington, D.C., reservation communities are not well protected from criminal activities. The crime information was gathered from a national survey where tribal, county-state, and federal workers were asked their viewpoints on a variety of justice, policing and jail issues in Indian country. The respondents generally were people who worked on policing and justice issues in reservation communities, and were familiar with reservation criminal issues.

When asked how well tribal police contained reservation criminal activities, the respondents agreed that tribal police were moderately ineffective at controlling criminal activity. Tribal respondents said tribal police performance on controlling criminal activity on reservations was slightly ineffective, while county-state and federal respondents said tribal police were moderately ineffective.

The respondents were also asked whether non-tribal police, county-state police or BIA police-Federal Bureau of Investigation police contained criminal activity on Indian reservations. In Public Law 280 jurisdictions, county-state police are usually the predominate police force, while in federal jurisdictions there are either federal police, or tribal police, or a mix of tribal and federal police.

The survey respondents said non-tribal police were fairly ineffective at containing criminal activities on reservations. Tribal and federal survey respondents said non-tribal police were less effective at containing reservation criminal activity than tribal police. Respondents in Public Law 280 jurisdictions, however, said county-state police were only slightly ineffective at containing reservation crime, but were better than tribal police."

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Editorial: More resources needed for safe communities (Indian Country Today 10/1)