Last Thursday a public forum hosted by Cante Wanjila Offender Reentry and Support Project was held at Wounded Knee School in Manderson. Panelists include Prisoner Rights Activist Hazel Bonner, Cante Wanjila Organizer Steve Tyon, OST Judiciary Committee Chairman Toby Big Boy, OST Attorney General Ray Ann Red Owl and S.D. Senator Jim Bradford (District 27). The meeting was moderated by Vic Camp.
MANDERSON, SOUTH DAKOTA — Although what they had to say seemed a bit out of the ordinary, a group of panelists listened to community member’s voice concerns over law enforcement in the village of Manderson on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation. Surrounded by pine tree covered bluffs, Manderson is located in one of the most scenic areas of the reservation. Problems community members face here are much like those on many Indian reservations in South Dakota. However, there is one thing about the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation that makes their problems unique. Alcohol is illegal here which also presents a unique set of problems for this reservation which is roughly the size of Connecticut. Last Thursday, Cante Wanjila Offender Reentry and Support Project sponsored a public forum in Manderson to listen to those problems and seek workable solutions. Among the panelists were Prisoner Rights Activist Hazel Bonner, Cante Wanjila Organizer Steve Tyon, Oglala Sioux Tribe Judiciary Committee Chairman Toby Big Boy, OST Attorney General Ray Ann Red Owl and S.D. Senator Jim Bradford (Dist. 27). The meeting was moderated by Manderson community member Vic Camp. After Camp introduced the panelists he said community members could ask questions and hopefully they would, “Respond in a way that will make a difference.” Steve Tyon was the first to speak and said his organization supports inmates released from prison and helps them get back on their feet, something he did not have when he was released after spending 15 years behind bars. One of the most pressing issues on the table was the recent announcement that the Oglala Sioux Tribe is in the process of negotiating a Memorandum of Agreement with the Bureau of Indian Affairs over their Public Safety Division. Big Boy explained, “The purpose of having the BIA come in is to reconstruct the court system, the judicial system, the detention center and the jail in the Medicine Root District.” He said an assessment of Public Safety will take place by an assessment management team who are scheduled to come in this week and begin work. The team will be done by the end of the month at which time they will give their recommendations to the judiciary committee and to tribal council. The Memorandum of Agreement is still in draft form he said and community members will have an opportunity to review it before it is signed. After the community gives their input and the agreement is signed then the strategic plan to reconstruct OST Public Safety will be launched. After the strategic plan is put into place the restructuring team will leave he said and the tribe will reassume their program. Big Boy also spoke about the Adam Welch Act and the Indian Law and Order Act that President Barack Obama signed into law last summer and what affect they have on tribal sovereignty if any. The Adam Welch Act had to be adopted by the tribe he said and the law was written in a way that if they did not, the state would step in and set up a sex offender registry and the tribe would lose jurisdiction to the state. Big Boy acknowledged that while the Rosebud Sioux Tribe has moved ahead with the Tribal Law and Order Act and made good progress by enacting it into law, OST had not yet adopted the law, “The funding is not there to support it,” he said and that “OST is not ready.” A new Justice Center for the Oglala Sioux Tribe, “is about 42 percent complete and hopefully that the facility should be open by next spring,” he said. The next panelist to speak was Bonner who reminded community members that 95 percent of inmates in prisons and jails do return to their communities. “So we have got to do something to improve the system that we have for prisoner reentry. We are here to discuss how our criminal and I say injustice system can be reformed,” she said. “Justice is rather foreign to our system as it exists today,” she said and quoted famous defense attorney Jerry Spence, “Our justice system is not about justice, but about keeping the rich and powerful in power.” Bonner said there are many other things that can be done instead of sending people to prison such as diversion programs and post release supervision. Red Owl who served as OST Attorney General by temporary appointment since January explained the “system of injustice” that brought the BIA to the reservation for restructuring. Red Owl said the majority of cases she prosecutes are alcohol and drug related and admitted, “We do have some serious crimes that are committed on this reservation.” She said the OST Law and Order Code needs to be revised because there are, “A lot of flaws in the system,” but sees it as an opportunity to be creative. “When a crime occurs in a community it disrupts the whole community,” Michelle Tyon, who is the prisoner advocate for the Oglala Sioux Tribe and organizer of Cante Wanjila said and offered peacemaking and sentencing circles as an alternative. Camp then spoke about police brutality he witnessed in the Manderson community. He said he saw a few young boys who were fighting and was there when the police arrived. One of the boys was handcuffed, maced then tazered. When the boy’s mother, who was sober, saw what they were doing to her son she screamed at the officer and she was arrested for disorderly conduct and hauled off to jail. One community member who said she used to be a police officer told the panel, “These police officers are dangerous, if trouble doesn’t come to them they will find it.” She said there a privileged few in the community who are shown favoritism when it comes to being held accountable for their crimes. She asked the panel how they were going to deal with the alcohol and drug problems, the bootleggers and drug dealers and the horseback riders. Bernice White Hawk who spoke in Lakota said she used to stick up for the police officers, but now she is against them, “because they are bad,” and reprimanded Public Safety for not having a representative on the panel. Shortly thereafter the newly appointed OST Chief of Police Richard Greenwald arrived to answer questions. He addressed the horseback riders issue and said, “The horseback riders use alcohol and they abuse the horses and they abuse the people. The riders are expert riders.” He said the community needs fences; street lights and the tall grasses where young people can hide need to be cut. “A lot of crime is committed by the younger generation he admitted,” he said and that Public safety needs the communities help. The forum continued for hours and a community and its leaders seemed to come together and discuss ways they can make this beautiful community on the Pine Ridge Indian reservation a better place to raise their takojas. (Contact Ernestine Chasing Hawk at editor@nsweekly.com)
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