Funding Data
A 1996 study conducted for the Advisory Council on California Indian Policy2
found that California tribes received significantly less funding for law enforcement and
tribal courts than other tribes, and that one of the reasons government officials gave for
this disparity was the existence of state jurisdiction under Public Law 280. Thus, one of
our research questions was whether tribes subject to state jurisdiction under Public Law
280 receive lower levels of funding for law enforcement and criminal justice under
programs sponsored by the Bureau of Indian Affairs within the Department of the Interior
or the U.S. Department of Justice.
We secured funding data for the years 1995-2001, and
calculated BIA and DOJ funding per person for the five mandatory Public Law 280 states
of California, Minnesota, Nebraska, Oregon, and Wisconsin. Within each of these states,
we also compared the tribes subject to state jurisdiction under Public Law 280 with the
tribes, if any, that had been excluded or retroceded.
Plan of Analysis
Through the analysis provided in the remainder of this Report, we present the first
systematic look at law enforcement and criminal justice under Public Law 280, as well as
48
2 Carole Goldberg & Duane Champagne, “A Second Century of Dishonor: Federal Inequities and
California Tribes” (Report prepared for the Advisory Council on California Indian Policy, 1996), available
at http://www.aisc.ucla.edu/ca/Tribes/htm (last visited August 18, 2007).
This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice. This report has not
been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
a comparison with select non-Public Law 280 tribes.
In the chapters to follow, we will
employ the interview and other data to examine the following:
· understanding of Public Law 280
· availability of law enforcement
· quality of law enforcement
· quality of criminal justice
· court fairness
· community, crime, and law enforcement priorities
· retrocession
· funding
· cooperative agreements
· sovereignty, government resources and capabilities, and community control over
law enforcement
These more detailed examinations will weave together interview responses,
quantitative data, case studies, and other sources of information about the particular
topic.
Study Limitations
Since the sample design focused on making comparisons among seven significant
characteristics of Public Law 280 communities (see Figure 3.1), the selection of
communities is not based on a random sample. Sample communities were selected to
ensure a range of features such as region and whether the communities were in Public
Law 280 jurisdictions under mandatory, optional, excluded, straggler, or retroceded
status. The cases are selected and matched to ensure comparisons and inclusion of each
of the different types of Public Law 280 conditions. Non-Public Law 280 comparison
communities were selected as retroceded communities, stragglers, or never were under
Public Law 280 jurisdiction. Within each of the main selection categories, we matched
and selected communities meeting several other criteria as outlined in Figure 3.1. In the
end, 17 communities were selected and studied based on matching communities
according to how well they conformed to the matching criteria set out above. The
selection process does not result in a random sample; therefore, the following analysis
does not use classic parametric statistics for analysis of scale data and for analysis of
quantitative patterns found in the qualitative interviews. The statistical analyses that
follow will rely on nonparametric statistical techniques that are more appropriate to
proportional, categorical, and scale data.
Furthermore, since the 17 case sites do not represent a random sample of the
national sample of Public Law 280 and non-Public Law 280 jurisdictions, the results
generated by the study are not generalizable to the entire population of American Indian
communities. The findings are valid only for the population of communities taking part
49
This document is a research report submitted to the U.S. Department of Justice.
This report has not
been published by the Department. Opinions or points of view expressed are those of the author(s)
and do not necessarily reflect the official position or policies of the U.S. Department of Justice.
in the study. All conclusions in the study are generalized to the 17 participant
communities; there is no basis for generalization to the entire population of American
Indian communities. The results of this study must be qualified by the limited sample.
Nevertheless, the present study includes a systematic qualitative and quantitative analysis
of the administration of criminal justice in 17 American Indian communities, including
interviews of reservation residents, law enforcement and criminal justice personnel. So
far there is little or no work in the literature to date that is as comprehensive as the
present research effort. The results will establish many base line relations and results for
the 17 sampled communities, thereby giving researchers and policy makers considerable
new information, pointing toward further research possibilities and informing policymaking discussions.
