All right, so I may be exaggerating slightly in the topic. Obviously, a few people do care.

If you aren't aware of what I'm speaking of, I've been listening to a story recently about the Justice System, as it applies to Tribal Territories within the United States.
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=12203114
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.p...toryId=12260610

The application, for those of you not interested in following links, is this: "If the criminal was not a Native American, there is no justice. If the criminal is a citizen of the United States, even killing Native Americans on Tribal lands is okay." A woman named Ironroad was beat up and horribly injured by four men. She told police her story, that they physically abused her. A week later, she was dead-- and the case was closed. Said the police chief: "I looked back and there was nothing that could substantiate that happening. I'm sure she passed away, but as far as her being involved as a victim of sexual assault, I couldn't find anything to support that ... You know, if a person doesn't report, then how can we investigate it, if we don't know about it?" Yes, because her "not being a victim" means that her MURDER is all right. Despite the fact that she wrote out and signed a testimony!

C'mon, now. This is just insanely stupid. What the hell is going on here?

I heard that spot on NPR, too. Crazy. Basically, if you drive to a Reservation, you have a license to get away with virtually anything. I could not believe it.

I'm somewhat sympathetic to the "We don't have enough people out here" issue, because I'm sure that's true. But still, some of the cases mentioned in that spot were really, really, egregious.

The government's signing off on 16 million to hire 50 new police officers. Fifty new officers. For ALL of the reservations, total. That's less than one officer per reservation, according to NPR. How the hell can we justify spending so much money on an invasion of Iraq in the first place because of a leader who victimizes his people, when the exact same thing is happening right here at home? I don't get it. Surely this is worth more than 16 million dollars. Surely this is worth a top spot in campaign discussions. Surely this is bloody IMPORTANT.

Not enough contextual facts were in those articles.

I'm curious what the actual division of responsibilities is for Indian reservations.

Technically, I'm surprised the federal Justice department has any say in the area at all.

16 million for 50 police officers is $320,000 per officer. clearly there is more to the story than is actually being reported.

And the answer, sadly, is that it's not important, politically, because no one with influence cares. Iraq is important because people with power say that it is, and people get scared and agree with them. I've been saying they should be spending those billions at home since the war started, whether it be on this or something else, but too many people are afraid that if we leave Iraq we're going to be blown to hell by terrorists.

As callous as it sounds, I'm going to keep saying it: I really couldn't care less about people in Iraq. As fellow human beings, I sympathize, and the current run of problems is mostly our fault, but it's not our country, and thus not our problem. Deal with the :censor: at home before running off to police the goddamned world.

That's the way it appears to be set up. Prosecutors in the tribal areas are not allowed to prosecute felonies, according to article #2 up there. They need to get US federal prosecutors-- who are more interested in bigger cases.

Either way-- the bulk of it is not Native American crimes. It's US-citizens going into Tribal lands and just getting away with (literally) murder.

We can spend billions of dollars on a war and supporting a certain country, but we can't help out our own people? That's ing bullcrap and sad.

Technically, indian reservations arn't our country either.

Again, this doesn't make sense. There just isn't enough information. If they can't prosecute felonies, then they could just easily not make the crime a felony and prosecute it.

I mean, what does America do for Perto rico? Which is has almost the same status as Indian reservations do.

When our citizens go to another country and commit murder, they usually don't get off with a smile and a laugh. Further, "technically," that land is sitting right here in our country and it's our citizens just waltzing right in and doing whatever the heck they please before skipping back out with a satisfied smile.

http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0192524.html

Laws. As U.S. citizens, Indians are generally subject to federal, state, and local laws. On Indian reservations, however, only federal and tribal laws apply to members of the tribe unless the Congress provides otherwise. In federal law, the Assimilative Crimes Act makes any violation of state criminal law a federal offense on reservations. Most tribes now maintain tribal court systems and facilities to detain tribal members convicted of certain offenses within the boundaries of the reservation.

So... I think you're a bit off there. They are still US citizens.

That may likely include equipment as well as salary and benefits for a certain number of years. I don't know that, but I'm not sure the figure is off.

It seemed high to me until I started factoring in other stuff, but yeah-- when you factor in equipment expenses (including more vehicles which are going to be necessary), it comes much closer to the 16 million suggested.

Interesting. It appears that indian reservations suffer from the same problems as washington D.C.

I'm glad you don't disagree now.

Now-- why aren't the people in charge of this actually bothering to move their rumps and do something? At the very least, you can work on hiring enough people to cover the territory! You can get federal prosecutors to actually see it as something that's important. You can bring it to national attention. Sitting back obviously does bumpkis.

I'd agree, except for the fact that this has been a problem since 1960s.

Seems like it would be better to start giving the territories more automony and authority over non tribe members.

Seems like it would be better to use the funding, tactics, and equipment we have to patrol and enforce laws (especially federal laws, which still apply to reservations)-- and put more funding into keeping those laws enforced and the citizens the laws are made to protect, protected.

Yes, that is what every single town in America likes to say.

Los Angeles just got 8 million less dollars from the Feds than they did the year before, and they are throwing the loudest hissyfit ever.

When compared to say, $70,000,000,000 for emergency war funding... 8 million seems like small change, doesn't it? Same with 16 million. Heck, even $1,000,000,000.

Numbers like that are deceiving. Just because money exists for one thing does not mean it exist to be spent on anything.

Everybody wishes they could get more money from the government to pay for their police and prosecutors.