Juvenile Justice System Failing Native Americans, Studies Show [Picture]

State courts are twice as likely to incarcerate Native teens for minor crimes such as truancy and alcohol use than any other racial and ethnic group, according to the Tribal Law and Policy Institute. And juvenile detention facilities around the country have a disproportionately high number of Native American youth, according to an Indian Law and Order Commission report. 

On the reservation, it’s different.

On a recent visit to the Navajo Nation juvenile detention center in Tuba City, it’s quiet. “Right now we don’t have anybody in custody,” says Sgt. Barbara Johnson.

The Navajo Nation “is really reluctant on sentencing youth to these facilities. It’s used more as a last resort, so our population has been very, very low,” says Corrections Lt. Robbin Preston.

He says that doesn’t reflect the number of troubled Navajo youth. But the Navajo and many other tribes have no rehabilitative services to offer them. So a Native youth arrested on the reservation faces a maze of legal jurisdictions.  source