STATE TRIBES PASSED OVER IN FUNDING OF DRUG COURTS

Justice: Despite growing need for aid, Native American groups in California
lack police and judicial systems to qualify for U.S. grants.

WASHINGTON--When Native Americans in California got shorted last year
on a major federal dole-out for fighting crime on tribal lands, U.S.
Justice Department officials pledged that it wouldn't happen again.
Instead, the problem now seems to be getting worse.

The Justice Department last week came out with more than $5 million in
new grants for 38 tribes around the country designed to fund
much-ballyhooed "drug courts" and help nonviolent drug and alcohol
offenders break the cycle of addiction and arrest.

But California--home to 107 tribes and the most Native Americans in
the nation--was shut out. None of the grants is going to a
California-based tribe, and only one--a $30,000 grant to the
Nevada-based Washoe Tribe of Nevada and California--is earmarked for a
tribe with any representation at all in the state.

"There's obviously a huge need for ongoing funding," said Sue Masten,
chairwoman for the York Tribe in Northern California and president of
the National Congress of American Indians. "This should draw
attention, because what it says is that something needs to be done."

The problem is that California tribes find themselves in a Catch-22:
Because their law-enforcement holes are so gaping, many tribes don't
have the police and court systems in place to be legitimate candidates
for federal grant money in the first place.

California tribes, hampered by a 1953 federal law that gave state
governments in California and a few other states jurisdiction over
criminal and civil law on tribal lands, have lagged behind most other
states in developing law enforcement resources.

Unlike Native Americans in many other states, most California tribes
do not even have police departments or court services of their own,
and relations with the sheriff's deputies who patrol their lands are
often frayed.

"It may well be the case that tribes in California that don't have
any court at all are not in the best position to jump into the drug
court business," said UCLA professor Carole Goldberg, head of the
university's joint program in law and American Indian studies. Tribal
leaders "are rightfully displeased over the history of having been
shut out [of federal grant programs]. They're handicapped in this."

As a result, California tribes have struggled to deal with crime
problems that are often much more severe than in the population at
large.

A Justice Department study released last year found that the rate of
violent crime nationwide against Native Americans--often at the hands
of nonnative Americans--was nearly twice as high as that against other
U.S. residents.

Alcohol, long a demon in many tribes, was identified in the study as
a major problem. Seven in 10 Native Americans in local jails for
violent crimes had been drinking when they committed the offense,
nearly double the rate for the general population, the research found.

The Justice Department's new drug court grants target the particular
needs of nonviolent substance abusers who have been arrested,
including alcoholics and drug addicts, by taking them out of the
generalized court system and focusing more intensely on
rehabilitation.

Modeled after the success of programs in Los Angeles, Miami and
elsewhere, drug courts are now in place in about 500 communities and
have drawn strong support from Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, federal drug
czar Barry McCaffrey and other law-enforcement officials.

Reno, in announcing last week's grants, pointed to dramatic declines
in Florida and Kentucky counties in the number of people rearrested
after "graduating" from a drug court. And Justice Department officials
also said the new grants should help meet "a higher need for drug
abuse treatment" in the Native American community, with high rates of
drug and alcohol use.

But for an estimated 65,000 Native Americans in California who live on
or near reservations, such federal aid may still be a long time in
coming.

Mark Van Norman, director of the Office of Tribal Justice at the
Justice Department, said that the drug court grants "work best in
conjunction with an existing court system," and most California tribes
simply do not have such a system in place yet.

Federal officials have conducted outreach meetings in recent months in
California and provided other assistance to help accelerate the
development of tribal police departments, court systems and other
law-enforcement resources, and Van Norman said he is hopeful.

"The California tribes are really beginning to focus more strongly on
justice systems and police development," he said. "We're seeing a lot
of positive development even though it's unfortunate that we don't
have California participating in these drug court funding projects.
I'm hopeful this year we'll get more participation."

But Justice Department officials offered similar assurances last year
after California received less than 1% of an $89-million allotment for
new tribal police officers--only to see state tribes shut out entirely
in the current batch of drug court funds.

Van Norman and other Justice Department officials could not say how
many tribes in California applied for the current grants. In the past,
however, California tribal leaders have complained that they were
never informed the money was available or felt discouraged from
applying because they saw little chance of success, given their scarce
resources.

In addition to the 38 tribes awarded grants, the Justice Department is
also distributing about $20 million in drug court funding to 61
counties and court systems nationwide. Eleven jurisdictions in
California will receive money, including San Francisco's youth
treatment and education court, the Santa Barbara County Probation
Department and Santa Cruz County.