Crime on Native American Reservations
Wind River
After a "surge" of increased National Park officers and Federal Law Enforcement in a group of four reservations with high rates of violence, three out of the four of them saw a large decrease in crime rates while the Wind River Reservation saw a 7% increase. Wind River holds a record 5 to 7 times the national average and has a long history of brutal violence including several homicides. Among these is the murder of an eighth grade girl by her brother after being raped by her cousin.
The violence of crimes in Wind River are not a surprise to its residents; they are aware of the terrible events that happen on an almost daily basis. Officer Shockley after being interviewed remarked, "As far as criminality, this is the pinnacle, you see everything here.” The article mentions that signs of disillusionment are everywhere including graffiti, burnt out buildings and discarded prescription painkillers.
Think Progress.org mentions the lack of government legal protection for Native American women and children and attributes the high rates of sexual abuse and domestic violence on Native American reservations to the lack of provided protection from the state. Since then, The Violence Against Women Act has been modified to include Native American women and the Justice Department is working on putting the program into effect. This doesn't include Native American children on reservations, though, and even if it did, domestic violence and abuse is just one of the horrors of living in a community where crime rates are higher than anywhere else in the country. There is still so much that needs to change.
After reflecting on the issues presented by the research I did on Wind River I formulated a question that will promote further thinking and remind me to continue to look for ways I can reach out to the Native American community:
How do we, as fellow Americans, support this demographic of the American population from a future that reflects the traumatizing and brutally violent past that has already been endured?
Original article by The NY Times on the brutal crimes in Wind River:
Interview by Scott Simon from NPR with the director of the movie Wind River, Taylor Sheridan:
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