Corrections faces another jail crisis

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — With the closure of Chinle Adult Detention Center, coupled with the condemnation of Tuba City jail, Window Rock is booked full to overflowing, according to Delores Greyeyes, director of Navajo Department of Corrections.

"We're just loading them down in Window Rock," she said. "We're moving inmates from Chinle every day. Last night, I understand, they brought in close to 20 inmates through the night's arrests," she said Sunday evening.

"When I left Friday, we had 50 people at Window Rock. Our capacity is 33. Monday morning, I don't know how many we'll have."

The Chinle jail was closed last week due to safety risks following an electrical fire. Greyeyes said, "We are, within our limited resources, trying to do something. The dispatchers are right now housed in the chapter house and then law enforcement is coming in and out of there as well.

"The Adult Corrections personnel is over at the fire department, so any new arrests, they're taking them over there, booking them and then hauling them in, and then they're booked again into Window Rock, so it's double the work," she said.

"Basically, we have 59 beds that we can use. In Kayenta, Chinle and Tuba City, we're hauling inmates from there to Window Rock. It's certainly costing us a lot as far as mileage, manpower, overtime. So, we're really raking in (expenses) and we need to do something immediately.

"Otherwise, those vans are going to start falling apart pretty quick. Most of them are not new vans, the transport vans that we're using. So the council needs to immediately do something."

Back to D.C.
Greyeyes said she has been invited by Public Safety Committee Chairperson Hope MacDonald-LoneTree to travel with her this week to Washington, D.C., in search of emergency funding for Navajo jails. "We've been working real hard, this administration, trying to get plans in place that no other administration has done, even though we've had facilities that have been falling apart for years," Greyeyes said.

She has developed a position paper which details some of the overall problems Navajo is having with its jail facilities and is taking along a diskette of pictures for show-and-tell. "We've already told BIA, 'Tuba City is shut down. The next building coming down is Chinle' and sure enough, here we go," she said.

MacDonald-LoneTree recently presented testimony to the U.S. Senate Committee on Indian Affairs. Some of Navajo's concerns are addressed in SCIA's March 1 letter to the Senate Budget Committee.

The "views and estimates" letter details the committee's funding recommendations for consideration by the Budget Committee in developing the annual budget resolution.

The Indian Affairs Committee gathered information about the FY 2008 budget request for tribal programs from federal agencies and received testimony regarding funding recommendations from representatives of tribal organizations at an oversight hearing in February.

MacDonald-LoneTree has been invited to testify next week before the House appropriations subcommittee which oversees the budget for the U.S. Department of Justice, through which Navajo obtains some of its funding.

Dealing With It
Greyeyes said she is hoping the Navajo Nation Council supports emergency legislation to be introduced this week addressing Navajo's newest jail crisis.

"I've gone before the council, I've told them, 'Here's the problem.' But most times when you do presentations before the council, they all kind of get up and walk out as if it's not important. I hope they see this as a really important issue," she said.

"This affects all districts because Window Rock really has to cut back on their number of beds, but law enforcement is not going to stop arresting. They're charged with making sure people are punished for their criminal activity."

In the meantime, "We continue to overload," Greyeyes said.

The Navajo Nation, once again, has requested jail bed space from Gallup-McKinley County. Now, Greyeyes said, "We're waiting for the BIA. They've had that request since Tuesday. When I talked to them through the week they basically told me, 'We're working on it,' or 'We're waiting.' "

Greyeyes said she was told the request has to go to the chief of Corrections at the regional office in Albuquerque, and then on to the deputy director of Corrections under Chris Cheney.

"I've gone up the ladder," she said. For now, "We're just trying to deal with it the best way we know how."

According to MacDonald-LoneTree, "Navajo facilities are widely acknowledged as posing a danger both to staff and inmates, yet the BIA spends nearly all of its detention facility repair and renovation dollars on BIA and not tribal facilities.

"Congress needs to direct the BIA to apply a fair portion of this funding to address the detention facility crisis on the Navajo Nation," she said.