Public safety meltdown
Navajo ask Congress for more jail funding

By Kathy Helms
Diné Bureau

WINDOW ROCK — The Navajo Nation is experiencing a public safety meltdown due to deteriorating detention facilities, Hope MacDonald-LoneTree, chair of the Public Safety Committee, told a congressional committee this week.

"Perpetrators of domestic violence, DUI, child sexual abuse, battery and other crimes are released before finishing their sentences because we have no jail space," she said Tuesday in testimony before the House Appropriations Commerce, Justice and Science Subcommittee, which provides funding for the Department of Justice.

MacDonald-LoneTree was invited to testify before the subcommittee to provide views on President Bush's budget request for the Department of Justice for Fiscal Year 2008. She also testified last week to the House Interior Subcommittee, which funds the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

No new adult jails have been built on the reservation since 1957.

"Because of unsafe conditions, prisoners can only be kept overnight in three of our six adult detention facilities," she said. The public safety meltdown has been made worse due to the recent closure of the Chinle jail facility, she said.

Only 59 jail beds are available across the Nation, she told the House Appropriations subcommittee, adding that the shortage of jail beds is so dire, that since Dec. 1, 2006, 1,163 individuals were booked into the Tuba City jail, but only nine are currently serving time.

"It is important to note that while BIA provides funding for detention personnel and for repairs on BIA-owned facilities, only the Department of Justice provides funding to build new jails in Indian Country," she said.

MacDonald-LoneTree urged the subcommittee to provide $50 million for the Correctional Facilities on Tribal Lands Program in Fiscal Year 2008. She also expressed opposition to President Bush's Fiscal Year2008 budget proposal to combine more than 70 programs into four new block grants for state, local and tribal governments.

"The consolidation proposal eliminates several programs important to Indian tribes, and provides no indication that Indian programs will receive a fair portion of the broad and undefined block grants," she said.

"Indian Tribes have enough difficulty receiving funding for Indian-specific programs. Competing for grants against California and New York City will not help our chances," she said.

"The Navajo Nation urges the subcommittee to reject the Administration's plan to combine all Indian Country grant programs into larger block grants, and most importantly, we urge this subcommittee to provide $50 million for the Correctional Facilities on Tribal Lands Program in Fiscal Year 2008."

Subcommittee members recognize the difficult situation facing the Navajo Nation, she said, and pledged to check into the situation further.

MacDonald-LoneTree and other Public Safety Committee members will continue to educate members of Congress about the great need for new detention facilities in the Navajo Nation, she said.