Abstract
Based on a random sample of 300 youth detained prior to trial in a Southwestern Indian Community, this paper analyzes the pre-trial incarceration of American Indian adolescents. It discusses two major similarities between the detention of adolescents in this Indian community and the detention of adolescents nationwide, including the minimalization of the potentially deleterious effects of incarcerating adolescents and the detention of minor offenders. It also emphasizes divergences between the detention of adolescents in the Indian community and the detention of adolescents nationwide: a much higher rate of detention and recidivism on the reservation; the multiplicity of legal jurisdictions to which Indian adolescents are subject; administration of the reservation detention facilities by Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) personnel with minimal training in adolescent services; the unique power of BIA police to determine unilaterally who will be detained initialy; and the extreme lack of alternative resources for adolescents and families within the Indian community.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes and references
James P. Levine, Michael C. Musheno and Dennis J. Palumbo,Criminal Justice in America: Law in Action (New York: Wiley 1986), 500.
In 1988, 50 percent of almost 200,000 jail inmates in the U.S. were awaiting arraignment, awaiting trial, or in the process of being tried (U.S. Department of Justice,Soucebook of Criminal Justice Statistics, 1990).
See Howard N. Snyder, Terrence A. Finnegan, Ellen H. Nimick, Melissa H. Sickmund, Dennis P. Sullivan and Nancy J. Tierney,Juvenile Court Statistics 1986 (Pittsburgh, PA: National Center for Juvenile Justice, 1990), 53, 86, and Barry Krisberg, Robert DeComo, and Norma C. Herrera,National Juvenile Custody Trends, 1978–89 (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Department of Justice, Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, 1992), 16, 21.
S. Brakel, “American Indian Tribal Courts,” in Larry French (ed.),American Indians and Criminal Justice (Totowa, NY: Allan Held, Osmun & Co., Publishers, Inc., 1983), 158; L. French, “An Analysis of Contemporary Indian Justice and Correctional Treatment,”Federal Probation, 1980 (44), 19; Vine Deloria and C. Lytle,American Indians, American Justice (Austin: University of Texas Press, 1983), 15;E.L. Hall and A.A. Simkus, “Inequality in the Types of Sentences Received by Native Americans and Whites,”Criminology, 1975 (13), 100.
Joan W. Moore, “American Minorities and ‘New Nations’ Perspectives,”Pacific Sociological Review, 1976 (19), 450–453; E.L. Hall and A.A. Simkus (1975),op. cit., p. 105; Robert Blauner, “Internal Colonialism and Ghetto Revolt,”Social Problems, 1969 (16), 396.
Joan W. Moore (1976), op. cit. “American Minorities and ‘New Nations’ Perpectives,”Pacific Sociological Review, p. 456.
Albert Szymanski,Class Structure: A Critical Perspective (New York: Praeger, 1983), 373–376.
E.L. Hall and A.A. Simkus (1975), op. cit., pp. 104–106.
Robert BeeCrosscurrents Along the Colorado (Tucson: University of Arizona Press,. 1981); Vine Deloria and C. Lytle (1984), op. cit.; F.P. Prucha,The Indians in American Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985).
K. Peak and J. Spencer, “Crime in Indian Country,”Journal of Criminal Justice, 1987 (15), 486.
J. Cross, “The Economics of Indian Crime,” in L. French (ed.) (1982), op. cit. p. 59.
U.S. Department of Commerce, Bureau of the Census, “American Indians, Eskimos, and Aleuts on Identifiable Reservations and in the Historic Areas of Oklahoma (Excluding Urbanized Areas),”1980 Census of Population, Volume 2-Subject Reports, Section 1, 1980.
G.F. Jensen et al., “Crime, Delinquency, and the American Indian,”Human Organization, 1977 (36), 254; E.R. Oetting and F. Beauvais, “Epidemiology and Correlates of Alcohol Use Among Indian Adolescents Living on Reservations,” Unpublished Manuscript, 1985, 5.
Snyder et al. (1990), —op. cit.; Krisberg et al. (1992), op. cit.
Krisberg et al. (1992), —op. cit., pp. 3 &8.
Snyder et al. (1990), —op. cit., pp. 53 &86.
M. Forslund and R. Meyers, “A Self-Report Comparison of Indian and Anglo Delinquency in Wyoming,”Criminology, 1974 (12), 97–106.
V. Deloria and C. Lytle (1983), op. cit.—, p. 179.
S. Brakel (1982), —op. cit., p. 148; V. Deloria and C. Lytle (1983), op. cit., p.11.
P.A. May, “Contemporary Crime and the American Indian: A Survey and Analysis of the Literature”Plains Anthropologist, 1982 (27:97) 235.
Ibid..
R. Bee (1981), op. cit. (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1981)
Anthony Platt,The Child Savers (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1977); M.A. Bortner,Inside a Juvenile Court: The Tarnisheds Ideal of Individualized Justice (NY: New York University Press, 1982); Ira Schwartz,(In) Justice for Juveniles: Rethinking the Best Interests of the Child (Lexington, MA: Lexington Books, 1989).
V. Deloria and C. Lytle (1983), op. cit.American Indians, American Justice: University of Texas Press Zatz, Marjorie, Carol Chiago Lujan and Zoanne Synder-Joy, “American Indians and Criminal Justice: Some Conceptual and Methodological Considerations,” in Michael J. Lynch and E. Brett Patterson (eds.),Race and Criminal Justice (NY: Harrow and Heston 1991), 101–112.
E.L Hall and A.A. Simkus (1975), op cit. A.S. Riffenburgh, “Cultural Infuences and Crime Among Indian-Americans of the Southwest,”Federal Probation, 1964 (23: 3).
S. Brakel (1982), op. cit. p. 158: L. French (1980), op. cit. p. 19; V. Deloria and C. Lytle (1983), op. cit., p. 15.
E. Hall and A. Simkus (1975), op. cit. p. 100.
F. Prucha (1985), op. cit., p. 65; S. Brakel (1982), op. cit., p. 154.
S. Brakel (1982), op. cit., pp. 149–150.
V. Deloria and C. Lytle (1983), op. cit., p. 15.
Vine Deloria,Custer Died for Your Sins: An Indians Manifesto (NY: MacMillan, 1969).
Ward Churchill (ed.),Marxism and Native Americans (Boston: South End Press, 1983), 7.
Aaron V. Cicourel,The Social Organization of Juvenile Justice (NY: Wiley 1968), 273; Robert M. Emerson,Judging Delinquents (Chicago: Aldine 1969), 98; M.A. Bortner (1982), op. cit., p. 97.
A. Randall and B. Randall, “Criminal Justice and the American Indian,”Indian Historian, 1978 (11: 2), 47.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Bond-Maupin, L., Lujan, C.C. & Bortner, M.A. Jailing of American Indian adolescents. Crime Law Soc Change 23, 1–16 (1995). https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01300856
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/BF01300856