U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds (center) and leaders from the nine tribal nations within South Dakota speak to the media after a public safety roundtable with U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland (not pictured) on Aug. 14, 2024, in Wagner. With Rounds, from left, are Cheyenne River Chairman Ryan LeBeau, Lower Brule Chairman Clyde Estes, Sisseton Wahpeton Secretary Curtis Bissonette, Wayne Boyd of Rosebud Sioux Tribe, Yankton Chairman Robert Flying Hawk, Oglala President Frank Star Comes out and Crow Creek Chairman Peter Lengkeek. (Makenzie Huber/South Dakota Searchlight)
A week after attending a roundtable with the nation’s top law enforcement official and tribal leaders, U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, is urging the head of a federal department to change the funding formula for tribal law enforcement.
The U.S. Interior Department includes the Bureau of Indian Affairs, which provides policing services for some tribes and funding for other tribes to run their own police departments. Federal support for tribal public safety on reservations in South Dakota is required under the terms of treaties that date to the 1800s.
Rounds’ office said Thursday that he sent a letter to Interior Department Secretary Deb Haaland, a member of the Pueblo and Laguna Tribes in New Mexico.
“The funding formula for tribal law enforcement programs is failing Great Plains reservation communities,” Rounds wrote.
He said tribal leaders on the Great Plains have reported an increase in violent and drug-related crimes.
Justice disparities on South Dakota reservations need attention, US attorney general says
Rounds said the current formula for tribal law enforcement funding has only allowed Great Plains tribal law enforcement agencies to receive slight funding increases. The Crow Creek Sioux Tribe received $1.3 million in law enforcement funding about a decade ago and is funded at the same level today, according to Rounds.
The letter does not propose a specific methodology for modernizing the funding formula but says it should be designed to “deliver appropriated funding to areas with the greatest need.”
The BIA’s Office of Public Affairs declined to comment on Rounds’ letter, saying it does not communicate with members of Congress through the media.
The most recent edition of a congressionally required BIA report says the agency’s total spending on tribal law enforcement in 2021 was $256 million, but the total estimated need was $1.7 billion. When detention, corrections and tribal courts are also considered, the report says, “Overall, Indian Country BIA public safety and justice is funded at just under 13% of total need.”
Public safety funding was a focus last week when Rounds attended a roundtable discussion in Wagner with representatives of all nine tribes in South Dakota and U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland. The U.S. attorneys who work for Garland’s Department of Justice prosecute major crimes on reservations.
“I well recognize that our department cannot provide the full level of law enforcement assistance and officers that you need on the reservations, and that BIA needs more money for that purpose,” Garland told tribal leaders at the meeting.
Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairwoman Janet Alkire was in attendance and said some tribes are dealing with severe public safety problems on a daily basis.
“Until we have adequate law enforcement and public safety, our people are always going to live in fear,” Alkire said.
Prior to Garland’s visit, public safety on reservations had already been a topic of debate in South Dakota.
Republican Gov. Kristi Noem gave a speech in January claiming that Mexican drug cartels are operating on reservations, and she’s repeated those claims many times since, even though law enforcement officials say drugs originating from cartels are a statewide and national problem. Those and other comments by Noem led leaders of all nine tribes in the state to vote in support of banning her from their reservations.
Meanwhile, to address tribal police recruitment and retention problems, Noem worked with Republican South Dakota Attorney General Marty Jackley to offer a state-run law enforcement training course for tribal recruits, so they don’t have to travel to a BIA training center in New Mexico. Rounds has asked the BIA to consider opening a federal tribal law enforcement center in South Dakota.
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