Some Wisconsin tribal leaders are calling on the legislature to grant them more sovereign control over enforcing criminal and civil law on their reservations.
The legislature's Special Committee on State Tribal Relations met with tribal leaders this week to discuss the pros and cons of expanding the powers of reservation police.
The Menominee tribe is the only one of the eleven state tribes who have the power to handle crimes committed by tribal members. Menominee tribal Councilman Gary Besaw told the committee that unlike other tribes, his can establish culturally appropriate sentencing for crimes that might otherwise land a tribal member in a county jail. “We can customize that to what's best for our tribal members and that, distinctly, is something that other tribes need to do,” Besaw said. “We basically are in many times self-contained communities in greater Wisconsin and we have distinct needs and we have that ability to adjust to that.”
Over the past 20 years Wisconsin tribes have used federal grants and casino profits to establish courts and police departments to enforce tribal regulations and ordinances. Lac du Flambeau Tribal Chairman Tom Maulson says tribes like his are ready to take more responsibility for handling criminal matters.
Maulson says in order to do that, however, tribes need more control over the portion of casino profits that now go to the state. “Why should they go to the state of Wisconsin? Give us those dollars: we'll put them in a pool, and we [can] appropriate those needs within our reservation boundaries. Even let the state come and request them from us. But leave the dollars at home.”
Tribes in other states have successfully gained more policing powers, but it's often taken years of negotiations to work out the details.
