Tribal jails 'a national disgrace,' report says

American Indian jails are "a national disgrace" where 11 people have died and hundreds of others have escaped or tried to kill themselves during the past three years, government officials said yesterday.

A scathing investigative report issued by the federal Interior Department's inspector general found abuse and neglect in Indian jails across the nation so widespread that some officials likened it to the U.S. military's mistreatment of Iraqi detainees at Abu Ghraib.

Inspector General Earl Devaney painted a grim picture for the Senate Finance Committee in the report, which is highly critical of the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

The report, which also singles out one jail operated by a Washington state tribe -- the Yakama Nation -- caps months of investigation that found at least 11 fatalities, 236 suicide attempts and 632 escapes since the change of presidential administrations in January 2001.

Among the fatalities was one at the Yakama reservation jail on June 25, when "an inmate committed suicide under conditions that dramatically illustrate BIA's failure to remedy long-recognized, deplorable conditions," according to a video that accompanied the report.

The body of Ricky Owens Sampson was left hanging from a light fixture in his cell for at least five hours because the jail had just one staffer on duty that night.

The video showed the dreary interior of the Yakama jail, in which bedraggled canvas cots lined the walls.

"The inmate was able to take his own life because a common bucket had been carelessly left in his cell," the video said. "A broken light fixture that had gone unrepaired for months was the mechanism that made the suicide possible."

The video switches to a harried police dispatcher, head down and taking notes with one hand, talking on the telephone. Over the dispatcher's head is a bank of monitors being ignored.

"An overburdened police dispatcher was required to add jail monitoring, which should be a full-time job, to her other duties," the video said.

In May, the Yakamas were forced to stop housing juveniles at their 50-bed jail in order to separate younger offenders from adults.

Calls for comment to the Yakama Nation general counsel's office were not returned.

At the Lummi Nation north of Bellingham, tribal police Chief Gary James said yesterday he sends his prisoners to either the Whatcom County or Yakima County jails.

James once took a tour of the Yakama tribal jail, and found "it just didn't look like a facility I'd want to send my prisoners to," he said.

Makah Tribal Chairman Ben Johnson Jr. yesterday called his tribe's jail in Neah Bay "Third World. It's in tough shape."

Johnson said he has shut the jail down twice because of problems such as sewage backing up. "It's unhealthy. We're trying to build a new jail, but we need money."

The tribe has approached the BIA for help, Johnson said, but they say "there are no funds."

"All the tribes are in the same canoe," he added.

Puget Sound-region tribes are exploring the possibility of building a regional jail at Tulalip to remedy many of these problems, said Lummi police Chief James.

The Bureau of Indian Affairs had 2,080 people in 70 Indian jails, detention centers and other correctional facilities as of mid-2002, according to the latest figures from the Justice Department. One jail in six held twice its recommended maximum of prisoners.

Problems chronicled by Devaney included the mixing of juveniles with adults that resulted in the raping of one youth; poorly trained and inadequate numbers of staff; "countless" assaults on detention officers; and broken toilets, showers and sinks.

The report's release coincided with the opening yesterday of the Smithsonian Institution's National Museum of the American Indian.

"I reject the notion that it's simply a matter of money," Devaney said in answering senators' questions yesterday. "I think it's a matter of will."

Congress has increased the BIA's yearly budget for law enforcement, including prisons and other detention facilities, to $170 million from $95 million five years ago.

Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, who is chairman of the Finance Committee, described the events in Iraq as a reminder that the way people are jailed is a measure of the United States' commitment to human rights.

"I think the IG has it exactly right when he says these jails are a national disgrace," Grassley said.

"The IG notes that the conditions are often worse than those in Third World countries. Once again our government has failed to uphold its responsibilities to Native Americans."

Grassley, however, called it "not a problem of this administration, or the previous administration -- this is a problem of an entrenched bureaucracy that isn't getting the job done."

Dave Anderson, the Interior assistant secretary who heads the Bureau of Indian Affairs, said his agency was trying hard to correct long-standing problems.

"We are making progress, but recognize a lot more work needs to be done," he said.

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