Navajo Nation Dependency, Diversion and Alternative Sentencing Peacemaking Project
U. S. Department of Justice
Office of Justice Programs, Bureau of Justice
Assistance
Edward Byrne Memorial Justice Assistance Grant
(JAG) Program
Funding Opportunity No. BJA-2012-3256
Application No. 2012-H3394-AZ-DJ
PROGRAM NARRATIVE
“Navajo Nation Dependency, Diversion and
Alternative Sentencing Peacemaking Project”
The Navajo Nation
Peacemaking Program of the Judicial Branch
P.O. Box 520
Window Rock, Arizona 86515
(928) 871-6762
(928) 871-6761 fax
Josephine Foo, Associate Attorney
Office of the Chief Justice
Gloria Benally, Peacemaking Coordinator
PROGRAM NARRATIVE
A.
Proposed Program Activities
The Navajo Nation, through the Peacemaking
Program of the Judicial Branch of the Navajo
Nation, is applying for $73,479 in JAG funding
in order to implement dependency, diversion and
alternative sentencing peacemaking services
pursuant to the Navajo Nation’s revised
Children’s Code, or
Alchini
Beehaz’áanii Act of 2011, as recently
enacted by the Navajo Nation Council on October
31, 2011.
The new Children’s Code provides for
traditional Navajo dispute resolution and
accountability methods to be used in dependency,
children in need of supervision, and delinquency
cases in order to ensure families re-assume
primary responsibility,
t’ááhó
ájít’éigo, in regard to children’s safety
and well-being to eliminate the need for Court
intervention,[1]
to
address the needs of the
child-in-need-of-supervision and to determine
what is in the child’s best interest including
family involvement[2],
and in delinquency diversion cases is to address
the underlying problem.[3]
In order to achieve these goals,
community-based Peacemakers and Traditional
teachers would be used by the courts,
prosecutor, probation services, and social
services to conduct peacemaking sessions, Dine
family group conferencing, and life value
engagements.
The peacemaker would assist in reaching
an outcome consistent with the court, school or
agency plan, with a primary role to teach the
child and family the fundamental principles that
would empower the child, family or group to
reach harmony,
hozho
and sustain
hozho
for the well-being of the child, family or group
for the future. Community peacemakers and
traditional teachers charge set fees of $80 per
peacemaking or engagement circle session upon
referral of juvenile cases by the court,
prosecutor, probation services, social services,
and schools.
The October 31, 2011 enactment of the new
Children’s Code has been followed by a period of
planning that is now complete.
A Peacemaking Program Guidance was
recently completed after a year of planning both
during the drafting of the new Children’s Code
and following the Code’s enactment and now
awaits high level review and formal adoption.
The Program Guidance gives all referring
agencies and courts clarity in the peacemaking
and engagement circle processes; how to refer
cases; how statistics are to be maintained and
reports submitted; how individuals are to be
tracked and followed up; and so forth.
The Program Guidance, is a full illustration of how
program activities will proceed.
It further contains a detailed
description of the traditional approach to
bringing youth out of chaos and into a permanent
sense of harmony.
The traditional process requires
discipline and wisdom from the peacemaker, and a
degree of heroic effort by the child and family
involved. (On June 29,
2012,
Funding will pay for 690 peacemaking and
engagement sessions over three years and across
ten tribal judicial districts, many of which are
so remote that the kind of resolution provided
by this program may be the only option for
isolated children and families.
Funding will further partly pay for
trainings across the reservation to the
Peacemaking Program, the courts, the Office of
the Prosecutor, Probation Services, the Division
of Social Services, and law enforcement in order
to ensure the smooth running of the program and
proper and timely delivery of services.
B.
Statement of the Problem
By all reports, Navajo children are in crisis
and urgently in need of traditional teaching in
addition to modern learning for a complete
framework to succeed in the future. Gang
membership, delinquencies, truancy, school drop
outs, and school failures are epidemic. In 1997,
Navajo Nation Police reported at least 75 active
juvenile gang “sets” or groups and police report
that this number has multiplied. Socially
marginal elements from border cities and towns
are becoming the groups of choice of reservation
youth.
An OJJDP-funded study conducted by the Judicial
Branch showed that gang members on the
reservation are likely to be non-speakers of
Navajo language; report severe problems in
school; come from urbanized, poor, and generally
dysfunctional families; and lack contact with
clan members and tribal ceremonies.[4]
Delinquency/CHINS caseloads relative to the
juvenile population are very high.
In 2006, 1,840 delinquency/CHINS cases
were filed with 50% of these placed on long or
short term probation.
In 2008, 4,198 juveniles were detained as
delinquents or “children in need of supervision”
(CHINS) in Navajo juvenile detention facilities,
according to Navajo Nation Department of
Corrections statistics.
Juvenile
delinquency fueled by a rise in methamphetamine
use has changed from petty, mostly in-family
offenses to violent alcohol and drug related
crime. Studies have shown Navajo
adolescents are highly susceptible to alcohol
and drugs, scoring the highest of all races in
alcohol and drug use pathology.[5]
Drug use among the people is epidemic and
drug-related assault is rising.[6]
The severity of the delinquency problem and
family dysfunction can be illustrated through
local newspaper reports. According to Navajo law
enforcement, known meth users have been as young
as 9 years old.[7]
Adult family members have gathered with
their children to use meth on Christmas.[8]
Almost all students
in Navajo schools
are classified “economically disadvantaged.”
School counselors have informed the
Peacemaking Program that truancy rates in Navajo
Nation schools are presently so high that a
majority of truancy cases are not filed in the
courts out of a sense that both the school and
court systems would be overwhelmed with such
filings.
Navajo schools are universally failing.
Navajo students with low reading and math
proficiencies are given few skills with which to
confront a difficult future.
Of all schools
in Navajo country serving Grades 6 – 12 (Middle
School, Junior High, High School), only 12
schools out of 78 show adequate yearly progress
(AYP) under
No Child
Left Behind standards in 2005.
(See Tables on pp. 6-7).
The median reading proficiency rate is a
disturbing 29.5%, and math proficiency is 20%.
61 schools failed to meet AYP.
Attendance rates are below 92% for 22 out
of 61 schools.
Graduation rates are lower than 85% for
19 of 24 New Mexico and BIA schools reporting
these rates (BIA-Wingate High School reports a
graduation rate of only 18.8%).
Dropout rates are at least 10% for 5 of
11 BIA schools reporting these rates. (The
dropout rate at the BIA-Alamo
Navajo School in Eastern Navajo is an
astonishing 38.5%).
115 incidents on school grounds in 2005
involving law enforcement were reported at
Chinle High School, which is noted for
violent juvenile gang activity.
In 2003, a display of confiscated weapons
from Chinle High School students included
baseball bats, knives, numchucks and brass
knuckles.
A 2003 Navajo Youth Risk Behavior Survey,
tracking the previous month, showed these rates:
49% of middle school and 35% of high school
students were in a physical fight; 32% and 22%
respectively had carried a weapon; 33% and 34%
respectively rode with a drinking driver; 40%
and 39% respectively drank alcohol; and 36% and
38% respectively used marijuana.
In isolated homes, incidents of substance abuse
and domestic violence are very high.
Youth and families are angry with each
other and engage in actions harmful to family
and community members.
Each year,
Navajos are subject to over 27,000 criminal
offenses of which almost one third are domestic
violence cases.
Public Safety reports responding to
10,000 domestic violence cases in 2006 while
5,000 of these were court filed.
48,144 court cases were filed in 2008 of
which 15,048 or 31.3% were criminal or domestic
violence cases.
According to
Special
Report: Violent crime increasing on Arizona
reservations by Mark Shaffer, Indian
Country, May 30, 2003, an estimated 95% of
violent crime on the Navajo Nation is attributed
to alcohol or drugs.
In 2008, police responded to 33
attempted suicides and 11 suicides of
reservation youth.
C.
Coordination Efforts Regarding JAG and related
Justice Funds
In 2009, the Peacemaking Program received a
Tribal Youth Program grant to begin planning for
and providing peacemaking and blended
peacemaking/ family group conferencing services
upon direct referrals from community agencies
and schools.
Representatives from STAR schools, the
Dept. of Diné Education; Navajo Nation DBHS;
Diné Hatathli Association; American Humane
Society; Office of Juvenile Justice Delinquency
Prevention at the U.S. Department of Justice;
the Peacemaking Program; and consultants all
contributed to planning and designing blended
peacemaking/family group conferencing services.
It was pursuant to this jump-start from
the Tribal Youth Program that the taskforce in
charge of drafting the new Children’s Code were
able to include peacemaking and engagement
circle services to the great extent that such
services have been incorporated into the Code.
The planning stage is completed and
services are now ready to be provided.
The Judicial Branch has also received
information technology funding through the
Bureau of Justice Assistance via two Tribal
Court Assistance Program grants to fund its
Navajo Nation Integrated Justice Information
Sharing Project (NNIJISP), which is presently
implementing an integrated and firewalled
automated case management system in the courts,
prosecutors, probations services, and
peacemaking programs.
This automated CMS will enable statistics
to be quickly and completely gathered from all
10 tribal judicial districts in order to track
the effectiveness of this program.
Finally, in 2009, the Judicial Branch received a
Recovery Act Rural Law Enforcement grant to fund
case management for juveniles in detention to
prepare them for return to their communities
through the
Nabinahazlaago Initiative.
After expiration of the grant earlier
this year, the program has been picked up by the
Navajo Nation Council and is due to be funded by
tribal General Funds.
The
Nabinahazlaago Initiative, located within
Probation Services, will be a referral source
for the program.
ATTACHMENTS:
EXHIBIT A Program Plan of Operations Pending Committee Enactment EXHIBIT B Alchini Beehaz’aanii Act of 2011
[1]
9 N.N.C.
§1101(A)
[2]
9 N.N.C.
§1201(C)
[3]
9 N.N.C.
§1307(A)(6)(a)
[4]
Judicial Branch
of the Navajo
Nation.
Finding and
Knowing the Gang
Nayee on the
Navajo Nation
(2001) at
26. Washington,
DC: U.S.
Department of
Justice, Office
of Juvenile
Justice and
Delinquency
Prevention.
[5]
French,
Laurence Armand
&
Pitchall-French,
Nancy,
The
Role of
Substance Abuse
Among Rural
Youth by Race,
Culture and
Gender,
Alcoholism
Treatment
Quarterly.
1998.
Volume
16, Issue 3.
Haworth
Press, Inc. (Navajo
adolescent
girls, followed
by Navajo boys,
scored the
highest overall
of 468
respondents of
all races tested
in a
Problem-Oriented
Screening
Instrument
(POSIT)
assessment of
teenager alcohol
and drug use
pathology.)
[6]
Methamphetamine
is involved in
40 percent of
all violent
crime on the
Navajo Nation.
Linthicum, L.
Navajo
Reservation
Faces Meth
Crisis.
[7]
Kolb,
Joseph,
On Navajo
Reservation, a
New Tool in the
Fight Against
Drugs,
February 21,
2005.
[8]
Helms,
Kathy,
Meth Making an
Ugly Impact,
February 14,
2005.
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