On Navajo Nation, Dwindling Jail Space Prompt Calls For Change

Tuesday, May 8th 2007, 7:35 am

By: News On 6

CHINLE, Ariz. (AP) _ With only about 80 jail beds on the sprawling 27,000-square-mile Navajo Nation, authorities increasingly face a quandary when they catch a suspect: Who should be locked up and who let go?

The guy accused of beating up his wife? Of drunken driving? Of theft?

``What do you do when you don't have jail bed spaces? It's a revolving door, and it's going faster,'' said Dolores Greyeyes, director of the tribe's Department of Corrections.

Last year, police on the reservation made roughly 39,000 misdemeanor arrests. Of those, some 36,000 were released early.

During sentencing, judges have to weigh the seriousness of the charges individuals face and consider what jail space will allow, said Mabel Henderson, program supervisor with the Corrections Department.

``Sometimes the court will look at the cases, and they say, 'OK, we need bed spaces for more major offenses,' so all the minor charges are, at that point, released,'' she said. ``They've seen a lot of these people that have been charged over and over that have come before their court, but they just can't house them.''

Samson Cowboy, director of public safety at the tribe's Crownpoint jail, said he believes the Navajo jails never were meant to house many criminals. People were supposed to follow the principle known as ``k'e'' _ maintaining relationships through kinship and respect.

But the culture has changed, and there is more crime, he said.

``The whole Navajo Nation is denying we have an issue here, a whole societal issue,'' he said.

By law, Navajo tribal jails hold only people arrested for misdemeanors; those suspected of more serious crimes are sent off the reservation to state or federal prisons.

But for those who remain, the problem of overcrowding and dilapidated jails has worsened in recent months. In April, the jail in Chinle was shut down after an electrical fire; late last year, a lockup in Tuba City was condemned.

Three other jails can house inmates long-term, but tribal officials have expressed concern over two of those _ Window Rock and Shiprock, N.M. _ because of old sewer lines and outdated electrical system. A sixth jail in Kayenta serves only as a temporary holding cell.

The plumbing at the Window Rock jail leaves puddles of water near inmates' beds. Last November, a toilet backed up, creating a layer of sewage that led to a weeklong closure of the jail, said corrections supervisor Barbara Crawford.

At the Crownpoint jail, the walls are ridden with cracks and some walls have begun to separate at the corners, Cowboy said.

One day last month, the Shiprock jail was over capacity by 18, Crownpoint by 4 and Window Rock by 17. It's not unheard of for three girls to be placed in one solitary confinement unit at Window Rock _ with two sleeping on the floor and one on the bench, Crawford said.

The Navajo Nation receives funding from the Bureau of Indian Affairs for corrections staffing, but the bureau does not provide construction, operations or maintenance funds because the jails are tribally owned.

Navajo President Joe Shirley Jr. said he has been largely unsuccessful in persuading the Tribal Council to approve bond initiatives to pay for new jails, courts and police stations.

The council did approve a 1 percent increase in sales tax on the Navajo Nation that will go toward funding judicial and public safety facilities, but the $4 million a year it is expected to generate would only provide for a new jail facility in 12 years time, said Kee Allen Begay, chairman of the council's judiciary committee.

Tribal officials have been lobbying Congress for funding to build the facilities. In the past two weeks, they have asked for $2.2 million in emergency federal funding to cover temporary repairs, overtime and mileage costs to transport inmates to other facilities, and the leasing of bed spaces at off-reservation jails.

Navajo tribal officials hope to eventually raise $372.7 million to build 13 facilities _ five large, three medium, four small and one rehabilitation center.

For now, some inmates are being transported to off-reservation jails in New Mexico and Arizona, and to the already crowded Window Rock, Shiprock and Crownpoint lockups.

Shirley said the public need not be worried about criminals being released early. ``If we really need to contain somebody, we have facilities to put them in,'' he said, referring to off-reservation lockups.

``The preference is, of course, we need to have them in our own jails,'' he said, ``but we're working very diligently to do just that.''