Luana Ross, a professor at the University of Washington, offered this main prescription: Respect the Indian women as human beings, and honor their culture, traditions and family values.
“Eliminate the repression of Native culture that goes on in the women's prison,” she said, referring to it as “racism.”
Ross' suggestions to the council ventured from the specific to the ideological, from promoting the hiring of women guards for night shifts to seeking treatment instead of punishment for substance abusers.
“If you are really serious about corrections, we need a focus on rehabilitation. Prison is not doing (addicts) any good,” Ross said.
Ross, a Salish, grew up on the Flathead Reservation and received her doctorate in sociology from the University of Oregon in 1992. Her research more than a decade ago at Montana Women's Prison resulted in the book, “Inventing the Savage: The Social Construction of Native American Criminality.” It has received wide academic acclaim.
She was drawn to this research by her personal experience growing up on the Flathead Reservation.
“Native Americans disappear into Euro-American institutions of confinement at alarming rates. People from my reservation appeared to simply vanish and magically return. (As a child) I did not realize what a ‘real' prison was and did not give it any thought. I imagined this as normal; that all families had relatives who went away (to prison) and then returned,” she said in a poignant preface to the book.
On Tuesday, Ross brought her niece, Lucy Leptich Cruz, 32, to give the state policy-makers and bureaucrats a first-person account of life behind bars for a meth addict and mother whose cultural heritage is Native.
“I spent my whole life being proud of being Native. But it didn't take very long (for corrections officials) to reverse that pride,” Cruz said.
She said derogatory remarks and abusive behavior dehumanized her and trivialized her Native values.
“Lowering (a prisoner's) self-esteem through violence and humiliation does no good,” she said.
As Mary Lucille Leptich, Cruz pleaded guilty in 2002 in Lake County on a charge of methamphetamine possession with intent to sell. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison with eight suspended. She served 10 months in the Montana Women's Prison in Billings, where she received some helpful addiction treatment and counseling, she said.
She was transferred to a halfway house for further rehabilitation - a vital step in recovery, she said - and eventually qualified for supervised probation. She now lives in Great Falls with her 14-year-old daughter, and her spouse, whom she married since leaving prison.
Although she is a recovered addict, she carries the lifetime stigma of “convicted felon” - a difficult label to overcome, she said, and which severely limits her economic opportunity, no matter how hard she tries.
“I feel I have a lot to offer” society, she said.
Corrections officials at the meeting responded and were sympathetic to much of what Ross and Cruz said.
But they said much has changed for the better since Ross did her original studies in the early 1990s, and even since Cruz was imprisoned just four years ago.
While the commission is not considering a major policy shift in the war on drugs, such as decriminalizing possession of small amounts of methamphetamines or other recreational drugs, they are considering what Ross and Cruz are pumping.
“There has been no discussion to decriminalizing this activity (drug abuse),” said state Sen. Steve Gallus, D-Butte, who chaired Tuesday meeting in the absence of Lt. Gov. John Bollinger. “But there has been a lot of discussion of diverting offenders from prison to treatment.”
A 50-bed “assessment and sanction center” now within the women's prison walls is being moved to a private facility at the former Howard Johnson Motor Inn in Billings - an environment more conducive for the program's mission and which will provide more room in the women's prison for inmates.
The WATCh program, or Warm Springs Addictions Treatment and Change program, is a private therapeutic alternative at the Warm Springs State Hospital. It has had considerable success in treating repeat drunken-driving offenders who are convicted of felony DUI, for example, Gallus said.
Similar addiction treatment centers specifically targeting meth addicts are planned to open soon, one in Boulder for women and one in Lewistown for men.
And although progress in changing racial attitudes and stereotypes is slow, it is gaining more attention, officials said.
Although American Indians account for only about
6 percent of the state's population, they make up about 17 percent of male inmates and 26 percent of female inmates in the state's correctional system, according to Corrections statistics provided at Tuesday's meeting.
Reporter John Stromnes can be reached at 1-800-366-7186 or at jstromnes@missoulian.com
Council make-up
The Department of Corrections Advisory Council is a 24-member advisory body appointed by Gov. Brian Schweitzer last fall to address specifically Indian correctional issues. Legislators, a judge, law enforcement officers, tribal social workers and others are represented.
Ultimately, it will make recommendations for policy and funding changes to the governor for the state's correctional system, where costs have spiraled out of control, and prisons fill up about as fast as new beds are provided.
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