SENATE JOINT MEMORIAL 84

47th legislature - STATE OF NEW MEXICO - first session, 2005

INTRODUCED BY

Leonard Tsosie

A JOINT MEMORIAL

URGING CONGRESS TO SUPPORT NAVAJO NATION CRIMINAL JUSTICE CONSTRUCTION PROJECTS FOR ADULTS AND JUVENILES TO PROVIDE ADEQUATE SPACES, DECENT FACILITIES AND SPACE FOR PROGRAMMING FOR NATIVE AMERICAN PRISONERS.

     WHEREAS, prisoners on the Navajo Nation are warehoused in fifty-four-year-old facilities that do not meet contemporary standards for square footage, lighting, exercise or programming; and

     WHEREAS, the Navajo Nation discovered, after building the prisons in 1951, that the federal government would not aid in improving or maintaining facilities not built with federal dollars; and

     WHEREAS, the Navajo Nation averages only one law enforcement officer for every four thousand persons, compared to twelve officers per thousand, on average, throughout the rest of the country; and

     WHEREAS, lawlessness and disrespect result from awareness on the part of offenders that there is too little money for enforcement and too little space for incarceration; and

     WHEREAS, detention facilities in Crownpoint, Shiprock and Ramah will soon close because of dilapidation, overcrowding and hazardous conditions; and

     WHEREAS, because Shiprock and Crownpoint have no juvenile facilities, young people arrested there are transported to Tohatchi, approximately sixty-five miles away, or to the Chinle youth corrections facility, nearly one hundred fifty miles away; and

     WHEREAS, Navajo Nation facilities in New Mexico serve over ten thousand of the approximately thirty-eight thousand adult prisoners per year incarcerated on the Navajo Nation; and

     WHEREAS, crime is on the rise on the Navajo Nation even though the violent crime rate is declining nationwide; and

     WHEREAS, the Navajo Nation has tried unsuccessfully, since 2000, to get federal funding for improved corrections facilities for Native American adults and youth;

     NOW, THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF NEW MEXICO that the United States congress be encouraged to provide thirty-five million seven hundred thousand dollars ($35,700,000) for new facilities at Shiprock, Crownpoint and Ramah; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that New Mexico's congressional delegation be made aware of the vital importance of the improvement of corrections facilities and programs on the Navajo Nation; and

     BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED that copies of this memorial be sent to the members of the congressional delegation and to the Navajo Nation.

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