Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country
![handle is hein.journals/osjcl6 and id is 5 raw text is: Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country
Virginia Davis* and Kevin Washburn**
I. INTRODUCTION
Sex offenses against women and children may be a more serious problem in
American Indian and Alaska Native communities than any other communities in
the United States. While, on average, a woman in the United States faces a one in
five chance of being raped in her lifetime,' the statistics for American Indian and
Alaska Native women are far graver: they have a one in three chance of being
raped during their lifetimes.2 Amnesty International recently examined the high
rates of sexual assault against Native American women and accused the United
States of failing to meet its international human rights obligations to women and
indigenous peoples. Data on the incidence of child sexual abuse is equally
troublesome. According to federal health statistics, one in every four Native girls
and one in every seven Native boys will be sexually abused.4
Given the foregoing, it should be no surprise that Congress first addressed the
idea of sex offender registration in a law directed at Indian reservations. In 1987, a
teacher at a federal Bureau of Indian Affairs school on the Hopi reservation was
arrested for the sexual abuse of as many as 142 boys between 1979 and 1987.5
The teacher, John W. Boone, was prosecuted and convicted, and the federal
government settled a civil action with some of the victims for nearly $50 million.
In response to the wide public outcry following the Boone case, Congress enacted
the Indian Child Protection and Family Violence Prevention Act in 1990 [ICPA].6
Unfortunately, the ICPA was a very modest effort, and Congress ultimately failed
to appropriate any significant funding to implement the law. Though it failed to
* Associate Counsel, National Congress of American Indians, J.D., Harvard Law School,
2002.
_ 2007-08 Oneida Indian Nation Visiting Professor, Harvard Law School; Rosenstiel
Distinguished Professor, University of Arizona James E. Rogers College of Law.
1 PATRICIA TJADEN & NANCY THOENNES, FULL REPORT OF THE PREVALENCE, INCIDENCE, AND
CONSEQUENCES OF VIOLENCE AGAINST WOMEN: FINDINGS FROM THE NATIONAL VIOLENCE AGAINST
WOMEN SURVEY 22 (2000), available at http://www.ncjrs.org/pdffiles l/nij/18378l.pdf.
2 Id.
3 MAZE OF INJUSTICE: THE FAILURE TO PROTECT INDIGENOUS WOMEN FROM SEXUAL
VIOLENCE IN THE UNITED STATES (Amnesty Int' Publications 2007).
4 Dep't of Health and Human Services, Indian Health Service Child Abuse Project, available
at http://www.ovccap.ihs.gov/ (last visited Nov. 16, 2008).
5 Andrea Smith, Soul Wound: The Legacy of Native American Schools, AMNESTY MAG.
(2007), available at http://www.amnestyusa.org/amnestynow/soulwound.htm.
6 25 U.S.C. § 3201(a) (2000).](ViewImageLocal?handle=hein.journals/osjcl6&div=5&collection=&method=preview&ext=.png&size=3)
What Is HeinOnline?
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most
Sex Offender Registration in Indian Country
Contact us for annual subscription options:
Already a HeinOnline Subscriber?
profiles profiles most