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For the children in exile

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DLN Issues : Juvenile Justice

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Court Watch Action Team Report - Indian Juveniles declared menaces to society

from Hazel Bonner

RAPID CITY - Several juveniles sit in the Juvenile Services Center in Rapid City having been labeled menaces to society by different juvenile probation officers. MG, grandmother and physical custodian of JGS and CP mother and physical and legal custodian of JP, both reported recently that the juvenile services officers declared their children as menaces to society.

Details about the case involving JGS who is in the custody of his grandmother are sparse at this time. His grandmother said that his probation officer has said that she is too old to provide supervision to him. She is 55.

The case of JP started in Butte County last summer. JP was 16 and was doing a visit with JC, the non-custodial father who lives in Belle Fourche. He had his father’s pistol concealed on his person, but never flashed it or threatened anyone with it. He was charged with carrying a concealed weapon. JP has never resided in Butte County. He lives with his mother in Pennington County. JP had no prior juvenile record anywhere. JP returned to school at Central last fall where he was a Junior. He went to school with a pen that had a letter opener on it and was charged with violation of Central’s no weapons policy. His Butte County PO charged him with a violation of his probation.

He was suspended from Central for 10 days. His mother sent him to the Pine Ridge Reservation to live with relatives and he was attending Little Wound School, still in the legal custody of his mother in Pennington County. He was doing very well at Little Wound.

In March his Butte County PO ordered a UA to be done by a PO from Fall River County. The UA was positive and he was again violated with no chance to challenge the results of the UA. He was sent to a BIA treatment facility in Mobridge. His Butte county PO contacted CP in April to say that that center was not appropriate for JP. She refused to have him removed or to return him to his home.

On May 25, JP was kicked out of the treatment facility for participating in a game called black out. JP was labeled the instigator of the game, though there are witnesses who say that he joined an already on going game. Apparently no one else was kicked out of the facility. CP was not contacted by the treatment center prior to a transfer to the Juvenile Detention Center in Eagle Butte.

CP was told by a counselor at the Mobridge facility that a formal complaint should be filed against the facility because it is doing more harm to Indian Children than therapy and that it does not provide proper supervision.

The Butte County PO has told CP that the youth cannot return to her home and will be going to Boot Camp. No home visit has been done. She has been told that she works too much to provide proper supervision. That PO replaced the Butte County PO whose husband held a gun to her head.

JP has been appointed an attorney from Spearfish and all court hearings are held in Belle Fourche. His attorney has not visited a witness here at JSC who was in the Mobridge facility at the time of the violation who states that JP did not start the game, but joined in on a game already in progress.

CP is attending a court hearing on July 6 in Belle Fourche accompanied by a member of the Court Watch Action Team of Oyate Okiciyapi. A follow up story will appear in next week’s paper about the hearing.



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They made us many promises, more than I can remember. But they kept but one - They promised to take our land...and they took it. -- Chief Red Cloud
Tunkashila, Let us stand Coalition strong in protection of our lands, our beliefs, our Sacred Spirituality, and our traditional Indigenous ways of life. We stand in strong support of Indigenous Rights and the Inherent Allodial title of Dakota, Lakota, and Nakota Lands. Let us reclaim what is ours and work diligently to preserve what we now have.
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The Dakota/Lakota/Nakota Human Rights Advocacy Coalition (DLN) is a traditional grassroots Oyate
movement chartered on the Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in south-central South Dakota.

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