A Call for Research on Criminal Legal Systems Involvement Among American Indian and Alaska Native Populations

American Indian and Alaska Native (AI/AN) people are disproportionately over represented in the U.S. criminal legal system (CLS). Overall, AI/AN individuals are incarcerated at a rate more than double that of White individuals, with rates rising 85% since 2000. In states with large AI/AN populations, AI/AN individuals are incarcerated up to seven times the rate of White individuals. While direct comparisons to White Americans should be considered within a racialized context of poverty, historical trauma, racism, and mistreatment in systems of care, AI/AN individuals have some of the highest and disproportionate rates of arrest and incarceration in the United States when compared to any other racial or ethnic group.

Involvement in the justice system is associated with broad collateral consequences for individuals and their communities, including compounded trauma, disruption of families, and poor health and socioeconomic outcomes. Understanding the full impact of justice involvement on AI/AN peoples is difficult. National data sources that include justice-involvement variables often place AI/AN data in racial OTHER category or omit Native people from reporting altogether. Furthermore, there is little to no work done with AI/AN populations who are under community corrections (e.g., probation and parole). Thus, although we know AI/AN populations are disproportionately represented throughout the CLS, less is known about the individual and systemic factors that bring them into these settings and unique needs that arise for AI/AN individuals both in incarceration settings and during community reentry.

The goal of this roundtable is to provide a collective space for social work researchers and practitioners to explore knowledge related to overincarceration and disproportionality of AI/AN people in criminal legal systems, examine needs and knowledge gaps, and collectively identify research agendas and strategies to address inequities and harms caused by involvement in the CLS. Presenters will begin this roundtable dialogue by providing foundational information describing the prevalence and disproportionality of AI/AN people involved in the U.S. CLS, intersecting conditions and systemic factors contributing to elevated rates, and the current knowledge base related to associated outcomes and consequences of CLS contact for AI/AN people. We will provide a brief overview of research, theories, and models related to legal involvement among this population. Next, we will discuss the need for community and tribally driven inquiries to understand legal involvement of AI/AN and initiatives that inform culturally responsive solutions. Finally, we will offer discussion questions to prompt collective commitment, coordinated priorities, and identify potential collaborations for forwarding research agendas to better understand systemic causes of CLS involvement, and empirically supported, culturally responsive solutions to address harms caused by CLS involvement in CLS, and reduce overincarceration of AI/AN people.

This roundtable aligns with the conference theme by developing research focused on a population largely invisible in social work research, policy, and practice with justice-involved populations. Moreover, this roundtable will invite a robust conversation about how to direct and align research efforts that actionable efforts to affect policy and practice.