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BILLINGS - When Ed Naranjo began visiting jails on Montana Indian reservations in 2000, the career law officer was appalled by what he saw - decrepit buildings with drafty cells and faulty plumbing, jails so full that some inmates slept on the floor, security so poor he said it created a very real threat to both inmates and staff. Naranjo, at the time the Bureau of Indian Affairs' special agent in charge of law enforcement for Montana and five other states, told his superiors how bad things were. He wrote reports warning about the conditions, and asked what could be done about them. But he said his repeated complaints went nowhere. So Naranjo took a more dramatic approach to make his case for action: He made a videotape. The 10-minute video is a gritty tour of several Montana reservation jails in various stages of disrepair. Images of broken locks, decaying walls, cells with no working plumbing and juveniles and adults housed in the same units are interwoven with the comments of a narrator, who warns of one jail: "The building should be condemned." At one point, the narrator declares such conditions would never be tolerated in state-run jails or prisons. "There would be a public outcry," he says. Naranjo provided copies of the tape to any BIA official with an interest and the time to watch, figuring the images would more effectively illustrate his concerns. But Naranjo, 57, who recently retired, said he's been disappointed in the government's reaction. Publicly, the Department of the Interior's assistant secretary for Indian affairs, Dave Anderson, has said the video showed "deplorable" conditions and prompted the agency to make improvements at jails in Indian Country a priority. But Naranjo said he heard the BIA and the department privately were unhappy that the video was produced, and that Interior Secretary Gale Norton had ordered a moratorium on further distribution. An Interior spokeswoman denied that, saying Norton only recently learned of the video, was concerned by its contents and agreed with Anderson that action is needed. Naranjo said the conditions captured on the video are not new and exist at just about every Indian jail in the country. He said he believes that the BIA and the Interior Department are taking more serious notice now because copies of the video made their way into the hands of reporters. And Naranjo readily admits he supplied most of them. But Naranjo said he might not have had the video made, or been so eager to see it widely distributed, if he thought other tactics would prompt quick action. "I want to try to make noise, as long as I can, until something is actually done," he said. "In another week or two weeks, it could be just another issue that's forgotten about. And who's going to say something?" Anderson contends that won't happen. He said he responded swiftly after seeing the "fact-finding" video for the first time earlier this year, finding $6.5 million in the budget for emergency maintenance and repair work. All that will buy, Naranjo said, is a little cosmetic work. "Without seeing the jails, some people may think that's a lot of money. But it isn't," he said. "The problem is still going to be there." In 2003, with retirement looming a year away, Naranjo figured he had nothing to lose by making more noise. Using BIA funds, Naranjo hired a private video production company to capture what he had seen. He gave producers access to jails across Montana, provided them with statistics on how bad conditions were at many of the roughly 70 Indian jails across the country and helped write the narrator's script to accompany the scenes. The finished video is extremely critical. In one scene, inmates in Montana are shown sleeping on thin mats on the floor, one inmate's head only inches from a discolored toilet. In another, a guard demonstrates how a magnetic-controlled cell door can be foiled with nothing more than a thin piece of paper and a quick pull. Contraband can easily be hidden in loose vents and under soiled carpets. Cracked walls, inoperable surveillance cameras and staffing that falls far short of government mandates are the norm, the narrator says. At the Fort Belknap Indian Reservation in northern-central Montana, "when the toilet is flushed in the women's cell, the waste flows to the men's cell, where it must be flushed again to drain to the sewer," the narrator says. Harold Main, a member of the Fort Belknap Community Council, said recent publicity could help. The reservation's jail, he said, "isn't adequate in all respects," and he hopes the video may help make a pitch for a new facility. Naranjo said most jails in Indian Country were built to last 30 years. According to the video, 22 of the jails are at least 30 years old and another 14 are at least 25 years old. Thirty-six are considered "dilapidated" and in need of extensive repairs or replacement, the narrator says. That, however, would cost $252 million by some estimates - money the BIA does not have. According to statistics cited in the video, the agency instead makes the repairs that it can from a $700,000 annual budget for jails. Some congressional leaders are taking an interest. The Senate Committee on Indian Affairs tentatively scheduled a hearing June 23 on tribal detention centers, in part due to the recent publicity, a staff director for the panel said. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., has asked staff to meet with tribal representatives to discuss needs and possible solutions, including regional facilities, a senior aide said. Whether any of this will translate into firm commitments or long-term changes on Indian reservations, Naranjo is not so sure. But the more attention brought to the problem, he said, the better the chances. "We need to have focus placed on this continually. Unless it's at the forefront, they're just going to forget about it, like they were for years," he said. "Unless someone gets hurt, they won't do anything about it." |
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