JACKSON - A get-tough program to reduce alarming incidences of family violence has earned the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians an award from Harvard University and an opportunity to teach other tribes how to deal with the same issue.
The Choctaws' Family Violence and Victim's Services program was named one of the nation's top tribal government initiatives by Harvard University's American Indian Nations tribal governance awards program.
The Choctaw tribe was among eight nationwide to receive the award earlier this month for programs ranging from home loan initiatives to peacemaking groups.
"These are tribes that are solving compelling public-policy challenges and problems, that are thinking strategically about their future," said Andrew Lee, founding director of the awards program. He is also executive director of the Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, based at Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government.
The Choctaws' award comes with a $10,000 stipend to develop ways to replicate the program on other tribal reservations.
According to the Harvard project, the incidence of child abuse among Native Americans is almost twice as high as the average for U.S. citizens of all races.
The Mississippi Choctaws are no exception: During 1998 and 1999, the 9,000-member tribe's Law and Order unit received 542 calls involving domestic violence. A 2001 tribe-commissioned study by Mississippi State University Social Science Research Center concluded many tribal members lived in homes "characterized by substance abuse, verbal and physical aggression, sexual abuse and poor marital relations."
The Choctaws began to address family violence in 1999 with a combination of education, new civil and criminal codes and enforcement.
They found that in the year before the creation of the family violence program in February 1999, only about 12 protection orders were issued by the tribal court for violence victims. And there was no attorney to represent victims' rights.
The tribe has since assembled a six-person staff headed by director Paula Broome, who also acts as an attorney for family violence victims. Between April of this year and September 2004, the program's funding is roughly $550,000 - two-thirds federal grants and one-third tribal matching funds.
The tribe's new domestic violence criminal code and no-tolerance policy has resulted in more cries more help from victims, more arrests and more protective orders:
Between Oct. 1, 2001 and Sept. 30, 2003, Broome obtained 157 orders of protection from the Choctaw tribal court.
During the first nine months of this year, 196 domestic violence calls were made to tribal police and 91 arrests were made.
"Before, there seemed to be a denial of a problem and no efficient or easy access to services, and not that many knew what they could do about it," Broome said. "In the past it was more of a family issue and not a court issue."
Broome said she's grateful to Harvard for recognizing the program, one she hopes to help other tribes duplicate.
"We're just glad somebody noticed after all the hard work that has gone into it, and we want people to know we're addressing the problem," Broome said.
Copyright 2003 Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
