American Indian Culture and Research Journal

One confronts many difficulties when conducting policy-relevant criminal justice research that focuses on American Indian interests. Foremost among these difficulties is the great variation in relevant contexts that apply to this area of research. From the urban context of large American cities, where American Indians constitute a slim minority that is prone to victimization by members of other racial and ethnic groups, to the solidly rural context within northern Plains reservation communities where American Indians constitute strong majorities and violent crime is likely to be intraracial, there are challenges when it comes to understanding and addressing the dynamics of criminal behavior and its impact on American Indians. These two extremes, and the contexts that lie between, are difficult to compare because of the tremendous variation in interests, behaviors, and legal structures associated with them. The observation that such a continuum exists at all necessitates that we more carefully examine the source of crime and potential remedies in specific contexts and reject “one-size-fits-all” research approaches and policy responses. The challenges of doing reliable research in this area produces a demand on researchers, policy makers, advocates, and journalists to be disciplined in not presenting incomplete information as fact when arguing for legal or social change.