The U.S. Senate Indian Affairs Committee will conduct a  hearing to examine S. 797, the Tribal Law and Order Act, at 2:15 PM Thursday, June 25 in Room 628 of the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C.

Among those who will testify at the hearing are Associate U.S. Attorney General Thomas Perrelli; the Interior Department’s Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs Larry Echo Hawk; Alonzo Coby, Chairman, Shoshone Bannock Tribes; Anthony Brandenburg, Chief Judge of the Intertribal Court of Southern California; Troy Eid, former U.S. Attorney for Colorado under President George W. Bush; and Ted Quasula, former Director, Bureau of Indian Affairs Office of Law Enforcement Services under President Clinton.

Dorgan chaired eight committee hearings during the 110th Congress to examine public safety and justice issues in Indian Country. The hearings revealed a longstanding public safety crisis on many reservations.  Tribal communities face 2.5 times the national violent crime rate.  More than 1 in 3 American Indian and Alaska Native women will be raped in their lifetimes.  Feeding into these statistics is a severe lack of resources: less t...