Wind River

Map of the Wind River Indian Reservation

The Wind River Indian Reservation is known for it's large crime rates. One of the articles that I read was from CNN and was about the murder of three young girls. On the day of their murder they were planning on having a sleepover. Their parents were extremely hesitant about it because of their location in the Wind River Reservation, they were concerned for their children's safety. That night, all of the girls were murdered by young boys, who had no real motive and received little punishment for their crimes. Another crime on the reservation that I read about from the New York Times was one where a young girl was murdered by her brother. While this crimes had what could be seen as a motive (the girl was caught by her brother having an affair with her step-cousin), the punishment for the crimes wasn't as severe as it would be expected to be.
I first started looking more into why all of these crimes were happening. I found out that there are less than ten police officers to patrol the area which is the size of both Rhode Island and Delaware combined. The lack of law enforcement officers makes the large crimes rates nearly impossible to handle. It is also difficult to get federal law enforcement onto reservations to handle crimes as well. I learned from the FBI that for a while, federal officers weren't allowed on reservations land, but there was a law passed that allows them to be present under certain circumstances to assist in the investigation of crimes.

Police Officers on the Wind River Indian Reservation

Another major issue involving the law enforcement of the area is the jurisdiction of the officers on reservation land. Federal law enforcement officers can only have jurisdiction if crimes are committed between two people in which one of them is an "indian" on the reservation and the other is someone of any other race. Most of the crimes at Wind River appear to be "indian" on "indian", which means that federal law enforcement has no jurisdiction over these crimes and can not assist in the investigation, be it with officers or equipment. This means that these "indian" on "indian" crimes are left up to the small amount of officers on the reservation and to the "indians" themselves. The officers on reservation lands don't have the expensive equipment or the people to use it to conduct intense investigations, and finding criminals can be difficult at times without the help of federal officers. The "indians" are not capable of doing much besides attempt to draw attention to the situation, which is seen by the parents raising awareness about the three girls that were murdered in the CNN article.
In the movie "Wind River", the director Taylor Sheridan opens up a window into the world of Wind River. He shed lights on the fact that the lack of data about the crimes in the area make it nearly impossible to speculate as to why all of these crimes are happening besides the lack of lack enforcement.