Montana

Technical Assistance:

Montana Legislature (February 2007): CSOM staff participated in a telephone conference, presenting information on sex offenders, national legislative trends, and an overview of current research.

Resource Site:

The Assiniboine-Sioux Tribes at Fort Peck convene Child Protection Team meetings at the local rape crisis center. Representatives from the Bureau of Indian Affairs, the Tribal Court, Indian Health Services, the FBI, the Criminal Investigators, and others participate in these meetings, which are used mainly as a venue to discuss their sex offender cases and explore solutions to their common problems. The tribes’ approach is victim centered, and utilizes community education on an ongoing basis to encourage victims of sexual assault to report the crimes that have been perpetrated against them and seek assistance from the tribes’ extensive support network.

OJP Grant Sites:

2000: The Assiniboine and Sioux Tribes of the Fort Peck Indian Reservation in Montana had a population of 12,000 in 2000, including enrolled and non-enrolled members. The reservation spans more than two million acres. At the time of this grant the Tribal Probation Department supervised 28 registered sex offenders, in addition to seven sex offenders supervised by Federal Probation. The Fort Peck Tribes identified the need to fill gaps in the supervision and treatment of adult sex offenders, as well as provide education to the community regarding sexual assault and sex offender management. The primary focus of this planning grant was to support the collection and analysis of data, as well as ensure more consistent and thorough registration and notification practices.

2000: The Fort Belknap Indian Reservation is located in north central Montana. In 2000, it had an enrolled membership of 5,274, with approximately 3,800 members living on or near the reservation. About 45 percent of this community’s members live below the poverty level (as compared to 11 percent nationally and 12 percent for the state of Montana). The tribe had a Rape Crisis Team that provides services to victims, but no sex offender management practices were in place prior to this grant. Funds from an Office of Justice Programs implementation/enhancement grant were used to hire a tribal prosecutor to register sex offenders, conduct community notification, educate the community about sexual assault, establish a crisis hotline for victims, provide sex offender treatment services, and conduct research on the sex offender population.