ABSTRACT
Tribal policing agencies are primarily responsible for the provision of law enforcement services to a large and culturally diverse tribal population. In at least some ways tribal police agencies are very similar to non-tribal law enforcement organizations. However, there are also a number of substantive differences that distinguish tribal policing agencies from their non-tribal counterparts. Perhaps most importantly, the jurisdictional authority of tribal agencies has been legislatively determined to a large extent. In practice, this has undermined the right of tribal populations to manage their own affairs in regard to formalized social control applications. This, along with other factors, has hampered the efficacy of tribal policing efforts, resulting in a number of critical current and future challenges. In spite of these obstacles, tribal police agencies have grown and developed into full service law enforcement agencies that provide a broad array of public safety services to a critically important and oftentimes overlooked segment of the American population.
