An officer recruit fires a pistol during firearms training at the George S. Mickelson Law Enforcement Center in Pierre on July 8, 2024. (John Hult/South Dakota Searchlight)
Efforts to bolster the number of officers policing tribal lands for tribal agencies in South Dakota have begun to pay off, public safety officials say.
The state’s next basic law enforcement certification class, which begins on Aug. 18 in Pierre, includes nine tribal recruits from the Yankton, Oglala, Sisseton-Wahpeton and Rosebud tribes.
The certification course is 13 weeks long, and the state typically has three classes a year. Since May 2024, the state has certified 13 tribal graduates.
Former Gov. Kristi Noem, now head of the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, drew attention — as well as heavy criticism and bans from her home state’s tribal lands — to the need for law enforcement in tribal communities in 2024.
Noem repeatedly said Mexican drug cartels had infiltrated the state’s reservations, and claimed that some tribal leaders benefited from the gangs’ presence. She also drew the ire of tribal officials for saying Native American children have no hope for lack of parenting.
Alongside the controversial remarks, the Noem administration used the state’s basic law enforcement certification setup to address concerns about a dearth of available policing resources on tribal lands. Tribal officials had themselves sought to draw attention to that issue through public safety emergency declarations and in testimony to Congress.
Noem pulled from her budget to pay for an additional basic law enforcement certification cohort last summer, and Attorney General Marty Jackley partnered with her office to pull together the course. That academy class gave priority to tribal officer recruits, and was filled out with officer hopefuls from other non-tribal agencies. Nine of the tribal recruits successfully completed the program, and four more have completed it since then.
Noem also joined calls from U.S. Sen. Mike Rounds, R-South Dakota, to place a federal tribal law enforcement training center in the region. Most tribal officers attend training at a Bureau of Indian Affairs facility in Artesia, New Mexico. Tribal leaders say the distance and duration of the training have been a deterrent to hiring officers.
In May, Rounds sent a letter to U.S. Interior Secretary Doug Burgum asking him to endorse a tribal police academy for the Great Plains.
At a recent meeting of the State-Tribal Relations Committee, South Dakota Public Safety Secretary Bob Perry said he hopes to see a federal tribal academy in the area.
“The pie in the sky dream-type goal is to have a permanent type solution for that here in South Dakota,” Perry said.