Voiceover: 
00.00	This is the Beat - a podcast series that keeps you in the know about the latest  
community policing topics facing our nation.

Matt Lysakowski: 
00.08	Hello and welcome.My name is Matt Lysakowski, and on behalf of the COPS Office, I 
would like to introduce to you Dave Rogers. Dave is the project specialist at Fox Valley, and he 
is here to talk to us today about regional partnerships to advance tribal safety. 
Developing effective partnerships is a core component of community policing. Dave, can you 
describe how partnerships can be used in tribal settings to advance community policing and 
problem-solving? 
Dave Rogers: 
00.33	Well,Matt, that really is a two-layer approach. With the tribes, we have had the 
isolation factor where tribes were often not included in any collaboration with any local 
jurisdictions or even within their own organization, so collaboration within the tribe itself was 
kind of a rarity. So initially it was building partnerships within the tribe to address issues of 
crime and livability and problem-solving within the tribe. And now we’ve expanded to where 
we’re including partnerships beyond the boundaries of the reservation to include other 
agencies that historically haven’t necessarily worked closely with the tribe, but now we’re 
building partnerships and collaborations to address bigger issues of crime and livability in the 
region as opposed to just within the boundaries of the tribe. 
Lysakowski: 
01.20	Great. Can you give us an example of some of the partners that public safety officials 
should consider in and around tribal communities?
Rogers: 
01.27	Some of the partnerships that should be included in tribal communities—within the 
tribal communities—should include virtually every entity of tribal government and some of the 
federal agencies that serve Indian country: the Bureau of Indian Affairs, Indian Health Service, 
the Department of the Interior, agencies that work in and around Indian country, but also 
within the tribe, just the school systems, whether they’re tribal or public, the human 
resources, the social services, any treatment programs that are available. Virtually any entity 
within the tribe and working inside the boundaries should be considered a partner, including 
the regular citizens who maybe don’t have particular role in service, but have an interest in the 
welfare of the community. 
Lysakowski: 
02.13	Great. Can you briefly describe an example of a successful regional partnership in a 
tribal community?
Rogers: 
02.19	I think that one that stands out to me and the one that I demonstrate in our training is 
the Chitimacha tribe in Louisiana. They attended some of our earliest community policing 
trainings that the COPS Office had sponsored. The chief of police really became a believer in 
community policing. And when he returned to his community and actually hosted one of the 
trainings, they didn’t necessarily take a look at the crime issue, but they looked at the issue of 
public safety, and they formed an emergency response team based on the community policing 
concept, and that emergency response team became so effective at how they worked during 
natural disasters, including Katrina, and tornadoes and floods that hit that particular region, 
that the county reached out to them and they formed a multi-jurisdictional collaboration for 
emergency response to catastrophic events. And they still function in that way today. 
Lysakowski: 
03.13	Great. What potential challenges do tribal and local agencies face in developing these 
regional public safety partnerships, and how might they address those challenges? 
Rogers: 
03.22	Well, probably the biggest problem is old history. A history of not working together or 
maybe not even liking each other. So a lot of that comes with education and getting together 
and realizing that everybody really does want the same things in life. They want a safe 
community and to have a good solid response against crime, and so that’s really what we’ve 
seen evolve. We’ve seen the ability of inviting everyone to the table, getting to know each 
other, building relationships amongst themselves first, and then building community 
relationships once they’ve established that trust and that willingness to work together to 
address issues of crime in the community. 
Lysakowski: 
04.04	Great. I know you’ve worked in Public Law 280 and non–Public Law 280 states. Can you 
just briefly describe how that may affect partnerships that are developed in the Public Law 280 
states? 
Rogers: 
04.16	Well, PL 280, of course, has caused a lot of problems, particularly in terms of response 
to crime, because the federal government having withdrawn from jurisdiction over tribal 
lands, it was handed over to the state, and the states and the tribes not necessarily having the 
greatest relationships. But what has developed is with the tribes re-establishing jurisdiction 
and the establishment of the tribal police have worked hard in many areas to build 
relationships with the county sheriff’s departments and the non-tribal police departments 
within the area. We still have a lot of areas where this isn’t working very well, but what we 
have been working on is that relationship-building component between the non-tribal 
agencies and the tribal police agencies—basically, community policing for law enforcement—
to get them together and that willingness to work together to approach these issues of crime. 
And we’ve had a number of success stories in that realm, where PL 280 tribes have built a 
relationship with their local agencies. 
Lysakowski: 
05.20	Do you have a specific example in that area that you might mention? 
Rogers: 
05.24	I would mention the Nez Perce tribe in Idaho, actually, which went beyond policing. 
Their collaborative and cooperative efforts extend to the probation departments, to the 
prosecution offices, and to the courts. So it went from policing to all of the entities within the 
criminal justice system taking that common approach together just to try to resolves a lot of 
the issues and the conflicts that were taking place with multiple jurisdictions trying to function 
within the same area. 
Lysakowski: 
05.56	Wonderful. Thanks for your time today. 
Rogers: 
05.58	Thank you, Matt.
Lysakowski: 
05.59 You’re welcome. 
Voiceover: 
06.01	The Beat was brought to you by the United States Department of Justice COPS  Office.  
The COPS Office helps to keep our nation's communities safe by giving  grants to law 
enforcement agencies, developing community policing publications,  developing partnerships 
and solving problems.