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reservation and who are married to or in a partnership with a tribal member.
• Pascua Yaqui Chief Prosecutor Fred Urbina estimates that 1,000 non-Indians live or work on the southern Arizona reservation. He said nearly 270 of the more than 500 criminal charges filed against American Indians in the tribal court in 2011 stemmed from domestic violence. While the caseload won't increase significantly with jurisdiction over non-Indians, he said the tribe can better send the message that justice for victims is possible.
• "You don't really want one person being in that situation, being attacked and not having any kind of redress or justice," Urbina said Thursday. "I see that as one of the primary roles of any government, local, state or federal, is protecting your people."
• The tribes are required to report cases to the Justice Department as well as any changes in personnel needed to meet the requirements of prosecuting non-Indians, Urbina said. Most tribes believe constitutional challenges will arise from their new authority but say they are prepared to defend their justice systems. Subjecting non-Indians to prosecution in tribal courts was a major point of contention in Congress.
• Also on Thursday, officials from the Justice Department's Office on Violence Against Women were in Albuquerque, N.M., to launch an online resource and training center for stemming sexual violence on tribal lands.
• Deputy director Bea Thompson pointed to a recent Centers for Disease Control and Prevention study that said 46 percent of American Indian women have been physically or sexually assaulted.
• The National Indian Country Clearinghouse on Sexual Assault was developed in partnership with the nonprofit Southwest Center for Law and Policy and includes a hotline, online training programs, legal resources and information on the cultural challenges of responding to and prosecuting sexual abuse cases from Indian Country.
• "We are at such a base level in terms of tribes being able to address violence against women issues," Thompson said. "It's such a huge problem."
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