NADGI one of three finalists for Honoring Nations award

The Wisconsin Native American Drug and Gang Initiative (NADGI) Task Force is one of three finalists for the 2016 Honoring Nations Award.
“For the last year and a half, I’ve heard from Native American leaders about the public safety challenges they are facing in tribal communities and the importance of the relationships and collaborations facilitated by NADGI,” said Attorney General Brad Schimel. “The Wisconsin Department of Justice is proud of NADGI’s success, and I personally commend the partnerships formed to help preserve the Native American communities in our state as safe and healthy environments. Fighting for our state’s health and prosperity requires collaboration, whether it’s fighting the opioid and heroin epidemic, combating human trafficking, or keeping our state’s most vulnerable safe. NADGI is a model for successful collaboration.”
According to Oneida Police Department (OPD) Chief of Police Rich Van Boxtel, the taskforce is made up of the nine tribal law enforcement agencies in Wisconsin, along with Great Lakes Indian Fish and Wildlife Commission (GLIFWC) the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation.
“In 2006 the tribal police chiefs, we were getting together talking about the issues that we were having on our reservation,” said Van Boxtel. “We were finding that we were having the same issues and some of the same people across the state.”
The then eight police departments worked with the Wisconsin Department of Criminal Investigation for form a multijurisdictional drug taskforce. NADGI was later expanded when Hochunk formed a police force, and GLIWC was brought in.
“They provide some additional resources with manpower and that sort of stuff up in the northern part of the state,” said Van Boxtel.
The taskforce receives some funding from the state and uses information sharing software for all its members.
“We focus on the training, so all of our NADGI officers, they’re all from the tribal police departments from across the state, they’re all trained the same,” said Van Boxtel.
According to Van Boxtel, the tribal police departments can’t spare a full time officer to focus on drug enforcement full time.
“They’re doing it on a part time basis, but at the end of the day we’re still able to get some pretty good results from it,” he said.
To be selected for the Honoring Nations Award, the organization that applies needs to be something that can be done in other Native American communities.
“They’re trying to show tribal sovereignty, sustainability, and showing that model out there to be replicated. We don’t have a huge operating budget, its things that we’re doing anyway, and to simply have those additional resources is a huge benefit not only to the police departments, but to the tribal communities across the state,” said Van Boxtel.
The other two finalists are Calricaraq: Indigenous Yup’ik Wellbeing, and Chickasaw Nation Sick Child Care Program.
As a member of a worldwide family of “governmental best practices” award programs, Honoring Nations is the flagship program of The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University. The program’s director, Megan Minoka Hill (Oneida Nation of WI) explains, “These awards recognize exemplary creativity and innovation in tribal governance. Time and time again, Honoring Nations awardees provide valuable lessons and practices for local governments, both tribal and non-tribal, to learn from and hopefully replicate.”
The winner of the award will be announced at the National Congress of American Indians in October.