The Flandreau Santee Sioux Tribe’s lands are situated within Moody County and the City of Flandreau, South Dakota. This location presents the Nation with a particular challenge: How do you provide adequate and culturally sensitive public safety and law enforcement for your citizens in mixed jurisdictions? Starting in 2000, after years of struggling to find a solution, the Tribe entered into a joint power agreement with the City of Flandreau. The result has been a single police department governed by a Public Safety Commission composed of tribal and city representatives. The department consolidates resources, delivers law enforcement services for the City of Flandreau and for all the Tribe’s trust lands, while training officers to deal respectfully and responsibly with all citizens, Native and non-Native. The Tribe is pioneering a genuinely new intergovernmental relationship in a crucial area of public life.
Additional Information
"Flandreau Police Department". Honoring Nations: 2005 Honoree. The Harvard Project on American Indian Economic Development, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. Cambridge, Massachusetts. 2006. Report.