Department of Interior commits to help recruit, train more Bureau of Indian Affairs law enforcement officers

Following recent hearings of the Senate Indian Affairs and Interior Appropriations Committees, officials from the U.S. Department of the Interior committed to grow the U.S. Indian Law Enforcement Advanced Training Center (ATC) and work to recruit and train more Tribal law enforcement officers.

“The need for additional trained law enforcement officials in Tribal communities continues to grow,” U.S. Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND) said. Hoeven pressed BIA Assistant Secretary Bryan Newland on the topic during the recent hearings. “According to BIA’s most recent data from 2021, 5,429 law enforcement and public safety personal participated in training programs offered at the Camp Grafton ATC and the Indian Police Academy in New Mexico, but over 3,000 training participants, more than half, received training at the ATC. That’s good progress, but we need to do more, and key officials at the Interior Department committed to work with us to train and recruit more law enforcement officials for our tribal communities.”

The Bureau of Indian Affairs formed the Advanced Training Center at Camp Grafton, North Dakota in 2020, as a means to train law enforcement in the Upper Great Plains. It provides specialized advanced training in criminal, narcotics and missing children’s investigations, along with areas like school resource officer training and opioid overdose protocols.

Grafton supplements the U.S. Police Academy in Artesia, N.M., as a place to train officers, criminal investigators, corrections officers, dispatchers and command staff working among the country’s various tribes.

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