Suicide prevention oversight meeting well attended

By B.L. Azure

CSKT Police Chief Craige Couture told the folds at the Suicide Oversight Committee meeting about the various positive activities that Youth With A Mission conducts throughout the year. (B.L. Azure photo)

POLSON — More than 50 people ventured to KwaTaqNuk Resort last week to participate in the suicide prevention oversight meeting. And that lifted the spirits of those involved in preventing the last desperate act of those who for various reasons choose to end their lives at their own hand.

Most if not all of those in attendance knew someone who has committed suicide. Some in the audience had tried - and luckily failed - to take their own lives.

All of those in attendance from social workers to law enforcement officials to administrators to advocates to the general public want to be a part of the help to end or greatly reduce the incidents of suicide. It is a very big problem in Indian Country, especially youth suicides.

Chief of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes Law Enforcement Division Craige Couture said that providing youth with positive activities is one way to keep them out of trouble, should they be so inclined.

Couture touted the Youth With A Mission group for its advocacy and conducting of positive activities for youth on the Flathead Indian Reservation regardless of race or gender. He also discussed Tribal Waves and Team Xtreme, loosely affiliated groups with Youth With A Mission.

Tribal Waves is comprised of adolescent Native youth and it promotes pride of being an American Indian. “The main message here is to be proud of who you are and to do things that promote tribal culture,” Couture said. “It’s about positive reinforcement. That is so important to kids.”

One of the Tribal Waves summer projects is the community garden in Ronan. The 100-foot by 200-foot garden harvest is distributed to local food baskets. Some of the harvest has been used for meals in the tribal jail. They did community clean ups in some reservation towns and have the goal to do one in each town. They also participated in a prayer walk that emulated the forced march out of the Bitterroot homelands of the Salish people.

Team Xtreme promotes a drug and alcohol free lifestyle. The various activities they sponsor teach the value of teamwork to get things accomplished. “If you believe you can accomplish anything,” he said, adding that Team Xtreme activities include all races and religious beliefs. There are Samoan, Amish, American Indian and non-Indians involved. “We are trying to build bridges between the various cultures on the reservation.”

Couture said his dream is to make jails obsolete but he knows that will never happen. Consequently he thinks closer to the bone. “Imagine keeping people out of jail for just one week. Law enforcement wouldn’t have anything to do. Think of the money that would save,” he said. “If what I am doing can keep one person, a youth, out of jail for a year there would be a lot of benefits to that. We can save the cost of incarceration and we would know the kids are home with their families. That is the big benefit.”

Denver Henderson, Montana Abolition Coalition organizer, said the MAC is working to abolish the death penalty in Montana. Since 1970 Montana has sentenced 10 people to death. Five of them had their sentences overturned, three were executed and two are presently on death row in Deer Lodge.

“This is a tough contentious issue,” Henderson said.

In place of the death penalty, MAC is advocating life in prison without the possibility of parole for people who are found guilty of crime(s) that presently have the death penalty sentence as an option.

The reasons for abolition of the death penalty are threefold. It is humane, it is economic and it eliminates the potential of executing innocent people.

Henderson said that taking the death penalty out of the legal equation would save money up front.

“There is an exorbitant amount of money expended in death penalty cases,” Henderson said. If a person is found guilty and sentenced to death they will appeal their case, sometimes all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court and that takes time, energy and money. “Many (convicted murderers) win on appeal and have their death penalties reversed and changed to life in prison. The process costs a lot of money.”

Henderson pointed out that since 1970 138 people on death row had their death penalties exonerated, usually due to DNA testing.

However, DNA evidence is available in only 5 to 10 percent of crimes and the rest have the human factor to deal with. Eyewitness testimony is not fool proof, Henderson said. “Some times people make mistakes,” he said. “There are numbers out there that show there is very little benefit for having the death penalty. States without a death penalty can save an average of $10 million a year.”

Local courts carry the financial burden of the long drawn out court cases and they usually don’t have bottomless pockets of money. “When local courts pay the cost it really is the local taxpayers who are paying,” Henderson said. “There isn’t much room to raise local taxes to pay for lengthy court proceedings. The money saved without the death penalty could be used for other law enforcement efforts or for the community or for community projects.”

Henderson said there would be a bill before the upcoming Montana Legislature that convenes in January 2011. “The number one thing on the mind of legislators is, ‘what do my constituents think.’ Talk to your legislative candidates about the issue and let them know your views on the death penalty,” he said, adding that ethnic minorities and poor people are the ones most likely to be sentenced to death. “There are a lot of minorities and poor people on death row.”