Monday, November 11, 2024

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Photo: Terri Smith is the administrator for the Northern Arapaho Reentry Agency. (Chris Clements / Wyoming Public Media)

On the Wind River Reservation in Wyoming, a Northern Arapaho Tribal member is leading the charge against recidivism, which is 33% higher for Native Americans than other groups.

As Wyoming Public Radio’s Chris Clements reports, Terris Smith herself is an ex-inmate.

Driving her pickup through the community of Arapahoe, Terri Smith is the Northern Arapaho Reentry Agency’s sole employee.

Launched with a federal grant, the program helps Eastern Shoshone and Northern Arapaho tribal members readjust to post-prison life on the reservation … and stay out of jail.

Smith grew up here, and knows what it’s like to get caught up with addiction and the law.

She served six months in federal prison for conspiracy to distribute Oxycodone.

Not only that, she lost her law license while in prison, and her position as chief judge of the Wind River Tribal Court.

“There’s gonna be a lot of people who still view that side of me, but I’m, I know I’ve done the work to get better, you know, I did my time, I went to treatment.”

She came home in 2021 and started over.

“I honestly think this job’s perfect for me right now. Like, because I’m getting a second chance. I want everyone to get that.”

Tremayne Thunder is a member of the Northern Arapaho Tribe, and Smith’s first client out of 15.

Last year, he was arrested and charged with illegal possession of a firearm.

Smith has helped Thunder make medical appointments, meet with his parole officer, and even find a place to live when he got out.

“She can relate to everything, as in, all of it, you know, like, the prison system, the probation system, being an addict, everything.”

State Sen. Affie Ellis (member of the Navajo Nation/R-WY) endorsed the programs.

“I think these programs are really important and long overdue.”

Reentry services like Smith’s are new to the Wind River Reservation … and to many other tribal nations.

Sen. Ellis says she supports Smith and the agency, but worries about its dependence on federal money.

“We’ve seen this time and again in Indian Country: great idea, great program. Here’s some funding. Tribes get something going, and then money runs out, they lose the grant, and then the program’s gone.”

Meanwhile, back in Arapahoe, Smith heads to the reentry agency office in Great Plains Hall.

She’s looked to reentry agencies in Oklahoma and Minnesota for guidance on how to run hers.

She’s also petitioning to get her law license back so she can help her clients even more.

“I got letters of recommendation from my attorney friends and from Lee [Spoonhunter], the councilman. I hope it goes well.”

Wild Chinook salmon are returning to the Upper Klamath River after the removal of four outdated hydroelectric dams.

Isobel Charle has more.

After 20 years of organizing and legal battles by the Yurok Tribe and other groups, 400 miles of historic salmon habitat have reopened.

Scientists are now monitoring the effects of the dam removal on salmon populations.

Yurok Tribe member Amy Bowers Cordalis says they’ve been astonished by how quickly the migrating fish are returning to areas that haven’t supported them for generations.

“And all these people are using Indigenous knowledge and marrying it with Western modern science to observe and to tell us how the river is healing. And it’s really a remarkable opportunity.”

Cordalis is also founder of the Indigenous conservation group Ridges to Riffles.

The data being collected details, among other things, fish spawning locations, their health, and their numbers – all of which will be crucial for predicting future populations.

 

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