When Dana Comes at Night started drinking and using drugs as a teenager, there wasn’t much help for her on the Flathead Indian Reservation.
“I was one of the types of people that would start counseling or therapy and never follow through, or just felt like I couldn’t connect to them,” she told Montana Free Press. “I was not making progress. I probably wasn’t ready. So just seeing the things now in this community, which is rural, on the reservation, but now things are picking up when it comes to substance use and addiction [treatment].”
In the last nearly 10 years since becoming sober, Comes at Night said she has been involved in starting the Never Alone Recovery Support Services (NARSS) organization and drop-in center and the Recovery Village, which provides housing and long-term recovery support.
After working at the Lake County Drug Court for more than three years, Comes at Night was hired in August 2022 to lead the Confederated Salish Kootenai Tribes’ new healing court, the Montana Free Press reports. For almost a year, she worked with a team to set up the court, which held its first official session in June 2023.
“To be helping the Native people here that really suffer, who don’t get the help they’re seeking or don’t understand how to go about it, … to be able to have people that can support you, help teach you and guide you is super important,” she said. “Especially when it’s Native people helping because we have that connection, that knowledge of what we all go through.”
Ramping up the healing court is one part of the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes’ effort to take over more felony cases from counties with the ultimate goal of rehabilitation, according to tribal officials. Over the last year, the tribes have handled 150 low-level felony drug offenses, compared to about 20 the year before and 10 to 20 on average in previous years.
Jordan Thompson, CSKT deputy executive officer, said the tribal council has expressed an interest in taking on as many cases as possible as Lake County’s dispute with the state over compensation for law enforcement on the reservation generates some uncertainty for the tribes.
“Right now, the counties are really obligated to enforce felonies,” Thompson said. “If the tribes take on more, it would mean less for counties. In addition, it will be CSKT taking care of its own people here on the reservation, which is the ultimate goal. It’s a big one, but we’re taking the steps we need to get there with time.”
Since the 1960s, law enforcement on the reservation has been handled locally rather than by federal officials under Public Law 280. The agreement between the state and the tribe came out of the 1950s termination era when the federal government attempted to sever relationships with tribes, Thompson said. The law was optional for Montana, and CSKT was the only tribe in the state to opt in because of unsolved murders and other crimes the federal agencies weren’t addressing, he said. CSKT’s tribal court has processed misdemeanors since the 1990s.
In recent years, elected officials in Lake County, where two-thirds of the reservation is located, have said they no longer have money to cover the cost. The Legislature has unsuccessfully tried to get the state to pay up and will likely try again this session.
“We have a pretty shaky partner that we don’t know if they’re staying in it or not,” Thompson said. “We have to do everything we can to prepare ourselves regardless. No matter what happens, CSKT is committed to taking on as much jurisdiction as we can. It’s a process we want to remain thoughtful about. We want to make sure we’re doing everything we can to plan appropriately to keep the community safe.”
While the tribes have long had concurrent jurisdiction to handle felonies, expanding the tribal court system’s capacity will require a lot of resources, Thompson said. CSKT can only incarcerate Native Americans for up to one year. The tribes are looking to adopt the standards allowing sentences up to three years and higher fines, but the changes require more funding, staff and equipment, Thompson said.
But simply imposing long sentences is not CSKT’s goal, said Shane Morigeau, CSKT deputy executive officer and state senator.
“The ultimate goal is to get people into the wellness courts, getting them the treatment, the mental health care and addiction treatment they need,” Morigeau said. “We know there’s a great need and something we need to start focusing more on. We’re trying not to take shortcuts. You can take shortcuts and just lock people up and they’ll just end up back in again if they have an issue that’s not being dealt with.”
In the year and a half since it started, three people have graduated from the tribal healing court, with another graduation scheduled for this month, said Comes at Night, the court director. Including the soon-to-be graduate, the program has 12 participants, five pending applicants and two people in inpatient treatment, she said.
Comes at Night and one case manager work with the participants, who are referred to the program by the tribal defenders’ office or probation and parole department. An intake process determines if participants need a short-term program, a minimum of six months, or a long-term program of about one to two years, Comes at Night said. The length of time in the program is not set and depends on individual progress, she said.
“Sometimes if it doesn’t work out in the first couple weeks, we will extend it to give a chance to get going, especially if you just quit using and try to do all these things we ask of you,” Comes at Night said. “The main thing when it comes to treatment courts is you gotta show up, try hard and be honest.”
If participants already have a licensed addiction counselor, they can work with them or are referred to the tribal health department, Comes at Night said.
Desiree Fox, behavioral health division director, said tribal health’s addictions and mental health providers can meet the need for most healing court referrals. However, the facility cannot provide inpatient or more intensive outpatient services that some people need, she said. While nearby treatment providers help fill the outpatient gaps, most people who need inpatient care are sent to a center in Washington where tribal members have seen success, Fox said.
CSKT Tribal Health provides care regardless of insurance and has a dedicated fund to pay for out-of-state inpatient treatment, Fox said. The tribes are cooperating with the state to create a regional tribal treatment center and CSKT is working toward opening an intensive outpatient treatment center to help fill those gaps, she said. Tribal Health wants to hire staff who can provide culturally informed care, Fox said.
When treatment is available through the tribes, Indigenous patients can better connect with providers who understand their circumstances, Comes at Night said. It also provides an opportunity to integrate cultural practices.
“It’s a different feel and environment and connectedness when you’re with other tribal people on the same path,” Comes at Night said.
As the tribal court system takes on more felony cases, Comes at Night hopes the healing court can also grow to include multiple case managers and more specialty courts, she said.
“Going forward, I’d just like to see tons of people come through the program and do amazingly well,” she said. “It’s the most rewarding part of the job when you see the change from beginning to end. The goal is to expand. It’s very possible, it’s just about tidying things up and moving forward.”
Fox said she would like to see more prevention efforts to reduce the need for a “bulked up” police and legal response. Providing alternatives to jail or prison is important to help individuals, she said.
“Being incarcerated is not treatment. For some people, it helps with motivation but it’s not providing the skills or support that people need,” Fox said. “And we know anecdotally that people who are more involved with cultural activities and have more connections and social supports tend to be more successful on their recovery journey. … This is our community, our families. We want these individuals to be successful because they’re important to us, they’re part of us.”
Implementing the tribal council’s goal to focus on rehabilitation will take time, money and coordination, said Morigeau, the CSKT deputy executive officer. Handling more felony cases and expanding the healing court are contingent on the tribes receiving federal money, grants or other funding, he said.
“We’re just doing what we can for our people and community at large with what we have,” Morigeau said. “I don’t know what lies ahead on the road we’re traveling. We’ll continue to do what we can but we have to be mindful of staff and not burn them out.”
The felony cases have increased the court staff’s workload and pressed the system to capacity, said Thompson, the other deputy executive officer. CSKT leadership is identifying and planning for additional positions needed in the court system, law enforcement and tribal health, he said.
The tribal prosecutors and defenders offices each plan to hire an additional attorney and officials hope to keep additional staff with federal and grant funding, Morigeau said.
As it’s unclear how Lake County or the Legislature may change law enforcement on the Flathead Reservation, CSKT is focusing on what it can control, Morigeau said.
“The work we do is overlooked and impacts the overall community,” he said. “Work to keep people out of the system is saving resources. We want to put more into mental health resources, which are sorely lacking everywhere in Montana. I think people tried to steer away from that because it’s a lot of work to rehabilitate people and provide long-term support. They’ve found it’s easier to incarcerate people, a problem we’ve always had. CSKT is trying to do better. … The more success we see, the more we can ramp up and create a system that works better.”
