The Grift That Keeps on Giving: $33 Million for State Prisons Generated by Seized Native Land
In 2024, land trusts in 10 states generated an estimated $33 million in revenue for their prison systems. The figure was estimated from reports by Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington and Utah. Wyoming and Utah did not provide data, meaning the total amount is likely higher.
The property—almost 2 million acres, an area equivalent to the size of Delaware—was taken from 57 Indigenous nations in 71 treaty seizures, some of which are still being contested. In a cruel irony, Indigenous Americans are over-represented in the prison populations of these states—meaning land seized from their ancestors is rented out to help pay for their incarceration.
While representing small portions of the budgets for prisons, the amounts would be huge for impoverished Indigenous communities in these states.
“There’s so many people on this reservation afflicted by addiction and trauma that’s caused by the government coming in and taking our land,” said Northern Arapaho Reentry Agency head Terri Smith. “If money is being generated off those lands, it should go back to those original tribes and help them become healthier people.”
“One way to think about these kinds of transitions in containment,” said Toronto Metropolitan University Associate Professor in Criminology Shiri Pasternak, “is as part of a continuum of war on Indigenous people to remove them from land.”
Over half the land, some 1.1 million acres, is leased by the government to private firms mining for oil and gas, grazing livestock or harvesting timber, and even developing renewable energy like wind power. In each one of the 10 states, subsurface rights under 50% or more of the land are dedicated toward prison funding.
Source: Grist Magazine
As a digital subscriber to Prison Legal News, you can access full text and downloads for this and other premium content.
Already a subscriber? Login