Editor’s note: during an 18-month investigation into the prosecution of sexual assault on tribal lands, Newsy reporters found failures in the Federal and tribal criminal justice systems so severe that sex offenders often receive minimal or no punishment and survivors are left with little justice. The full documentary, titled “Broken trust,” is available here.

Twyla Szymanski lowered the scope to the rifle, took aim, and hit the target from a distance. At the shooting range, where she and her husband go to relax and forget what they’re worried about, she said. 

Some experiences are hard to shake. 

“To trust someone you know after sexual assault happens … it was so hard to work through it, ” Szymanski said. 

Szymanski, 40, has lived on the Fort peck reservation in northeastern Montana since she was born and is an enrolled member of the Fort peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. She said she was attacked three times. 

“I was a victim when I was 13, a victim when I was 14, and a victim when I was 34,” she said. 

“Native women have told me that what you do when you raise a daughter in this environment you prepare her for what to do when she is raped – not if, but when,” says Sarah Deere, University of Kansas Professor and author of ” the Beginning and the end of rape : Combating sexual violence in native America.”

More than half of American Indian and Alaska native women will face sexual assault in their lifetime, according to the justice Department.

“You talk to native women who have lived their entire lives on the reservation, and they say,’ I can’t think of anyone, any woman I know, who hasn’t been victimized in this way, ‘” said Deer, a Muscogee (Creek) citizen of the Oklahoma nation.

National data on sex crimes in tribal communities is scarce, so Newsey spent 18 months focusing on two reservations: the Fort peck reservation in Montana and the Fort Berthold reservation in North Dakota. After analyzing only the received documents and conducting dozens of interviews, a clear picture emerged.

Sexual assault investigations can fall through the cracks when tribes and the Federal government fail to work together. Even in the few cases that end in a tribal court conviction, Federal law does not allow most courts to sentence offenders for more than one year. 

Survivors who report attacks often find themselves trapped in small communities with their perpetrators, and some have said the broken legal system contributed to their trauma. 

The Federal government has a unique political and legal relationship with 573 federally recognized tribes. Tribes are sovereign and have jurisdiction over their citizens and land, but the Federal government has a contractual obligation to help protect the lives of tribal members. This legal doctrine, called the “responsibility of trust,” dates back to treaties signed by the United States with tribal peoples in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries.

The many Supreme court decisions and Federal laws that followed led to a complex legal mechanism between Federal, state, and tribal jurisdictions, making it difficult for victims of sexual assault to find justice.

“A lot of times when I try to explain it, people don’t even believe me because it’s so weird,” Deere said. “And the reason it’s weird is that there’s been this patchwork of laws that haven’t spoken to each other for the last century.” 

The tribal court building on the Fort peck reservation is a small brick building. Brochures on Dating and sexual violence are available at the reception.

“A trauma that has developed over generations … some of the attacks are generations old and they are in the same house, ” said chief justice Stacy Smith, a member of the Fort peck Assiniboine and Sioux tribes. “Imagine it wasn’t there and maybe it will disappear, you know, the next generation, it won’t happen again. But it continues.”  

Smith wants to break that cycle, but tribal courts face severe restrictions, including a one-year sentence limit, regardless of the crime, and almost no jurisdiction over non-Indians. 

“When you think about rape and you think about someone who is the perpetrator of this kind of crime and you think,” What do they deserve? “one year doesn’t usually sound like the right answer,” Deere said.

In 2010, the sentencing limit was increased to three years for an offense under the tribal law and order Act as long as tribes meet certain requirements. Only 16 tribes have implemented a three-year increase in the level of punishment. 

Fort peck is one of them.

When the law came into force, there were no lawyers or lawyers with legal training in the judicial system. 

Smith decided to leave her young daughters to attend law school hundreds of miles away. That would help the tribal court meet Federal requirements and give it more authority.

Since the end of 2012, the tribal court has been able to impose a three-year sentence. In 2013-2018, there were three convictions for sexual assault, but none of them were sentenced to harsher penalties. The longest sentence was another year.

“We use the extended sentence sparingly because we want to make sense,” said Scott Seifert, a member of the Comanche nation of Oklahoma and Fort peck lead tribal Prosecutor. 

Tribal court is not the only option for those seeking justice for sexual assault. In most cases, the FBI, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) and U.S. law offices are authorized to work with tribes to investigate and prosecute “major crimes” that include sexual assault.

“So if you have a rape case or a child sex abuse case and you want the perpetrator to clean up, the best opportunity for you is that he will go Federal,” Deere said. 

News data obtained from the Treasury Department shows that the U.S. attorney’s office in Montana has reduced 64% of sexual assault cases in the last four fiscal years. 

Montana attorney General Kurt Alme said many cases are dismissed because of weak or insufficient evidence, “and that’s something to work on,” he said.

According to the BIA, tribal courts received less than 5% of the funding needed in 2016. Law enforcement got 22% of what was needed and prisons got less than 50%.

Less than half of the law enforcement agencies that the Bureau funds and oversees are properly staffed, said Charles Addington, Director of THE Bia office of justice service and a member of the Cherokee nation. 

In August 2018, the Fort peck tribal police funded 21 positions, but nine of them were vacant, said Ken Trottier, the Fort peck tribal criminal investigation chief and a member of the Turtle Mountain Band from Chippewa.

“We have a hiring pool that is literally nothing here on reservations, even if we open it up to outside booking people,” he said. “There are no houses for sale. No houses for rent. Where will this man live?

Constant turnover and understaffing can lead to a lack of training for the police Department, Deere said. 

“The survivor is waiting for help. They don’t know if help will come. They don’t know if the help will be compassionate and trained,” Deere said. “The system doesn’t feel like a safe, productive system for them anymore.”

Three hours East of Fort Peck, North Dakota’s Fort Berthold reservation sits on the Bakken oil basin and has an annual budget of $ 400 million. The reservation upholstered Mandan nation, Hidatsa and Arikara, or the Three affiliated tribes.

Driving around the remote reservation, Councilwoman Monica Mayer pointed to a multimillion-dollar housing project that she said would soon be a water center, baseball diamond and mini Golf.

A $ 17 million center for public safety and the judiciary was built, and the judiciary increased staffing. Over the past three years, the reservation has hired more than a dozen additional officers to assist with an understaffed police Department.

Despite this financial independence, the justice system appears to be failing sexual assault survivors who report. 

“At every level, we are not properly functioning to provide the services that are needed in a critical situation,” Mayer said.

After Newsy asked about the status of these cases, Three affiliated tribes police captain grace her many horses, a member of the Oglala Sioux tribe of the pine ridge reservation, said she would make a case reviewing the files.

“The priority for me, right now, is to go through these cases to find out what was rejected, why, and whether there’s anything we can do to make it happen,” she said. “I think part of it is on me too. I should know by now.”

Her many horses said she finished reviewing the case nearly a year later, but she did not provide details of what she found, and she did not disclose whether police had referred all 66 cases to their Federal partners.

Exactly a week after Newsey’s last trip to Fort Berthold, during which reporters asked how sexual assaults and rapes are handled on the reservation, the justice Department and BIA issued a joint statement saying, ” a Number of concerns have been raised about public safety and criminal investigations on the Fort Berthold reservation.” 

Citing “high levels of violence against women and children,” he said the BIA is increasing the number of special agents from “one to two.” At the beginning of October, neither the second agent has not started work on Fort Berthold.

The U.S. Commission on civil rights has published two reports on funding in Indian communities, one in 2003 and an update in December 2018, titled ” Broken promises.” The report States, “the Federal government remains unable to adequately support the social and economic well-being of native Americans,” and this “contributes to inequalities observed in native American communities.”

Twila Szymanski works as a Deputy court administrator at the Fort Peck tribal court, keeping records and statistics.

Szymanski reported only one of her three assaults – that of a 14-year-old. Her case was filed in Federal court.

The defendant pleaded guilty in 1995. He was sentenced to three years probation and imprisonment.

“Justice is not served, in my opinion,” she said. “He came back into the community quickly and I had to see him when it was all fresh.”

She said she’s using her position on the court to get through cases and stop them from falling through the cracks, and she’s working for the Fort peck associate justice in this month’s election. 

“When the system fails you over and over again, you don’t feel empowered,” Deere said. “It feels like a gap between this ‘me too’ moment and the reality of Indian country and sexual violence.”

This newsy investigation was reported, written and produced by investigative associate producer Maren Machles, investigative documentary videographer Carrie Cochran, investigative producer Angela M. hill and Suzette brewer, an off-lance writer specializing in Federal Indian law and violence against indigenous women and children.

The USA today network is publishing this story in partnership with Newsy, the network’s leading cross-platform television news.