Native American Activist Stormy Ogden Speaks on Prisons
by Katrin Welch

Thirty people sat solemnly Wednesday night as speaker Stormy Ogden framed the story of Native Americans in American prisons, a story that involves decades, several varieties of iron bars and great suffering.
As part of the second annual Indigenous Women’s Lecture Series, Ogden spoke to the people assembled in Craig Lecture Hall about the imprisonment or “prisonification” of Native American women by the American government. She painted a dramatic picture, even when she was simply listing statiscal information:
Between 1986 and 1991 there was a 430 percent increase in female incarceration.
Two thirds of the women in prison today are from a racial minority group. Forty percent of the women in prison report being abused in some way prior to their arrest. One in three women in prison were arrested on drug charges. Women imprisoned for violent crime were twice as likely as men to have targeted someone close to them.
Ogden colored these numbers by explaining that most of the women in prison are there for drug abuse, poverty crimes such as food stamp fraud or violence against their abuser. This is especially devastating to Native American communites since a majority of Native Americans live in poverty and a large proportion suffer from drug abuse.
For a community already struggling to stay solid, the imprisonment of so many Native Americans is particularly threatening, Ogden said, pointing out that prison is punitive and runs on a structure of social control, rather than rehabilitation. Consequently, Native Americans return from prison angry and bitter, further challenging the health of the tribe. It is for this reason that Ogden has taken up the cause of rehabilitation of Native women after their prison sentences.
Ogden has a particularly poignant reason to be concerned about Native women in prison: she was one. After spending five years in the California Rehabilitation Center, she was sent to a state prison where, clean and sober, she formed a community with the other indigenous women, creating the first American Indian group in any prison. She followed this by building the first sweat lodge in any prison.
After being released, Ogden became an activist for Native Women’s rights in prison, and for the rights of her people in general. She wrote The American Indian in the White Man’s Prisons: A Story of Genocide and is currently fighting the New Age consumerizaton of sweat lodge ceremonies. “I have fun with that,” she said. “I like going toe to toe with those people.” Ogden also helped found White Bison, a house for sobriety and “well-breity” for Native Americans. Additionally, she works to change the names of all places that use the name “Squaw” in California, particularly the Squaw Valley ski area in Lake Tahoe. She offered her support to those people in this area who are fighting to change the name of the Cleveland Indians. “I know it’s frustrating,” she says, “but keep trying!”