The law transfers some jurisdiction from the federal government to states in both civil and criminal cases in certain places.
Also in 1968 the Indian Civil Rights Act was passed, causing funding to begin rising for tribal justice systems.
[4] In 2010, the Tribal Law and Order Act was enacted with the goal of decreasing crime against indigenous women and children.
[5] The Act mandated a transfer of federal law enforcement authority within certain tribal nations to state governments in six states: California, Minnesota (except the Red Lake Nation and Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe), Nebraska, Oregon (except the Warm Springs Reservation), Wisconsin (except later the Menominee Indian Reservation) and, upon its statehood, Alaska.
[3] The Act added to a complex matrix of jurisdictional conflict that defined tribal governance at the end of the 20th century.
In states where the Act has not been applied, Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) police respond to major crimes on reservations or pueblos.
[7] Since tribal communities lost a majority of their funding from the federal government, the states' capabilities were stretched thin.
Very few research studies have been conducted to make a conclusion on the impact of the law on tribal land across the nation.
Studies that have been done have shown that the law has led to an increase in crime and has slowed the economic growth of some reservations.