Maxine Natchees, chairwoman of the tribe's ruling Business Committee, says the February closing of the 24-bed eastern Utah facility means families will be separated by hundreds of miles because inmates convicted of misdemeanors will be housed at BIA detention centers in Colorado and New Mexico.

"This is a big concern for our people," she says. "The federal government has a fiduciary responsibility to the tribe but has provided no funding [for the jail]."

The closure is fallout from a 2003 assessment of the 73 jails in Indian Country by the Interior Department's inspector general. An April 2004 interim report sums up the concerns:

"For many years, the BIA detention program has been characterized as drastically understaffed, underfunded and poorly managed," it states. "In most facilities, basic jail administration procedures are not followed and many detention managers and staff have not received professional, certified training in detention procedures."

Although the inspector general cites deaths, suicides and escapes in various jails, none was attributed to the Fort Duchesne facility.

Closing the 30-year-old jail on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation was a cost-cutting and efficiency measure, said Chris Chaney, deputy bureau director for the BIA office of Law Enforcement Services. The Fort Duchesne facility was one of three BIA jails closed this year, he said.

"We want to make sure our facilities are safe and appropriate for inmates," Chaney added. "The Ute facility needs major repairs and construction. We don't believe it's cost effective to make them."

In addition, the "closure is necessary due to insufficient staffing," according to a Jan. 27 letter from BIA to Natchees. The jail had only three officers but needed 20 to operate safely, states the letter from Guillermo Rivera, BIA associate director of corrections.

Defendants charged with misdemeanors will be housed 35 miles away at the Duchesne County jail in Duchesne. After tribal court sentencing, inmates will be transferred to BIA facilities in Moffat County, Colo., or Gallup, N.M.

Suspects in felony cases never were housed at the Fort Duchesne jail. Those cases are adjudicated through the U.S. Department of Justice in Salt Lake City. Housing inmates at faraway jails, Natchees said, is a hardship for Ute families.

"The bottom line is we are very unhappy with the way this was handled."