Source: (2006) In, Ross, Jeffrey Ian and Gould, Larry, editors, Native Americans and the Criminal Justice System, Paradigm Publisher, Boulder, London. pp.143-160
The rise of Indian political activism in the late 1960s and the 1970s let to an increased awareness of native heritage and the wrongs that had been done against native peoples over the centuries. One effect of these changes was the emergence of Native American cultural, medicine, and mentoring programs in a few US prisons. States with large native populations, such as Minnesota and California, as well as the Federal Bureau of prisons, began programs for Native Americans. Some of them even include sweat lodge ceremonies which in some prisons involved the actual building of the physical structure. However, the spread of Native American cultural programs has not been uniform. Today, there are prison systems in many areas of the United States that do not even count Native Americans as a separate ethnic category, let alone provide special programs for native prisoners. (excerpt)
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