POLICY IMPLICATIONS FOR ADOLESCENT DEVIANCE: THE CASE OF INDIAN ALCOHOL PROHIBITION (NATIVE AMERICANS

The continued existence of alcohol prohibition laws, following the Federal repeal in 1953, on two-thirds of all federally recognized Indian reservations is regarded by many in the area of Indian alcohol research as central in understanding the heavy alcohol involvement of Native Americans. Of equal importance is the concern voiced in the non-Indian literature that unpopular or ineffective laws, such as Indian prohibition, may contribute to increased disrespect for law and increased non-conformity to law among the young.;The present study represents a preliminary attempt to test the validity of the concern that Indian youth residing on reservations that retain prohibition laws will evidence greater deviance, both behavioral and attitudinal, than similar youth residing on reservations that have repealed prohibtion. The study compares three groups of Indian adolescents (grades 7 through 12) attending school on the day a self-administered survey was distributed. Each group represents a different legal response made to the 1953 Federal repeal of Indian prohibition by members of what is conceived of as a single community of Indian people. One group retained prohibition, another repealed prohibition in 1953 and the third repealed approximately twenty years later. The study model, drawn from Sutherland's Principles of Differential Association, posits that the impact of law on behavior is mediated by extralegal sanctions (peer and parental) and that the impact of sanctions on behavior will be less among "prohibition" respondents because of an excess of law-breaking models.;The results of the study failed to substantiate the hypothesis that prohibition is associated with greater deviant involvement, behavioral or attitudinal, among Indian youth. The results do indicate, however, that differences in policy are associated with differences in adolescent deviance. Adolescents in the 1953 repeal group were significantly more involved in deviant behavior than similar youth in the 1970 repeal group, and the prohibition group fell in between the other two. An examination of drinking behavior provided parallel results. Within each group females were more socially conforming in their behavior than their male counterparts. The greater perception by females of negative parental and, more importantly, peer sanctions on their behavior suggests that female adolescents are subject to greater cultural constraints on their behavior than are males within the same community. . . . (Author's abstract exceeds stipulated maximum length. Discontinued here with permission of author.) UMI.