FORT DUCHESNE -- The federal government should not have closed the Bureau of Indian Affairs jail on the Uintah-Ouray Reservation, a Ute tribal leader said.

The February closure of the 24-bed jail means that many inmates convicted of misdemeanors will be housed in BIA detention centers in Colorado and New Mexico, far from their families in Utah, said Maxine Natchees, chairwoman of the tribe's Business Committee.

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

The decision to close the 30-year-old jail at Fort Duchesne 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."

Also, the "closure is necessary due to insufficient staffing," said a Jan. 27 letter from the BIA to Natchees.

The jail had only three officers but needed 20 to operate safely, said 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.

Defendants in felony cases were not housed at the Fort Duchesne jail. Felony cases are handled by the U.S. Department of Justice in Salt Lake City.

Housing inmates in the out-of-state lockups is a hardship for Ute families, Natchees said.

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

The U.S. Department of the Interior in 2003 conducted an assessment of 73 jails in Indian Country.

"For many years, the BIA detention program has been characterized as drastically understaffed, underfunded and poorly managed," a 2004 interim report said. "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 jail.

This story appeared in The Daily Herald on page D2.