Pima County, YWCA awarded $500,000 to reduce racial disparities in criminal justice | Crime and courts

Two of Villegas’ three grandsons have spent time in jail and prison, with one of them starting out in the juvenile justice system.

“I try to relate to people off the reservation and on the reservation and advocate for them,” Villegas said.

He said his recent project has been urging tribal members to resolve their warrants for failing to appear in court.

“I walk up to people and ask if they have failure to appear warrants and want to quash them,” Villegas said, adding that the pandemic restricted his ability to reach people on a larger scale through outreach events. “Some people get offended and some don’t. But at least two people that I’ve talked to have gone to the court system to quash their warrants.”

Villegas, who works as a water resource director for the tribe, said that on tribal lands, communication and transportation are longtime barriers to members being able to appear in court.

A lack of behavioral health services that address tribal culture is also part of the problem, with many members not being able to find the right kind of help, he said.

“Our tribe has a lot of facilities to deal with the issues we’re having, but what we don’t have is the one-to-one relationship with a social worker. We don’t have that capacity, because 60 miles out and back every day is not an incentive for employment,” Villegas said. “We haven’t been able to hold people, so we have a lot of positions that are open. It’s hard to get people motivated to work in a society that’s very different than mainstream.”