Assessments of Crime Seriousness on an American Indian Reservation: A

Data from a survey of residents of a Southern Ute Indian reservation in Colorado carried out by Abril (2007) are used to compare perceptions of crime seriousness held by members of an American Indian tribe with those of non-Indians living on the same reservation. There are few significant or substantial differences between the two groups. These findings bear on debates in criminology and the sociology of law regard-ing the extent to which the content of the criminal law reflects a broad consensus in society or entails the imposition of rules made by and for dominant groups on subor-dinate groups holding different cultural values and norms. Additional data are deployed to assess subcultural explanations of high levels of interpersonal violence on American Indian reservations. Keyword