Gabe Galanda is featured in this American Indian Report article: United Indians to Provide Religious Services to Native Inmates in Washington Prisons.
“It’s extremely important for Indian Country to work collaboratively with the DOC to ensure Native inmates can freely exercise tribal religion, particularly as a means of rehabilitation and preparing them for their return to tribal communities and mainstream society,” said United Indians Vice Chairman Gabriel Galanda.
United Indians will begin by conducting a needs assessment to determine what Native American inmates need in terms of Indian religion and spirituality. It will also administer the contracts and training of Native religious service providers, including the DOC’s Native chaplains, which, Galanda said, will bring some authenticity to the program. The types of religious services that it will provide include sweat lodge and change of seasons ceremonies, summer pow wows, drumming circles and one-on-one spiritual outreach to inmates.
Before this partnership, Native inmates in Washington prisons were being deprived of their religious rights, Galanda said. The number of sweat lodge ceremonies that they could participate in had been reduced; tobacco and other sacred herbs and medicines were banned as were frybread, salmon and other traditional foods used in spiritual ceremonies.
Gabriel "Gabe" Galanda is a partner at Galanda Broadman PLLC, of Seattle, an American Indian majority-owned law firm. He is an enrolled member of the Round Valley Indian Tribes of Covelo, California. He can be reached at 206.691.3631 or gabe@galandabroadman.com, or via galandabroadman.com.
