This is the final story in the Overrepresented, Undercounted series.
While Indigenous people represent around 1% of the state’s population, they represent 9.4% of the adult prison population in Minnesota, and about the same rate across all jails in the state, according to information from the Minnesota Department of Corrections and the nonprofit Institute for Justice.
KAXE is exploring the underlying issues of the statistics through survey outreach, extensive research and in-person interviews.
The project was made possible by a grant from the journalism nonprofit Poynter.
Read the first stories:
- "Mental health, poverty tied to incarceration disparities for Indigenous Minnesotans"
- "Corrections and control: The costs of Indigenous incarceration"
EAST GRAND FORKS — Incarceration can put people into the system for years and destabilize their families.
This spring, KAXE distributed a survey aimed at reaching Indigenous people who were willing to share their or their families' experiences with the criminal justice system.
Jennifer Compeau was one of those survey respondents and agreed to share her family’s story in a more in-depth interview.
“I wish that others knew our incarceration was due to the disease of addiction caused by not only historical [and] generational complex trauma, but systemic failure in the education and resources given to our communities in how to address the trauma of individuals, both enrolled and of descendant status," Compeau wrote when asked about the impacts of incarceration in the survey.
"How many times the trauma I experienced was overlooked because I'm 'only' a descendant is unacceptable. Taking children from families instead of supporting them with culture and resources to connect them to culture would have alleviated a lot of burden and expense.”
The interview with Compeau, 37, and her husband Jason Gorneau, 42, took place on a sunny, windy day inside a closed art gallery in downtown Grand Forks, North Dakota, where Compeau facilitates cultural workshops and support groups.
'Addiction is such a beast'
Compeau and Gourneau have been through the highs and lows of incarceration and addiction, while together and also while separated.
Gourneau is an enrolled member of the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa. These lands are near Belcourt, North Dakota, almost 200 miles northwest of East Grand Forks. Compeau is a Turtle Mountain Band descendant. Both now live in East Grand Forks with their blended family.
As a toddler, Compeau’s oldest son was diagnosed with a liver disease, which she described as very challenging as a young mother while also attending college in Moorhead.
“As my son's disease progressed and my unaddressed trauma progressed, I turned to alcohol and then I was introduced to meth[amphetamine],” Compeau said. “I thought that was the answer to be able to do all the things, go to school and take care of him, until it wasn't. It took everything from me, eventually.”
Shortly after his successful liver transplant at age 10, Compeau’s son was removed from her custody to live with another relative.
“I really had nothing to live for and ended up homeless, living out of my car, and getting my first felony for stealing my mom's checkbook,” Compeau said. “I didn't know what else to do, because there weren't any resources to help. So, I figured that at least I could get a roof over my head for a little while and some clarity, which I did for a little while. And addiction is such a beast, that it took me right back in.”
Compeau said she bounced between sobriety and addiction until she and Gourneau were arrested on the same day almost five years ago.
Compeau was released on bail a few days after the raid in October 2021, when law enforcement officers stopped Gourneau near the Red River on the Minnesota side and found large quantities of narcotics. Officers secured a warrant for Gorneau and Compeau’s residence, which led to her arrest, the first of many consequences.
“He was driving my vehicle,” Compeau said, describing the 2005 Chevrolet Trailblazer she once lived out of. “I wasn't even in the vehicle, but because of the amount of drugs and his past criminal history, they forfeited the vehicle and impounded it.”
Compeau said rather than assist law enforcement and prosecutors as an informant, she ultimately forfeited the vehicle.
“They made it this condition, they wanted me to come work for them,” she said. “They're like, ‘If you do three controlled buys, we'll give [the vehicle] back to you.’ That wasn't going to happen. I'm like, ‘I got kids out here.’”
Gorneau was facing 10 years in prison due to his extensive criminal history.
“I was pretty wild, but mostly the things I went to jail for was driving without a license. And not be able to pass the UA [urinary analysis] for weed back then, some of the harder drugs back then, too, because I started at a young age,” Gorneau said. “Living on the rez, you start drugs early. Back in my era, you did.”
Gourneau said his childhood was marked by the traumatic death of his father at the age of 8, and a stint in juvenile prison that followed running with a tough crowd.
“Guns and drugs and all those things. Cars, definitely, cars are great for me all the time,” Gourneau said of his love of turning gears as a mechanic. “I love to be involved with vehicles.”
Securing housing
Like many KAXE survey respondents who were impacted by incarceration, Gourneau especially experienced challenges securing housing after his early release from prison.
After a successful completion of a diversionary bootcamp, Gourneau said he tried his hardest to maintain the conditions of his parole, but finding housing with his record was challenging.
The Challenge Incarceration Program is the name of Minnesota’s voluntary program for certain nonviolent offenders, with the military-style bootcamp being part of the first of three phases to reduce time behind bars. The other phases include intense supervision while living in their community.
“It had been a while since I had my own lease, and that was a major problem, especially when I got out of bootcamp because I needed to live somewhere,” he said.
"I applied for many different apartments and got denied,” he added. “It was a waste of 50 bucks that I was going to spend — $50 on an application fee, where I know most of the places are looking at a three-year background.”
He estimated he submitted more than 200 different applications in his attempt to find housing.
Compeau said she was able to secure housing under a unique program that accepted people with a felony conviction, but the program expired when Gourneau was released. For Gourneau, securing his own housing and paying his own bills were also part of the Challenge Incarceration Program's requirements.
Eventually, Gourneau found an apartment that accepted him, but it wasn't a place that felt like home.
"The place I took was just like a slum ... [a] place known for easy renting," Gourneau said. "I got in there and put up with it. I was never there though, but I had to settle there. I couldn't live where I wanted to live."
Reconnecting with culture and family
Like many Indigenous young people who feel disconnected from their culture due to the well-documented federal removal policies designed to "kill the Indian, save the man," Compeau and Gourneau said they didn't have strong cultural connections as youths.
"I was raised in a time, in a family, where you just keep going. You just keep going, no matter what," Compeau said. "And if that means you have to drink or do drugs to keep going, then that is what was done."
As she talked about her children, Compeau spoke through tears when she said she had not been in contact with her now 19-year-old son in eight years.
"We did not qualify for ICWA [the Indian Child Welfare Act], even though I experienced pretty significant historical and generational trauma, but because of blood quantum, I was not able to qualify for help or anybody to help stand up for me and my child,” she explained.
The Indian Child Welfare Act, or ICWA, of 1978, is a federal law that governs the removal and out-of-home placement, or foster care, of Native children. The act signified a move away from the previous removal policies, which included residential boarding schools, forced sterilization and adoptions outside of tribal communities. Under ICWA, tribes maintain authority to oversee any necessary child protective services of enrolled minors, but the authority does not extend to tribal descendants.
Blood quantum is generally what separates a tribal member from a tribal descendant. Often referred to as "mathematical genocide," it determines tribal enrollment qualifications by percentage of Indian blood for a specific tribe. Intermarriages between tribes, or the descendants of white settlers, and incomplete and inconsistent data starting from when the quantum rolls began in the early 1700s, can all play a factor in diminishing a Native person's blood quantum.
"The government saw blood quantum as a way to strip Native people of their land, evade the United States’ treaty-obligated responsibilities, and significantly reduce Native nations’ membership,” writes the Native Governance Center. “Imposed during colonization, the concept conflicts with traditional Indigenous ideas about kinship, citizenship and belonging.”
As tribes can face steep population declines if they continue to maintain current blood quantum requirements, some tribes are choosing to change them. The Red Lake Nation notably changed its blood-quantum requirements in 2019 after contracting with Wilder Research to study population projections under their current quantum structure.
Compeau said reconnecting with her culture, despite her descendant status, was a crucial part of her recovery from addictions, sharing that she learned a lot while spending time with her uncle, who is also in recovery.
“He has a little trailer park yard but is growing sweetgrass and sage and valerian root and all this medicine,” she said. “I wanted to really connect with that more, so I started going to sweat lodge, and that ceremony really changed my life.”
She welcomed anyone to participate in the sweat lodge ceremony if they can.
"We're very open and inclusive — red, yellow, black or brown — it doesn't matter your skin color," she said. "It's a spiritual experience that I think everyone should be able to experience."
She said even though she and Gourneau had a rough start with their parenting journey due to their addictions, they aim to do better for their younger children.
"We were able to do what needed to be done, through community resources and support and investment, reconnection to cultural identity," she said. "To give them what we didn't have, and what we couldn't give our older children."
-
Contributed/Sora Shimazaki via PexelsFor those already in poverty or who disproportionately find themselves ensnared in the criminal justice system, the costs of bail, representation, probation or parole, fines, commissary and communication add up . -
Contributed/Calandra Allen / Beltrami CountyIn Northern Minnesota — home to all six Minnesota Chippewa Tribe bands and the sovereign Red Lake Nation — a lack of mental health services has led to jails and emergency rooms filling the gap for years.
"Our two older children are three days apart, and we didn't have custody of them for a very long time," Compeau added. "We now have completely different lives compared to then."
Gourneau said the greatest joy in his life these days is his children.
"When I get home to spend the weekend with them — because I work some odd hours — but these three days I get with them [each week] are great," he said. "Every time I come home, it seems like they've grown and I'm talking to a new kid."
Compeau expressed that while she wishes she could change things in the past, she has to keep going, for all her children including her oldest son.
"It shouldn't have been done the way it was done," ... That's why I fight so hard today, is that maybe someday, if he hasn't already, he will just Google me," she said. "I want all of these things to show up that shows how hard I'm fighting. I couldn't fight for us, but I'm fighting for others."
Finding stability
Gourneau is nearing the end of his parole after he spent more than two years in prison.
He works in Crookston as a mechanic. He said his sobriety is giving him a different kind of life than the one he had before.
“The numbers were against me, right? I'm supposed to be already getting high at this time and back in jail and going back to prison and not finishing my parole,” he said. “But I was kind of consciously aware of all these numbers toward me, so I keep it like a low-profile life.”
Compeau became a homeowner earlier this year and has launched a campaign for a Minnesota House of Representatives seat in the 1B district. She graduated early from probation in 2024 and now works to help others navigate similar challenges.
“Because of my previous experiences with the systems and the way they worked, I took initiative. I refused to become a victim to the system again,” she said. “I showed up everywhere outside of my comfort zone to not allow the things that happened to happen again.”
Compeau’s social justice work includes hosting a recovery group at the local jail and joining boards for corrections and social work.
“Making sure that lived experience is at that table is really important to me today, and I think that's how we change systems,” she said. “We build a table where everyone is welcome and invited.”
-
And: The Boundary Waters could partially reopen soon, as tens of thousands of acres burn and local economies take a hit. -
Plus: Minnesotans have until July 22, 2026, to submit comment on the MPCA's Impaired Waters List.
-
Contributed/Tamarack Project Facebook PageThe proposed mine would primarily focus on nickel and copper. It is the first underground mine proposal in Minnesota to reach the public review process. -
The Tamarack mine will primarily harvest nickel and copper. It faces opposition due to copper nickel mining's relation to water contamination.
