For many people living on Indian reservations in the United States, the Thanksgiving holiday is a bleak prospect. Jobs are scarce and living conditions are hard.

In some places, crime rates are rising fast.

Al Jazeera's Tom Ackerman reports from the Pine Ridge Sioux reservation in the state of South Dakota, where the tribal policemen who struggle to keep the peace say youth gangs are getting more active, and more violent.

Jay Winter Nightwolf, a native American radio talk show host in Washington, says that the people in Pine Ridge live in abject poverty, lacking employment and adequate housing.

"The future will depend not only on the people [in the reservations] but also on what the government decides to do to help the native American people", he says.

"I have a lot of hope in President [Barack] Obama. He is the first president to bring about a White House tribal summit conference... In his nine months as president,
he's done a lot of things for native communities."