ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. (AP) – U.S. Attorney Kenneth Gonzales says tribal leaders around New Mexico have not been shy about letting his office know the law enforcement needs of Indian Country.

Gonzales' office held a daylong closed-door consultation with tribes Tuesday. The Department of Justice has mandated such annual consultations to promote government-to-government relationships and address public safety issues in American Indian communities.

"Unless we really sit down and listen to the leaders of these communities, we don't have a complete understanding of what ails the communities,'' Gonzales said during a break. "They're certainly not bashful and it's certainly their strong passion for their people that they come forward and they speak very honestly about what is going on in their communities.''

Issues raised include domestic violence, gangs, crimes against children, drug abuse, sex offenders and getting more and better-trained law enforcement officers.

Gonzales' office will use ideas from the session to develop a plan to fight criminal activity and improve public safety in Indian communities.

Thomas Perez, assistant attorney general for the U.S. Department of Justice's Civil Rights Division, speaking to the tribal leaders during lunch, urged them to help the division "transform injustice into equal opportunity.''

"We need your eyes and ears to give us the information so we can ensure that we are protecting and guarding rights that are guaranteed to everyone,'' he said.

Perez outlined Justice Department initiatives: giving permanent status to its Office of Tribal Justice, creating a Tribal Nations Leadership Council to advise the attorney general about issues critical to Indian communities and adding assistant U.S. attorneys in judicial districts around Indian Country.

He also took note of a recent New Mexico hate crimes case, the first in the nation charged under a 2009 law that makes it easier for the federal government to prosecute such crimes. Three men in Farmington are accused of using a heated coat hangar to brand a swastika on the arm of a mentally disabled Navajo man, shaving a swastika into his hair and scrawling messages such as "White Power'' on his body with markers.

The new law makes it easier to prosecute racially motivated crimes by removing unnecessary jurisdictional barriers, Perez said.

"There's nothing worse than having to tell the family members of the victim that your son or daughter or brother or sister has been the victim of a horrible hate crime and there's not a darn thing we can do,'' he said.