A Comparison of the Community Roles of Indigenous-Operated Criminal Justice Organizations in Canada, the United States, and Australia

Abstract

Criminal justice organizations that are operated by indigenous peoples play many important roles beyond simply providing services for indigenous people involved with the criminal justice system or at risk of such involvement. Service provision is their explicit role, but these organizations also have important implicit roles in the community and, in some cases, regionally, nationally, and internationally. It is important to understand the full contributions that these (and other indigenous service) organizations make to indigenous and nonindigenous society because of their often precarious existence within the criminal justice systems of countries that were historically invaded and settled by European powers. The dominant society within these countries continues to marginalize indigenous inhabitants through a variety of economic, political, and legal processes that contribute to the overrepresentation of the indigenous population in crime statistics.1 Previous research has identified six general roles played in communities by any organization;2 however, because of the special needs and history of indigenous communities, these roles take on unusual characteristics. In this essay I describe and analyze the explicit and implicit roles of five organizations. Explicit roles include providing a variety of programs—directly related,