Popular Justice and Community Regeneration: Pathways of Indigenous Reform

Abstract

Popular Justice is a collection of 11 essays about efforts in Australia, Canada, New Zealand and the United States to do something about "justice," broadly defined, within Indigenous communities. Hazelhurst presents an overview of three sorts of current efforts to indigenize justice: improved justice service delivery (via the development of para-professionals, family conferences and so on), crime prevention (through life skills and employment training) and the most significant, community healing approaches. The chapters themselves are of two sorts: technical discussions of new programs and hopeful ideological statements about the merits of indigenous justice concepts and practices. Among the more interesting chapters, Hylton summarizes recent research concerning social policy in Canada and efforts to reform Indigenous justice. Angelo details the history of indigenizing Tokelau law, Olsen et al. describe Maori youth justice programs, especially the influential family group-conferencing model. Yazzie and Zion describe what they call the "macrojustice," of the Navajo peacemaker court, which they say will "Slay the Monsters" (social problems) through traditional dispute resolution. O'Donnell treats mediation practices in Australia, focussing on the issues such as the neutrality of the mediator and confidentiality. The strongest chapter describes the efforts to create an Aboriginal justice system in an Ojibway community. Hoyle examines the issues in operationalizing a holistic justice system based on the idea of justice as healing, especially the problems of codifying social processes, of delineating broad value statements which guide practice and the problem of legitimacy as a consequence of the diversity of world views of community members.A critical assumption underlying many of the chapters is that the establishment of community-based justice will lead to the thoroughgoing restoration of Indigenous communities. All of this is connected, somehow, to gaining legal jurisdiction to practice "traditional" ways, or perhaps, updated, but still traditional ways. While in many communities and among some scholars there is pessimism about the ability to change the justice system and create alternatives, there is nonetheless a messianic flavour to the current debate about restorative justice. There is bound to be disappointment for those communities which unrealistically carry out justice practices of their own choosing. Indeed, this is already the case. Scholars and communities concerned with justice might think in more modest terms about what is possible with indigenization. Instead of proposing that indigenous justice will radically transform communities and redeem individual lives, justice systems might be constructed with the simpler goals of regulating relations between families, of dampening conflict between individuals, of providing justice in a timely manner and of ensuring a measure of peace and tranquility on reserves and urban settings. …