The Web of Justice: Restorative Justice Has Presented Only Part of the Story

Abstract

For centuries, American Indian socialization practices worked to maintain balance within American Indian societies. Colonization and imposed Western structures, values, and beliefs, however, have displaced major indigenous political and spiritual structures, creating disharmony within American Indian communities. Mandatory boarding schools, laws to prevent spiritual practices, and imposed political structures have resulted in stripping some American Indians of their cultural identity, their languages, their sacred ceremonies, and other cultural values and practices needed to maintain healthy societies. With displacement of traditional indigenous practices have come fractionalization and an increase in crime, arrest, and incarceration rates in American Indian communities. The Bureau of Justice and Statistics has concluded that additional external controls in the form of stricter laws, more law enforcement officers, and increased funding is needed to decrease crime. Although increased funding is a necessity; the imposition of stricter Western laws and forms of law enforcement are not the answer to the prevention of crime, nor will it heal and protect the unique character of American Indian societies. Instead, funding could be used by American Indians to restore a multidimensional web of justice by identifying, understanding and, where possible, re-creating traditional cultural social practices and structures to maintain social balance, diversity, and harmony within their societies. Kinship relations or the clan system creates solidarity through a common bond. In addition, for those nations that have clan animals or elements such as the sun and wind, there exists a unity with the rest of the natural world. In today’s society, the feeling of belonging has become endangered. Many individuals feel as if they are alone in- stead of connected to the natural world and their community. People commit crimes without thinking about the shame they bring to their clan, community, nation, and self. In other words, they act as if they have no relatives, or at least, have no respect for them. The clan system plants within the mind of the people that they are not alone, and what they do affects the community’s balance. One goal of the clan structure is to provide solidarity and to maintain balance by preventing injustices. John Mohawk suggests that, in former times, there was very little domestic violence because of these preventative and restorative structures and practices. There are many practices that might ac- count for the absence of this type of internal violence. For the Haudenosaunee, the practice of the new husband moving to live in the house of his ever-watchful and -present mother-in-law was a practical deterrent to not committing domestic violence. Not only were there clan members present to make sure things were done in a good way, but the people knew that if they did commit a violent act, they would be asked to leave the safety of the long house, which in the 1600s, could have been a grave sentence.